To add my.000002 cents worth to what Adrastos says…sure it sucks to lose, and especially sucks to lose, in this case by proxy, to an utterly unqualified shit-for-brains like Trump. But the long knives and circular firing squad…only play into their hands.

I’m — at long last — finishing Rick Perlstein’s book about Barry Goldwater and modern movement conservatism, and one thing that sticks out is…despite getting their clock cleaned in one of the great electoral landslides, the hard right refused to give in/slink away…and sixteen years later elected one of their own.

True, their movement has continued to congeal into an utter ugliness. In my librul eyes that’s a combination of the vacuousness of the — for lack of a better term, ideology (idiotology?) itself — and the presence of true creeps like Newt Gingrich, who I consider toxic waste, so no need to emulate that, but…combine a simple enough message (which, I’ll admit, is above my pay scale), and decent candidates…

And I’ll try to take some solace in the Georgia close loss. Hell, no pun intended, but Southern GOP voters take party identification and voting almost as a matter of faith. Questioning one’s faith is never easy…so if some 5-10 percent took a good long look at Trump and his surrogate and recognized the charlatans for what they are.

It’s a step forward, at least.