Uncomfortably Numb

These were my first words, written before spoken, about two hours ago, after seeing the final electoral nails had been driven:

I got very little sleep last night.

The prognosticators and pundits had said quite enough by about 1.  I summoned all the serotonin my brain could muster and fell asleep just after 2.... only to be awakened around 3 by some drunken idiot repeatedly blasting LETS-GO-BUF-FA-LO on his car horn, likely in reaction to the call of Pennsylvania. (Thanks, neighbors!)

Finally got in about another hour of a perfectly horrible work dream.

Pepper sympathized and didn't do the 6 a.m. Demand For Daylight Savings Time Feeding, but I got up and fed her anyway, along with a no-coffee breakfast and meds for me.  I need all the serotonin reuptake inhibition I can get right about now.

This afternoon, we're having lunch together in the office here for multiple birthdays from around this time, including my upcoming one this weekend. I hope they understand if I'm not overly enthusiastic about it.

For now, though, an attempt at more sleep. Which will be hard. Later will come an attempt at more understanding. Which will be even harder.

I did accomplish that- maybe an hour of dreamless dread.  In many ways, this was worse than eight years ago. Then, we didn't know what to expect, and a majority of Americans voted against it, with a difference-making potential 40,000 Hillary voter in four states instead cast for Putin puppet Shill Stein, to put the Future Former Guy over the top.  This time, by current counts, not only did he win his hand from  the rigged Electoral College deck, he carried the popular vote- and Shill didn't account for the difference in Michigan, or Wisconsin, or Pennsylvania- all states that had beaten back MAGA efforts over the past eight years.

Crazy MAGA favorites lost- Mark "Black Nazi" Robinson in NC (jn a blowout) and Kari "I Never Lose" Lake in AZ (not yet called but it looks good for her going down to defeat)- but voters in both states split tickets to vote for Orange Julius anyway.

He has 52 votes plus the tiebreaker in the Senate, rendering its lone two women R moderates silent. How long you think your precious filibuster is going to last, Manchin?  The House is closer but chances are both chambers will turn into stamps of rubber for anything Dear Leader wants. 

Congratulations to the states, including mine and at least two of them red, who enshrined Roe-like choice protections into their state constitutions, joining the likes of Ohio and Kansas who already had. It will mean nothing when Back Alley Don, or his successor after he croaks, signs the nationwide ban he lied about opposing.

We will be asking why for days, weeks, years. My first thought is not far off from one of the first thoughts I had on this occasion eight years ago as I sat before a keyboard in a similar stupor- a rare-for-me public Facebook post that is still there, at least for now:

The days of dynasties are done. The Bushes and now the Clintons have been rebuked. And no, Michelle Obama is not the answer, either. The worthy successor is not Bernie, or Elizabeth Warren, or anyone you've remotely heard of. It will be an unknown toiling in a lower office or state house; hardly anybody knew who Bill Clinton was in 1988, and even fewer knew who Barack Obama was in 2004.  That under-the-radarness is essential to combat the noise machine and bundles of cash.  Or it will be someone who IS known but has never spent a day in politics; we've proven that can be done now. So watch for that person, and quietly let him or her position for 2020.

We didn't do that in 2020. We got a good guy, who barely won, had to overcome an insurrection and a hostile Congress and still got more good done in his four years than anyone since Roosevelt.  When age caught up with him, he passed the torch to someone who was just known enough to be haunted by past positions but not well known enough to overcome the haunting.  She was competent, funny, engaging- and not what a majority of Americans were willing to prefer to a convicted felon.

A convicted felon who was a reality show star, joined by a trashy novelist. Those pools have to be in the conversation for 2028- someone who popular culture will embrace, and amplify, to get to those votes. Assuming we even still have elections then.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a birthday party to go to:P