Bastet

I just got an email from Vanguard inviting investors to a live video webcast this evening on how the election (specifying Trump's presidency and Republican control of Congress) may affect portfolios. (No thanks; I'm depressed enough.) I don't remember ever getting something like that following any other election, and certainly not something the next day with language in it meant to calm down frightened people.

Yes to both.

Hillary's "thank you" email message:

The United States Senate?

As I sit here in a daze, after a night in which I never slept for more than an hour at a time, I've finally realized what today's feeling reminds me of: How I've felt the day after a loved one died. The surreal feeling where I can't quite wrap my mind around the fact yesterday's event really did happen and this is my new reality now. The numbness, the mental and physical sluggishness. The inability to decide what to do with myself, or to concentrate on any task I try to busy myself with. And the depression. My god, the depression; right now, I feel like I don't want to ever leave my house again. I've been disappointed and even disgusted with presidential election results before, but I have never felt anything remotely like this on the day after. This is something very different. It's as if I've woken up in an unrecognizable, terrible world in which all my worst fears about people have been realized.

Oh, I definitely think some of it was, but that's no relief -- he's going to appoint a slew of people for whom those are genuine beliefs and goals.

It was at a party, but I was part of a group that had the same exact discussion around that time -- with the same exact result. Okay, I'm making another attempt at going to bed. If only I could sleep for four years.

At one point, it crashed completely.

Not only could I not fall asleep, I couldn't even stay lying down. Hillary is going to survive a Trump presidency better than a lot of Americans, but I feel indescribably sorry for her tonight. To have worked so hard for so long, to have run a respectable campaign in the face of outlandish behavior, to be so much more qualified and better suited in every.single.way, and to not just lose the election, but lose to an empty suit, a lunatic, a conduit for hatred, a man whose voters outright admitted, and in large numbers, that he's not qualified or prepared for the job?!

I've endured enough for one night, I will not subject myself to Trump's acceptance speech and all the criticism that Hillary should have conceded tonight. I don't think I'm going to do anything other than lie there and stare blankly, but I'm going to bed.

Yeah, from the first black president to the KKK-endorsed candidate in eight years.

The Guardian just gave PA to Trump.

An overwhelming numbness, I guess, has set in. I've turned off the TV and sat here staring at nothing for some time now. I can't analyze the whys and hows, I can't cry anymore, I can hardly even type these words -- I pause for long moments between them, even though I have no thoughts to gather. I never knew I could be this ashamed of my country or this afraid for the future. I should go for a walk, go to bed, or something, but I can't move. I can't describe how I feel, but it's soul crushing.

The most-qualified candidate in modern history vs. the least-qualified candidate ever. And this is where we are?

It looks like the poster's auto-correct/auto-fill struck; that's surely Dick Cheney, who ran the George W. Bush presidency.

Exactly. If he has a VP, Congress, and country full of governors who are willing to do the work to dismantle our society - and who are more ideologically devoted to doing so - what would it matter that he's too ignorant and lazy to do it himself?

I've gone to bed appalled by the Republican winner and wondering what the hell is wrong with so many of my fellow Americans. But NOTHING - including Dubya "winning" a second term - left me feeling in the same universe as I'll feel if we wind up with a Trump presidency. I honestly don't know what to do with myself right now. The politics of hate are taking over worldwide again.

I have lost count of how many glasses of Maker's Mark I've had (at least half a dozen) and I do not even feel tipsy. They don't make anything strong enough to penetrate this despair.

Yep - it's those who call out sexism, racism, homophobia, etc. who are the problem, not those who engage in sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. acts. Being a warrior for social justice is a bad thing. We're living in the goddamned bizarro world.

Is the media still going to tell me we live in a post-feminist society?

So Pence would take over? Okay, less megalomaniacal, but even more extreme on just about every stated policy. We'd be in the same sinking boat.

Worse! And, yes, Pence would be in charge; Trump has said he'd put him in charge of so many policy areas it covers just about everything. And we know Trump has no interest in actually doing the work of president.

Projection on The Guardian that Hillary narrowly held onto WA.

All these people on PBS talking about how they underestimated just how much people hated Hillary are pissing me right off. Are they new?!

I can afford to pay (within reason). My problem is I don't have it through my employer, and if we revert to pre-ACA days I can be denied insurance altogether - no matter how much money I stood there offering up - because I have pre-existing conditions (which are, and I shit you not, severe menstrual cramps and three BENIGN breast lumps).