The simple truth is, hate won.
There’s no way to sugarcoat this. There’s no silver lining. There’s no way to take away this terrible, terrible reality. Hate won.
Whites so thoroughly repudiated people of color. Men so thoroughly repudiated women. Bigots so thoroughly repudiated immigrants. Christians so thoroughly repudiated people of other faiths. Straight people so thoroughly repudiated LGBT people. America so thoroughly repudiated the most qualified person to run for president.
Here we are. Here we really are. A divided country where now half of its citizens live in absolute fear of what this presidency means for their lives. How can we possibly feel welcome in this America? And wasn’t that always the point of his candidacy? To ensure that we didn’t?
Republicans will now have the House, the Senate and the Presidency. They will appoint all of our next Supreme Court Justices.
Goodbye Roe v. Wade. Goodbye ObamaCare. Goodbye LGBT protections. Goodbye Social Security. Goodbye safety net.
Will we try to fight this? Of course, of course we will try to fight this. We must.
But the other truth is we are exhausted. I am exhausted. I’m so tired of having to fight to be seen as a full citizen and human in the eyes of other Americans. I believed in a country that doesn't exist.
I am a woman.
I am a lesbian.
I am a person of color.
I am an immigrant.
I am almost everything this man has vowed to beat back so he can make America “great” again. This is the white supremacy lashing out at an inevitably changing world. This is misogyny punching back at women who dare to achieve. This is the ugliness I always knew existed in the fetid fever swamps, but now realize resides in on every town, in every neighborhood, on every block.
And, almost as bad as allowing such a woefully unqualified bigot to enter the White House, is the people his win empowers. He has given racists, sexists, xenophobes, homophobes a license to continue their campaigns of harassment and hatred. He has given every asshole a reason to gloat. He has made our world irreparably uglier.
I feel so broken right now. I know, it’s not inspiring. I wish I could say we’ll just pick ourselves up and fight even harder today. But right now I just want to sit for a minute with my despair.
And if you vote for a third party candidate or sat this thing out? Yeah, fuck you very much. I hope you feel great about your protest vote. Because it does not absolve you from its impact.
In the end I guess all I want to say is thank you. Thank you, Hillary Clinton. Thank you for for standing tall for 30 years while the world screamed at you for just daring to be yourself. Thank you for always fighting tirelessly for us. You did everything you could to crack that highest, hardest glass ceiling. You didn’t deserve this. And it seems, in the end, we were the ones who didn’t deserve you.