Wednesday, November 9, 2016

The Day After is Darker

It's interesting (annoying? frustrating?) how sometimes your brain can try to give you exactly what dreams it thinks you need to be happy, when the result is almost always the opposite. I dreamed about the election. The first dream was about examining statistical models, working with data, determining the outcome. I woke up and had a lot of trouble getting back to sleep. I finally did, and this time, I dreamed that I was still watching the election returns, except the states kept turning blue, one after another. At the end of it, Clinton had 307 electoral votes (that was the exact number that appeared in my dream). Again I woke up (about 5:45am) and got out of bed and checked the results. And read the most disturbing one sentence horror story ever written: Trump won the presidency.

I was not able to get back to sleep, despite how exhausted I feel.

America, we created this monster. And then we elected him. I hope you're happy. I, however, am terrified. Not just because of what I think his policies will be like (dreadful) or how his speeches will sound (bigly word salads). I'm terrified for my Muslim friends. I'm terrified for my LGBT friends. I'm terrified for women's reproductive rights. I'm terrified that a man who launches into a Twitter battle at the slightest criticism will have access to the nuclear launch codes. I'm terrified that this gives other countries one more reason to hate us. I'm terrified that when Trump is talking to a leader of a country who would rather just bomb us, he'll use his brutish self-absorbed tactics over diplomacy.

I'm terrified he doesn't even know what diplomacy is.

I'm terrified.

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