We failed

There’s no other way to say it. We failed our children. We failed our climate. We failed our trans community. We failed our immigrants. We failed our middle class. We failed our increasingly desperate houseless population. We failed people of color. We failed our schools. We failed our future. We took the first steps over the threshold as a nation last night, into the dark unknown. The experiment is over, and we failed to prevent this disaster.

I am heartbroken, horrified, disgusted, terrified, angry, and I am gravely concerned this is an event from which we may never recover. The next four years—whatever they hold—will reshape this country permanently, irreparably, in ways we cannot even yet fully conceive.

My children were born in a different version of the country I grew up in. One filled with hate, misogyny, bigotry, racism, and xenophobia. I suppose I am just as much to blame for this outcome as anyone, because I was here as it happened, benefiting from this country’s wins and successfully navigating its losses, assuming we’d do the right thing. Holding onto hope and optimism that we’d surely never let these horrible transgressions happen again. I can try to apologize to my children, to tell them we did our best and lost, but what possible hope for the future can I provide? Hell, I don’t know if they will be allowed to vote in the future, so I cannot even beg them to be the generation that fixes this.

I don’t know where to go from here. This is a waking nightmare, and it has only just begun. History will judge us harshly for this, and rightly so. But that’s assuming we survive long enough for that to happen.