Moving to Canada isn’t a realistic option.
It’s too cold, too Canadian. I don’t like maple syrup. They don’t want us anyway.
Lots of Americans will be moving to Mexico, but many seem likely to get there via a purge of immigrants promised by President-elect Donald Trump.
No, the only real choice confronting the majority of Marylanders who voted against Trump’s return to the White House is to face it.
America, we hardly knew you.
We thought we shared something special. Sure, it’s fine to flirt with the jerk from Mar-a-Lago, but to commit to a long-term relationship with a convicted felon?
I’m a stranger in a strange land, and I am at a loss to find words that will be much solace to those who feel like me. A majority of Americans don’t share my values, it turns out. We don’t want the same future. Right now, I’m not sure we ever will.
How do you explain Trump’s electoral romp over Vice President Kamala Harris? Lots of people will try.
It was the economy. Mortgage rates and a shortage of homes keep many people from buying a first home, or trap others in homes too big or too small or in the wrong place. You could sell, but then where do you buy?
Jobs are good. But damn. I heard someone say they paid $6 for eggs at the 7-Eleven. Who buys eggs at 7-Eleven? Some members of my family on the Eastern Shore, if their glee over the results is to be believed.
It was immigration. Close the border and send all the immigrants away.
It was a desire for a strongman to lead us.
I got a note from Anne Rutherford, a member of the Anne Arundel County Republican Central Committee, taking a potshot over my election predictions. I picked Harris, so a crank message was fair.
“So negative on Trump talking about toxic masculinity but failed to point out the obvious woke agenda of Kamala,” she wrote. “Trump does a three-hour interview with Rogan but Kamala couldn’t commit to but an hour. Her interviews were fluff because she can’t handle it.”
For the record, I was 5 for 8. Voters in Anne Arundel retained Circuit Court Judge Christine Celeste but chose attorney Tom Casey over Judge Ginina Jackson-Stevenson, and Question F over redevelopment at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor passed.
But nothing was more of a gobsmacking surprise than the failure of my nation to choose forward over back into one man’s lifelong search for retribution.
I heard praise for the once-and-future president out at the polls on Tuesday.
Trump’s a truth-teller. Trump’s going to set things right. He’s for the people, not against the people. He’s the right candidate for me and my family. He’s better for America. Trump’s the baby Jesus born on a cracker to make us all 10 feet tall.
OK, I made that last one up. Honestly, listening to Trump voters is like trying to talk sense to a religious cult. It doesn’t make sense.
And yet.
This is who America is today. We the people — and I mean the collective we and not me — just put a man in the White House whose stated ambition is to be a dictator. He wants to round up immigrants, put them in camps and send them back to where they came from. Mexico, I guess, but in Annapolis, that means El Salvador and Venezuela, too.
Reproductive rights, a federal government that solves problems, clean air and water protection, science over profit in dealing with climate change, our historic alliances, support for Ukraine and probably mint chocolate chip ice cream could all be abolished.
OK. I made up that last bit too. I am frightened, however, for my children and the world America birthed on Election Day. It’s easy to get carried away.
The only thing I can offer by way of condolence is that the fear is based on the words of a lying, cheating, serially bankrupt felon. He is the luckiest grifter ever to sell gold basketball shoes, steaks, ties, special edition MAGA hats, autographed Bibles and university degrees.
Maybe he won’t do what he said. Maybe he was lying again.
Here’s the thing, Maryland.
We have a choice. We can curl up in a ball, lamenting the election’s outcome. We could say, again, he’s not my president. We can revel in the likelihood that our countrymen who swallowed Trump’s malarkey will be proven wrong in the end.
With Congress and the courts under his sway, that will be a long wait in the cold.
Or, we can say, history does not end here.
The great thing about the United States is its willingness to attempt righting its wrongs. Abraham Lincoln, in his first inaugural address, said our nation was founded in pursuit of a more perfect union.
Not a perfect union. Just more perfect than today.
There is no straight line between Trump nation and where you and I want America to go.
The only way to get there is through a refusal to give up and deal with what comes. The election is over, and Donald J. Trump will return to power with all of the challenges to values I hold dear that implies.
Truth. Fairness. Justice. Compassion.
A desire to live our lives with dignity, and see that others share in the opportunities that benefit the most successful among us. Trust in science and tolerance for those who are different.
There will be lots of finger-pointing in the days ahead. Harris failed. Hispanic voters let the wolf through the door. Black men and white women balked at the idea of a woman president — again.
The progressives need to be in charge of the Democratic Party. The party has drifted too far to the left.
There will be something of value gained from it. New leaders will rise. It won’t change the fact that a majority of voters in Maryland are still here, waiting to take the nation in another direction.
I woke up before sunrise Wednesday morning after a long day observing the election as a journalist. I checked my phone and there it was. Donald Trump is back. I told my wife, I messaged my daughter and son.
And then, the daily weather forecast popped up. The sun rose at 6:14 a.m.
It’ll come out tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar. Tomorrow.
Come what may.
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