Hi everyone, it's 11pm on Tuesday night of the election. Eric and I went out to dinner and to play pinball because I didn't want to watch election news. I must admit, I had a weird feeling that it wasn't going to turn out well. I don't know what that was based on and it very well could be hindsight-tinged. Luckily I didn't waste the night refreshing!

I'm about to go to bed. And I fully recognize that I might wake up and all of this will be unnecessary. Would love that for all of us! But if not...

I have no idea why this happened... it's utterly befuddling. Unfortunately it might just be that America is way more misogynist and racist than we thought. That we don't particularly care about each other. And that the electorate is telling us "you need to run a white man or a man at the very least or you'll get spanked". Absolutely awful. Everything about this sucks.

But it's hard to say that people that voted for Trump this time around got conned. They know what they are voting for. And they turned out the voters. It's what the people want. I think he is even going to win the popular vote. Absolutely crazy!

I'm not really in the mood to postmortem why Kamala lost. I think she ran an incredible campaign, especially for throwing it together. A bunch of people will blame each other. I don't know who is right (and neither do they).

I will say, as a person of color... I am heartbroken at this result, but I am not surprised. We've just learned the counters and silhouette of how big the upcoming battle is going to be. I feel like I need to say that, because it helps me fight against the desire to give up / move to another country / no longer be sympathetic or empathetic to groups that are hurt by a Trump presidency that vote against their own interests ... I'd rather stay proactive than give in to ugly cynicism.

Anyway. All of this really sucks.

But, I will say. We all have until January to feel bad and sad and mad. And then the fight begins anew. And it goes for four years (assuming no change in term limits). Unfortunately I have no choice... I'm a gay man, and I'm not white (and I'm old with a strong need for healthcare!). I have to fight.

So please be sad and lick your wounds and meanwhile I'm going to try to bring you joy and insight and hope in these infrequent emails... and then in 2025 it's BACK TO THE FIGHT!

I haven't sent much out on this mailing list the last four months and I plan to resume. There will be fun stuff again, and comedy, and links, and interesting ideas and discoveries. I just wanted to reach out to you tonight because I need to tell you that you survived him once before and you can do it again. Oh, also I know some of you live in Scotland. Boy do I envy you! I'm definitely coming back to EdFringe in 2025!

Love you all,

Chris