Between Here and the Night of the Long Knives

So many post-mortems.  So much blame and guilt.  So much sniping.

It took me a week to get around to buying my Booze of Choice for a Ceremonial Drunk (it's in some of Larry Niven's stories about asteroid miners), not that I can have a real Ceremonial Drunk because medications, but less than half of one of those plastic cocktail glasses had to suffice.  Tasty, though.  Prosit.

Yes, of course I was stunned.  I mailed my ballot in a week early so that procrastination would not insure arriving at the (lovely) polling place at 7:30 pm.  I stayed away from the computer all day.

Well.  Everyone was warned.  Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but Donald Trump won the Electoral College.

Yes, mucho mad scrambling and protesting and acts by creepazoids as well as acts of faith and beauty.  Best analysis is probably at Avedon's Sideshow.  (Aren't all politicians beholden to "Wall Street," or is that just my cynicism?)  I was thinking that this would be a good time to read up on Mussolini and Italian fascism because there are historical parallels.  (Mussolini's full history is instructive for obvious reasons, but I was particularly interested in his climb to power.)

• Mark Morford shares "Five things you can do right now..."  (Actually six things, but we'll let that go.) Although one of his suggestions is to move to a swing state, and, um, no.
• Another suggestion is to support real journalism.  Driftglass has something to say on that score.

  But now that Trump is threatening their privileges and their traditions -- which I agree are very important -- well that is a bridge too fucking far.
  
  Sorry, but no. You were supposed to be our sword in the darkness. You were supposed to be democracy's watcher on the walls. You were supposed to be our shield that guards the land of the free.
  
  And every time you offered us frauds and madmen and gibbering Both Siderists because ratings, you betrayed us. And every time you stayed silent while your colleagues offered up frauds and madmen and gibbering Both Siderists -- every time you sat across the desk from a monster and looked him in the eye and bit your tongue and refused to say the word "monster" because your employer would be displeased -- you deserted your post too.

• And Ken White at Popehat discusses libel laws and Trump.
• The Rude One, of course, got Rude.  In fact, quite Rude.  Really, really, really Rude.  (Read at home.)
• Via Body Impolitic, a crowd-sourced survival guide for folks who may be targeted or who need good information.
• Chauncey DeVega (Indomitable) touches on European reactions and buries American "exceptionalism" (that vampire is hard to kill, though).
• And Professor Chaos (The Daily Irritant) apportions blame and raises an eyebrow (metaphorically).
• Ted Rall on the *ahem* anti-intellectual bent in the United States.
• Echidne of the Snakes.
• Driftglass hosts video (postsed by Elle magazine) on Black Women and the 2016 Elections.  Yes, it's an hour long.  Watch anyway.

There is a lot more out there.