Prior to the Election of the Orange King: 

We (the collective American "we") were confronted on a regular basis the spectacle of self identified white supremacist gunmen openly murdering black church-goers, lone white gunmen going to schools and movie theaters and opening fire on crowds, bigoted, trigger-happy policemen opening fire on unarmed black men on the streets.  We (the overarching "we" of American society) bore witness to over 2 million undocumented immigrants collected and deported, propaganda proliferated to paint all Muslims as terrorists almost daily, Republicans consistently chipping away at the reproductive rights of women.

Now that we (the Giant 311 million strong Club 'Merka "we") have elected the Reality TV Star to lead the Free World, there is a palpable sense that All Hell is About to Break Loose and The End of the Land of the Freaks and the Home of the Slaves is at hand.

I was the Perpetual New Kid at every school I went to until eighth grade.  We moved around enough that each year was a new year, a clean slate, a brand new set of first impressions that were mine to experience and dole out.  Each year, I can remember thinking that THIS year things will be different.

THIS year, I will not talk quite as much, I'll play it cooler, I'll be part of the "in" crowd.  THIS year, I'll figure out who the kids to hang out with are and I will become one of them rather than be considered the weirdo from someplace else who talks too much, has a bizarre sense of humor, and can't help but buck authority whenever Authority rears its ugly head and tries to stomp some individualism out of him.

Except that it was almost always exactly the same as the year before.

Maybe I'm just projecting but it doesn't seem like The Donald can do much worse in terms of our daily grind than has already been done thus far.  I mean, he's likely to slowly destroy any economic gains that the Obama years had garnered but, let's be honest, those gains had more to do with the richest getting richer than the poor and middle-class getting jackshit.  Don't get me wrong, I love me some Obama - Barry is my jam.  That said, the ACA was supposed to be Medicare for Everyone but the GOP Congress (also our fault because we don't get our Leftie's out to vote in state elections) punched so many holes in it that it became easy to paint as a failure for some and so many state governors decided to block it in their states out of bigotry and spite that it never really had a chance.  AND IT HAS STILL BEEN A SUCCESS.  Imagine Obamacare if we had fucking bothered to get Leftie Governors in those states?

I get it.  We (the "we" of the United Skeets of A-merika) are pissed that we got overconfident and strident and unable to deal with our own corrupt overlords in the Sanders-Sandbagging-DNC and allowed 25% of the country to use the Electoral College (which we already knew would fuck us because it did in 2000 and we did nothing since then to change it) to elect a Brand Name to run the White House.

And *maybe* he's the next Hitler but so was just about everyone else of his stripe who managed to get in power.  And yes, he is converging a dinner party of the Biggest Assholes this side of Nuremberg to staff his cabinet but they don't really understand how the government works and will find the limits to their control pretty soon.

I hear a lot about how afraid everyone is and we have forgotten that Fear is, as a Great American Leader once said, the only thing to be wary of.  Calm down, get some perspective and recruit rather than fearmonger.  Because this isn't the New Civil War - it's the same Civil War we've been fighting for 150 years.

Just business as usual.