[Coda]

Well, let that last bit be a comfort to you: It HASN'T begun yet.

And in all probability, it WON'T.

What's flying around is doom-and-gloom from people who are afraid. They're not being rational. They're hyping up their fears regardless of how much truth there is to those fears.

But in reality, the president isn't all that powerful of an office. Trump can't actually DO any of the horrible things people are attributing to him. And furthermore, Trump may be a demagogue that panders to a party associated with anti-intellectualism, but he -- and more importantly, his PARTY -- isn't stupid. He lost the popular vote. His position is PRECARIOUS. He, and the rest of the Republican party, can't afford to be radical. If they want to hold their position, then they have to take a stance of unity and compromise.

If they screw this up, then the next House election is in two years, and hundreds of representatives will get ousted. The House will turn so blue that NOTHING Republican will pass for the rest of the term.



I AM old enough to have lived through 9/11. I was 19. Bush Jr. had not only the presidency (which was JUST LIKE THIS ONE, except it was Florida instead of Pennsylvania that tipped the scales) but also a heavily Republican congress, AND a nation that was willing to do anything for safety and revenge. He could have pushed ANYTHING through.

And yet...

We're still here today, 15 years later. The world didn't end. Horrific discriminatory laws didn't get passed. The country didn't fall apart. Basically NONE of the doom-and-gloom prophecies of the fall of 2000 or of September 2001 came true.

I fully expect history to repeat itself. Things won't get as bad as everyone fears -- in no small part BECAUSE the people who are afraid are going to fight against everything that would go wrong. So that's what you do: You keep your finger on the things that frighten you, and when that pulse beats, you push back.

And everything will be fine.