The morning after, the sun comes up

The Column: 11.06.24

So America has gone and done it, elected the evil grandpa, which goes to show that literacy is in serious decline. Nobody who read the transcripts of his two-hour rants would want this old man in the White House. I’ve been reading them with fascination for the past couple months and they are beyond description, the anger and violent obsessions, the confusion, the incredible frequency of blatant falsehoods, the absence of any coherent philosophy, but now the Secret Service is going to have to guard him on his daily golf round, probably requiring the help of the Army and Marines, and who knows if there will be another election in 2026? Congress will be deadlocked, the man owns the Supreme Court, who will stop him if he declares the name of our country is now United Trump?

The beauty of being on the losing side is that there is no shame. Kamala Harris was a serious and tireless candidate who ran a heroic campaign and spoke about the real world, and the outcome shows the high degree of misogyny among American women. She could have been an excellent president. Everyone in my life voted for her, nobody ever walked up to me and tried to talk about her opponent’s good points, so it’s clear that I don’t live in his country. And because I’m 82 and he never talked about cutting Medicare and Social Security or deporting elderly people or accused us of having bad blood or eating dogs and cats, I can rest easy. His 20% tariffs are likely to cause inflation but an old man doesn’t need much to get along.

And the gorgeous thing about being a Democrat is that I can stop reading the newspaper and ignore Washington and walk around the Upper West Side of Manhattan where the Don got maybe 12% of the vote and enjoy the parks, the cafes, the little kids heading for school in the morning, talk to people in the subway, go to the public library on 42^nd Street and sit in the reading room among college kids and work on my musical comedy.

The country voted against politics Tuesday and voted in a man who will fix everything. He will make Ukraine and Gaza disappear. Big tax cuts, Bobby Kennedy Jr. will end fluoridation and eliminate vaccines, Elon Musk will cut two or three trillion from the national budget, the U.S. Army will round up ten or eleven million undocumented migrants, many of whom are employed on farms or in hotels or nursing homes, and the profound results of all of this are on the heads of the Make America Cruel Again people.

I’m glad that Minnesota went blue though it was a close one, and I have to admit that Lake Wobegon went 58% for the Don and that will be the subject of my next book. It’s going to be a comic novel. Norwegians can be cranky, as any Minnesotan knows, and though they’ve been here for five or six generations, America has been a disappointment for many of them, they feel ignored or looked down upon and the Lutheran pastor talks like a socialist sometimes. They don’t like the Germans and the feeling is mutual and many of their children have married aliens, and there is resistance to the idea of public education (why should we pay for it after our kids have grown up) and coffee costs 50 cents that used to cost a dime. Nothing is like it used to be, young people are rude and go around with earphones and they mumble and you can’t read their handwriting and the language is vulgar. They’ve been unfairly dealt with left and right and they like the Don because he’s been mistreated too and is angry and he’s going to fix things. Nuts to Europe, to hell with Mexico and South America, and let’s show the Chinese who is who. Congress is a mess, can’t get anything done. We need one man who can take charge and do the job right and anybody who doesn’t like it, send them to Canada.

There’s a whole novel here and I’m going to enjoy writing it and I’m tired of worrying about democracy. You go worry about it and stew over the news. I’m done. The New York Times said that a vote for Kamala was the only patriotic option. Which shows you how important the Times is.

No, journalism is dead. There is no point in stating facts anymore. I’m going back to fiction. It’s worked beautifully for the Don and now it’s my turn.

Now might be a good time to remind yourself about Cheerfulness. In this book, author Garrison Keillor reflects on a simple virtue that can help us in this stressful and sometimes gloomy era.

CLICK HERE to buy a copy today!