It was a night filled with JOY.

[aadler]

Susan and I started watching hours before any of the polls were due to close, just to get a feeling for the general tenor of things. Then polls did begin closing, and returns began coming in …

Comments

[opalescence]

I think you are my only friend who was happy and feels safe to say so. I have been put through utter hell the past few days because I was bold enough to make my vote known. I don't understand the unfriending and vitriol. I'm very sad tonight. They ALWAYS ruin it when our candidate is elected.

[aadler]

Somebody observed on one of the news/opinion channels the other day: “We think they’re people with bad ideas. They think we’re bad people, with ideas.” Which dovetails nicely with something I saw years ago, advice to Europeans: “You won’t come close to understanding American politics until you recognize that, here, the right thinks the left is stupid, and the left thinks the right is evil.”

Two things help me along. The first is that, at present, I’m in a firmly right-leaning state (though it has a prominent university, which always goes left), so I’m not surrounded by people blaring the unwelcome message at me 24/7. The second is that, frankly, most of my LJ friends are no longer active and I haven’t made any new ones (and I don’t do anything on any other social media except post my location when I travel), so I get less opposition. I’d still believe the things I believe and say the things I say, but right now I can do it without being part of any flame wars, simply because I’m an isolated voice