I feel like I got punched in the stomach. I really don't know what to do with the bad feelings. This is the darkest political day of my lifetime (so far). I really hope time mellows me on it all. For now, it makes me very sad.

My first thought is that I no longer feel like the countryman of the 51% that voted Bush. Maybe that will fade, but right now I feel like there are two America's, and that I want nothing to do with the other. The victory is legit and I don't really question it. However, I might be willing to sit out the whole kiss and make up thing this time. Bush is incapable of building a consensus. In fact, he gets off on smirking at the idea of consensus-building; it truly gets him off to bulldoze over the opinions of other and do what he wants. The flips in congress only help him to that end. No gesture on his part to reach out is genuine...we, and the world, have already seen what he thinks about working with others. He finds the idea hateful.

I am hoping time will moderate how I feel. For now, I say that it is all on them. I disavow anything they do, and I intend to fight them in any way that I can. The war dead, the innocents killed, the anti-gay hatred, the glass-eyed religious-zombie edicts...none of these are mine. The other America is responsible for it all. I do not want it, and I will not aid it.

It should be noted that the true American frontlines in the war on terror, particularly New York City, totally disavowed that man and his presidency. New York state and New Jersey both rejected him. New York City rejected him many times over. DC didn't go for it either, and Virginia gave him no landslide. It cannot be said that the war is being done for those who lived through 9-11. This is no longer about that. It seems few who were there want any of Bush's killing done for their sake. I certainly don't.

So sad. It is the first time I have felt alienated in my own country. Ugh.