Despite the inevitable knock on reper­cus­sions, as a non-Amer­i­can it’s not real­ly my place to pass judge­ment on the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. But in the spir­it of “share your pain”, here­with some wis­dom (none orig­i­nal), as com­fort for my Amer­i­can friends who may be dis­traught, griev­ing, per­plexed, dis­be­liev­ing, incensed, depressed…etc.

While mak­ing no claim to be pre­scient, in ear­ly 2023, I wrote a blog with a theme that is per­ti­nent to today. It was based on advice Win­ston Churchill, the unsur­passed mas­ter of cri­sis-cop­ing, offered in the dark­est days of World War II, when the (rel­a­tive­ly) sane world was reel­ing from the onslaught of fas­cism: “Keep calm and keep bug­ger­ing on.”
Churchill armed him­self to do so with a dai­ly intake of “approx­i­mate­ly six glass­es (1½ 750 ml. bot­tles) of cham­pagne or wine dai­ly along with 5 to 6 ounces of whisky or brandy spread over a 12 to 15 hour period.”
Per­haps a reg­i­men it would not be wise to fol­low, even if one thinks it might help.
How­ev­er, like it or not, for the next four years, we will all be in the prover­bial “same boat” as Trump vot­ers, so it would be wise to avoid the guilty plea­sure of wal­low­ing in schaden­freude when the real­i­ty of what has occurred rocks it.
A more use­ful (if dif­fi­cult to main­tain) cop­ing mech­a­nism, is the wis­dom of 19^th cen­tu­ry Ger­man philoso­pher Arthur Schopen­hauer: “A sense of humour is the only divine qual­i­ty of man.”
On a more relat­able lev­el than deep-think­ing for­eign philoso­phers, “Dil­bert” cre­ator Scott Adams is cred­it­ed with the apho­rism: “You can nev­er under­es­ti­mate the stu­pid­i­ty of the gen­er­al public.”
Hav­ing in anoth­er blog bemoaned the per­ni­cious growth of “Polit­i­cal per­fidy, eco­nom­ic irre­spon­si­bil­i­ty and dis­agree­ment over accept­able social norms and speech…”, I  think that when con­tem­plat­ing the prospect of four years of a Repub­li­can-major­i­ty Sen­ate, it might help to bear in mind that the state of affairs is not unprecedented.
Pub­lius Cor­nelius Tac­i­tus (58–120), deemed the great­est his­to­ri­an of ancient Rome, described the sen­a­tors of his day as: “exalt­ed by wealth and hon­ors … each in pro­por­tion to his readi­ness for servitude.”
And if the behav­iour of some mem­bers of the Press corps isn’t as aggres­sive and prob­ing as it could or ought to be in cov­er­ing the Trump White House, Tac­i­tus lament­ed that the bril­liant writ­ers of his time “were deterred by swelling sycophancy.”

                THE BLAME GAME ISN’T FAIR

If tempt­ed to point the fin­ger of guilt at vot­ers who ought to have seen what they were get­ting, it would be use­ful to make a mantra of this from the author of the clas­sic sci­ence fic­tion nov­el “Stranger in a Strange Land”,  Robert A. Hein­lein: “Nev­er under­es­ti­mate the pow­er of human stupidity.”
It will make it eas­i­er to rec­on­cile why Arab Amer­i­cans decid­ed to “pun­ish” the Democ­rats for not end­ing the war in Gaza — by vot­ing for Trump.
It’s no sur­prise that one of the first world lead­ers to con­grat­u­late Trump on his vic­to­ry was  Israeli Prime Min­is­ter Binyamin Netanyahu, who hailed it as “history’s great­est comeback”.
Did the Arab Amer­i­cans who vot­ed for Trump think he will do what Pres­i­dent Joe Biden couldn’t man­age, and twist Netanyahu’s arm into a cease­fire, nev­er mind a peace deal?
Or not offer the Israeli leader the thin­ly-veiled approval of the war in Gaza that he afford­ed Vladimir Putin, whose inva­sion of Ukraine he praised as “genius” and “savvy,”
And if it seems cru­el to poke fun at that lev­el of naivete, the Trump camp is already pro­vid­ing alter­na­tive “you couldn’t make it up if you tried” laugh lines.
One of the first post-elec­tion state­ments of cam­paign spokes­woman Karo­line Leav­itt, was that her boss “…deliv­ered on his first term promis­es to build the wall, rebuild the econ­o­my, and make Amer­i­ca respect­ed again on the world stage.”
Unques­tion­ing loy­al­ty or belief is a form of stu­pid­ity tak­en to extreme, and not nec­es­sar­i­ly the fault of the prac­ti­tion­er. It’s actu­al­ly a patho­log­i­cal con­di­tion. which on some lev­els deserves more sym­pa­thy than derision.
As a guide­line to man­age that, it’s not worth argu­ing with some­one who believes their own lies, because, as Abra­ham Lin­coln not­ed: “No man has a good enough mem­o­ry to be a suc­cess­ful liar.”
(I know it was a spokes­woman, but you get the point.)
As the cast of Mon­ty Python’s “Life of Bri­an” sang and whis­tled: “Always look on the bright side of life…”
At the risk of end­ing on a down­er, sing or hum along with this line from the Bea­t­les’ Ringo Starr until it becomes an ear worm:
“Got to pay your dues if you wan­na sing the blues
And you know it don’t come easy.”
That the dues may be high­er than we like, or may be able to afford, isn’t a good idea to dwell on  at this point.
I hope that helps.
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