Donald Trump was elected president again last night. After being voted out of office in 2020. After trying to rig the vote and then to overthrow the government by force in the wake of that loss. After all but welcoming a pandemic that ended up killing more than a million of us. After ripping away abortion care rights from millions of American women. After being impeached, twice. After being convicted of multiple felonies. After dogging it on the campaign trail, playing to emptying halls while speaking in demented tongues unknown even to him. After all of that, and God knows what else, we have to do this s—t all over again.

There are a lot of dirty hands involved in this. I can blame the Senate, which declined to convict in either of Trump’s impeachments. I can blame a cowed mainstream media. I can blame the internet. I can blame a judiciary that now deserves to be burned to the ground. I can blame voter suppression and intimidation. I can blame Democrats. I can blame Joe Biden. I can blame Republicans. I can blame the youth voters (et tu, children?). I can blame Elon. I can blame Florida. I can blame them all, and I’d have facts on my side in every instance.

But honestly, what does it matter? My fellow Americans, and they feel so distant right now, watched Trump infect them all with his greasy feels and said, “Thank you, sir, may I have another?” That’s the cold, awful truth I’m left to stew in this morning, and many mornings thereafter.

In fact, Americans were so hyped for four more years of this s—t that Trump won last night in a walk. He carried the popular vote too, so I can’t even blame the Electoral College this time around. Trump told Americans that he wanted to rule them with a clammy fist, and they liked the idea. They liked it so much that they passed on electing a woman president for the second time in eight years. It’s that simple, that cruel, that lazy, and that irrevocable.

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I can try to divine a why to all of this. Is it because America has always been this irrational and hateful? Is it because millions of Americans hated Trump but still voted for him anyway because they were simply sick of telling him no? Is it because God? Millions of thoughtful words will be written in a collective attempt to divine the answer, but none of them will be sufficient. Not when the pain is this acute. This lasting.

I believed that Vice President Kamala Harris would trounce the former president last night. She said and did all of the right things. She tapped perhaps the world’s most genuine sports dad to be her running mate. She was on the side of goodness and normalcy, and Democrats, myself among them, assumed that Trump’s open calls to end democracy would turn off all freedom-loving Americans. I wanted to believe that. I had to believe that, because it appealed to my own better nature and because who wants final confirmation that they live among monsters? So I went into Election Day full of excitement, rather than dread. This wasn’t 2016. Everyone knew Trump’s deal and everyone, women especially, had suffered immensely under his previous administration. Surely that would be enough, I figured. Anyone who thought otherwise was just a doomer trying to s—t in the punchbowl. But they were trying to warn me, and I was too blinded by imaginary good vibes to heed them. Now I feel stupid, because I should. I also feel depressed, because I should.

Mostly, I feel tired. I’d spent the past decade angry, and was ready to finally get on with my life in a more normal America. I’d joined the fight and given mightily to it, giving myself permission to assume that my efforts would pay off. This isn’t how life works. It’s never been how life has worked. You do your best, and you take comfort in that because your best is never a guarantee of victory, not even when your opponent campaigns by dancing around to ABBA while his colleagues stare at him uneasily.

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I can’t take comfort in those efforts right now, not with such a grotesque future world in the offing. If you voted for Harris last night, you understand my feelings innately, and have probably been stewing in them since the LAST time we put this deranged asshole in charge of things. There’s a chance that Trump’s attempt at remaking the government in his image will still fail. As of this writing, Democrats still have a chance to win back the House once all of the votes have been counted. And Trump’s last presidency showed that, even when he’s been gifted immense power, he’s still too rash and too stupid to actually make good on his darkest threats. But that’s thin gruel to subsist on right now, because my fellow Americans did this. They wanted this, and I’ll never again take it as a given that they’re a good and kind people. The cost is too high.