247 Comments

I love reading your thoughts. If you decide to delete this, I’ll consider myself lucky to have read it.

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author

Thank you. So much. Sending you hearts.

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Seconding this comment

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Same

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Nov 11Liked by Jennifer Barnett

Agreed

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Nov 11Liked by Jennifer Barnett

Same! I hope you don’t delete this

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Me too!

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Nov 7Liked by Jennifer Barnett

Thank you for saying what my rage-filled heart wants to say. There’s no coming back after this. Our country is broken and filled with hateful, racist, sexiest, homophobic morons.

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Nov 8Liked by Jennifer Barnett

Also, it clearly has a shit-ton of people of our caliber of heart and mind. So that’s something. For now at least, we have people to stand with and to talk amongst. Hard times call for hard-assing it. And I’m done apologizing for “well-meaning” fuckwits who have brought us to this moment. They’re on their own, and their own kind can take on the clean-up for their bad choices. I’m only going to help and love the worthy.

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Nov 17Liked by Jennifer Barnett

I would ordinarily screw myself by being over aggressive, even in agreeing with you, but in this case you’ve said it so perfectly I don’t even need to try. I do now believe that good, kind, understanding, and open minded people are the vast minority. And I’m never giving the others an inch of compassion ever again, fuck them. Vote for evil, you ARE evil, period.

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Nov 7Liked by Jennifer Barnett

I loved your post. I don't think that you should delete. It's the best post that I have read since the election.

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author

Thank you for saying so. I appreciate it.

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I agree wholeheartedly.

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I have always been an optimist, but I feel like I have reached the end of my capacity for that. I feel like my country hates women. I feel like we are more evil than good. I KNOW my vote doesn't matter (I'm in a blue state). I'm disgusted that we spent $12 billion on political ads when that money could have done so much good elsewhere. I know longer believe that being righteously indignant helps the cause.

Thanks for being so real and not slapping some kumbaya message on top off this. Everyone can fuck off, indeed. And know that even though I don't know you, I'm sending protective magick to your child 🩵

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Rage and despair is all we have left. 😔

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I absolutely agree.

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Thanks Rusty. I've thought a lot about deleting this comment because I was so full of rage and despair when I wrote it. But it has helped to see that so many people are right there with me. We'll get through it together because what other choice do we have?

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Nov 19Liked by Jennifer Barnett

Yes…we’ll get through it together. Thank god there are still sane people in this world. I had no idea who I could talk to anymore before the election. What seemed like a no-brainer to me, well—wasn’t. I had a hard time finding my people. Those who voted for him can fuck off. It feels so good to say it.

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Nov 7Liked by Jennifer Barnett

I loved reading your post! Please don’t delete it. I am an election worker in my township and all day Tuesday I kept thinking positive…and when I got home late Tuesday, my knees buckled and my stomach was in a knot. Plus my breathing became shallow. By 2 AM, I was sobbing. I stayed in bed the next day and did text friends of like mind. I am scared, worried, and what makes me sad is my 4 other siblings…I KNOW who they voted for. I can’t even talk with them now. But I feel that all who voted for him better not complain when he screws with their livelihoods. I had to vent. Thank you so much for your post. Big hugs to you and to all who have commented.

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author

Thank you so much — for working the election, for sharing your grief here. I appreciate hearing from you.

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Nov 7Liked by Jennifer Barnett

Yes!!! I’m sick of hearing what the democrats “should have done”. With eyes wide open, the majority voted to end democracy and have a big bad man take care of them. It wasn’t subtle this time. If that’s what they want, saying “I’ll make things better but play within the rules of our democracy” isn’t going to win. Period. Stop fucking blaming the democrats.

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I'm here for your black heart and fierce wit.

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author

I appreciate it.

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Nov 7Liked by Jennifer Barnett

Thank you! These are all my feelings. Four years from now? What are people talking about? We just handed over the keys to the house to a bunch of sociopaths who've been planning for years. If we have future elections they'll be fake ones. Like Russia. I hate everything. I don't know what to do or where to go because, like you said, the right is rising all over. Costa Rica, maybe? But Costa Rica doesn't seem to be a great place to be climate change-wise. A smart person told me that we should try to be in the southern hemisphere because of a potential nuclear winter. That fucks me up. I'm pretty sure I at least need to get the fuck out of Iowa.

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Nov 15Liked by Jennifer Barnett

I’m in Minnesota. Currently, I think of myself as a Minnesotan, not as an American. I’m going to lift weights and catch up on my reading until the cancer comes back. Kinda like being in prison, I guess.

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Southern hemisphere is about to be completely fucked thanks to climate change. Mainlan Australia is almost unliveable now.

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Nov 7Liked by Jennifer Barnett

Thank you for stating the unbearable truth. I adopted my son from Vietnam. He is a legal immigrant but he is Asian. He has a Certificate of Citizenship which is allegedly inviolate proof of his legal status, but I can't even count on that for him anymore. Any of us with a child who is "other" in some way - other than white, straight and Christian - is terrified. The only thing that stops me from going bonkers is that we live in NYC which at least for now is a safe bubble. But I despair not only at the sheer stupidity of my fellow AmeriKKKans, but at the ugliness of their selfishness. When they go down, they want everyone else to be dragged down with them.

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Nov 12Liked by Jennifer Barnett

As a mother of a child who is 'other' I feel your pain and anxiety. I'm in the UK, and even with a recently elected supposedly left leaning Labour new government, things still feel vey uncertain and unsafe for my children. And yes, its ok to 'get your passports and fuck off' but that is a luxury that many people don't have. Luckily we do still have european citizenship but its still money. I so feel for my young adults and the shit show they're inheriting.

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Nov 7Liked by Jennifer Barnett

I fear that everything you said is true but remain hopeful that maybe we can turn the Titanic around, just a bit? I know, that's the stupid optimist in me. I'm telling myself that I can't shut my heart on all the stupid Trumpers in my life because - someday - they'll need to walk back through that door. None of them read Project 25. They don't realize that all the safety net programs for the poor and middle-class (them) will be gone; that we'll have uneducated idiots running whatever federal agencies are left. And when the bodies start dropping - and they will - I'll be there to lend them a hand after telling them, "I told you so!"

The first thing that's gonna happen when RFK Jr. starts to get all the forever chemicals banned (which I'm OK with) is that food prices are going to skyrocket! Nobody is expecting that - and somehow Democrats will get blamed for it.

I know leaving the country isn't the answer - racism, misogyny and fascism are everywhere. As a 62-year old woman, I'm no longer looking forward to my "golden years".

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Nov 7Liked by Jennifer Barnett

When things go wrong he’ll tell them to blame us, and they will. Their need to believe in him knows no, and I mean no, bounds.

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I know you’re right. He’ll point to us and they’ll believe him. They always do.

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Nov 12·edited Nov 12Liked by Jennifer Barnett

so true.. and this RFK banning from the party that says there should be no rules.. its so hypocritical... and I agree - I don't hate that... . I'm 66 and lived through the 60-70's with my parents on the side of rights for all.. still waiting for the day I won't cry about this misogyny - and I hate reading "what the democrats did wrong." BS

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As a fellow or rather sister American abroad, as a mother with a grown kid stateside (for now), as a Gen X woman, as a human being, thank you for writing this and expressing everything I am thinking and feeling right now (except that the buildings I am surrounded by once housed not only other Anne Franks, but those who killed her and her family). It's gutting and I don't have anything good to say about it or about how bleak the future has become -- given what happened on Tuesday, even the past will now have to be re-written. "It could have been beautiful. It should have been." Godspeed to us all.

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author

This made me cry. 🖤

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Right back at you

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Nov 7Liked by Jennifer Barnett

I WAS surprised in 2016 and took to bed for the day, crying. This time, much like you, and the grinch, my heart shrunk two more sizes. The terror is real. My friend texted me yesterday to check on me. I asked him how he was, and his response was perfect. "What's the word for when you see something horrible coming, but you try to remain optimistic?"

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Courage.

That’s exactly the definition of courage.

And whether we want it or not, this is exactly where we all are now. We can be furious and exhausted and demoralized and even apathetic and spiteful.

But when you’re clear-eyed and it’s coming and you still don’t look away… courageous.

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Amazing. Thanks

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Don’t delete this. People like me needed to see it, read it through tears, to know we’re not alone.

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Nov 8Liked by Jennifer Barnett

This. I’m in Canada and I feel exactly the same way. Everyone can just fuck off. She was a wonderful candidate and ran a great race, and he can’t string a sentence together. It’s unfathomable.

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Nov 8Liked by Jennifer Barnett

Exactly, well put, out walking young white guy pulls up in his Tesla gathering up Trump lawn signs, Fuck you I’m saying under my breath, don’t look at me, don’t speak to me and I could tell he saw my disgust, briefly glancing up at me! It’s over neighbors, coworkers, parents of my kids friends I see you, Fuck off

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And thanks for so openly outing yourselves. I like to know where the enemy is. Makes it easier to hex them.

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You speak for so many of us. Thank you for filling in the situation in Netherlands. I have no plans to leave, can't anyway, but so many people I know are discussing it. Yet, as you point out, there's nowhere to run. Personally I'm taking the long view. The U.S. has never been a true democracy, not entirely, not for some groups of people. Now all of us are feeling the heat. I'm planning to work with others to build community, and to resist when that's called for. This insanity has been carefully planned, and long in the works, the orange menace simply speeded it all up.

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