Oh, Jeb Bartlett, why were you not running for President?

Well, folks, Republicans control the House, the Senate, the Presidency, and will shape the Supreme Court in their image.  And Donald Trump is at the helm.  Flying Spaghetti Monster help us.  We’re in for a bumpy ride, buckle up.

There is a lot of “oh, things won’t be too bad” and “there’s another election in four years” and “people were scared when Obama was elected” and “we can correct the ship then” going around now.  The people that are saying this look to be exclusively white and mostly male.  And they’re right, we’ll be fine.  Whatever damage Trump is able to inflict these next four years, white, male, middle America may have a few scrapes and bruises, but we’ll be just fine.  Everybody else?  Not so much.  Oh, I mean, sure, other groups will recover too.  Eventually.  The damage done to them, though, will take decades to repair.

We’re already seeing this somewhat with the Supreme Court’s decimation of the Voting Rights Act back in 2013.  “Congress just needs to tweak some things, what could possibly go wrong?”, John Roberts said, apparently having no historical background into the realities of voter suppression efforts both past and present.  Three years later, still no tweaks, voter suppression is in full swing, and the Republican “fix” is likely to be a simple repeal of it altogether.

Then there’s the absolutely terrifying reality of Rudy Guiliani as Attorney General.  For those not keeping count at home, we have an incoming President who won in large part on whipping up fear of Muslims that is likely to appoint a person who has spent every day since 9/11 whipping up fear of Muslims.  How do you think that’s going to turn out for Muslims this next four years?  You think things are going to get magically better for them if we manage to vote Trump out?

Oh, and did I mention that the incoming President thinks abortion should be illegal and women should be punished if they have one and he chose as a Vice President one who feels exactly the same?  And did I mention that states have been biting at the edges of Roe v. Wade for over eight years now and there are more states in Republican control now?  Oh, and there’s that pesky fact that Republicans now control the entire Legislative Branch of the federal government.  How much more damage do you think they’re going to be able to do in the next four years?  How many years post-Trump do you think it will take to repair that damage?

Latinos?  My imagination just comes up with way too many scary scenarios for them.  The mind boggles.

Of course, there’s also the rest of the world to consider.  The U.S. has still not fully recovered from George W. Bush’s World Tour of Bombardments.  Obama has deftly rebuilt our reputation with our allies fairly well, but the bombardments continue.  NATO being scrapped is an actual possibility with Trump.  His statements on the rest of the world have been so bizarre that really anything is possible.

I don’t know what to say except sorry, world.  Sorry, women.  Sorry, minorities.  LGBT community.  Religions other than Christian.  I really thought we were better than this.  I was wrong.