There’s a lot of wild speculation about what will happen when Donald J and his Cabinet of Nazgûl take office in January. Which is completely understandable, given that Donald J is following the Bizarro World approach to cabinet appointments. If he can’t find somebody who is actually opposed to the very existence of the agency he or she would be running, Donald J can at least find somebody who is completely unqualified to run it.

You got a Department of Energy? Let’s see if we can find a guy who earned a Bachelors degree in Animal Science! Let’s see if we can find a guy who earned a D in classes like ‘Veterinary Anatomy’, ‘Feeds & Feeding’, ‘Writing for Professional Men’, and ‘Meats’. Let’s get Rick Perry and put him in charge of maintaining the nation’s nuclear arsenal!

Pundits look at the venal greedheads and amateurish bunglers hired by Donald J to help run his government and say how unprecedented it is. But you know what? It’s not unprecedented at all. We’ve actually seen what happens to a government when it’s run by people chosen primarily for their loyalty to the president or to a political ideology rather than for their qualifications.

We saw it in Iraq.

After the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime, the Bush administration needed to create a replacement government. It was a unique opportunity — a chance to build a government from the ground up. The Bush folks created a new entity to handle the reconstruction of Iraq: the Coalition Provisional Authority.

The CPA was given the power to enact laws, to print currency, to collect taxes, to deploy police, and to spend Iraq’s revenue. Did the CPA hire experts in administration? Did they hire prize-winning economists or professional accountants? Did they hire scholars in Middle East studies or sociologists aware of the sensitive cultural and religious issues between the various Iraqi tribes and clans? Did they hire experts in logistics to insure material and supplies would get where they needed to go in a timely fashion? Did they seek out public health experts? Did they look for experienced construction managers?

Fuck no. They hired people who were 1) loyal to George W. Bush and 2) shared an ideology that was grounded in Christian conservatism.

Got that? In a Muslim country needing to be rebuilt after a war, the agency tasked with the rebuilding hired Christian conservatives with no expertise in rebuilding or running anything. Want to reopen the Iraq stock market? Put Jay Hallen in charge — a 24 year-old kid working in real estate with no experience or education in finance. Want to rebuild the nation’s health care system? Hire James K. Haveman, who operated a Christian adoption agency in Michigan that urged pregnant women not to have abortions. Got a US$13 billion budget for reconstruction? There’s 23 year-old Casey Wasson — she had no experience in accounting and had just graduated from an evangelical university for home-schooled children, but she thought George W. Bush was aces, so what the hell, let her help manage it. How hard can it be?

Did these rank amateurs and ideologues fuck things up? Oh lawdy, did they. Iraq is what it is today largely because after we preemptively invaded a nation that turned out not to be a threat to us, we put incompetents in charge of repairing all the damage we caused. Sure, we created a situation that encouraged a civil war to break out, but at least we made sure we weren’t giving the Iraqi people any money for abortions.

Far off yet is his doom, and not by the hand of man will he fall.

Since Donald J’s Cabinet of Nazgûl aren’t starting from scratch, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to fuck things up on an Iraqi scale. But the lesson is there to be learned. We’ve seen how putting ideology and greed above all can produce an epic shitstorm that can last for decades.

I’ve called Donald J’s cabinet the Cabinet of Nazgûl, but in all honesty that’s inaccurate. The Nazgûl were actually competent at their jobs. Sauron sent them out to do a job, and they did it pretty well. The general incompetence of Donald J’s crew can work in our favor. The men and women in his cabinet don’t know what the fuck they’re doing, which means they’ll spend a chunk of time tripping over their own tiny dicks.

It’s our job to resist and obstruct, to help them to trip themselves up. And if they don’t trip themselves, then we have to do the tripping for them. And trip them again as they try to get up. I hate that obstruction has to be a priority, but it’s that or allow things to get fucked up faster.

It’ll be a long four years, but then we can have Michelle Obama or Kirsten Gillibrand to run against Donald J. It’s not necessary for him to lose to a woman, but it would be SO much sweeter that way.

Ever since the U.S. accidentally shit its collective pants on election day, I’ve been seeing a lot of articles that are basically variations on a theme: longtime Democrats who decided to vote for Trump. At first I thought these articles were interesting. Then they became annoying. Now I’m just sick of seeing them.

Politico published one a couple of days ago. It’s entitled It Was My Primal Scream. And like so many of these articles, there’s a ridiculous subtitle. In this case: A lifelong progressive was so disgusted with her party, she voted for Trump. Will Democrats care enough to win her back? The article is grounded in the experience of one woman, Kim McKinney Cohen. She’s a long-standing Democrat, whose grievances against the Democratic Party pretty much echo my own:

She was incensed in May 2007 when Democrats caved to GOP demands to continue funding the war with no deadline to withdraw troops.

She was mad at Democrats for backing Bush tax cuts and bailing out rich bankers while struggling people lost their homes.

She didn’t like the way Clinton, when her husband first ran for president in 1992 and later, as first lady, handled her adulterous husband’s “bimbo eruptions.”

I could add a few lot more complaints against the Democratic Party and the folks who represent it, but who has time for all that? The point is Ms. Cohen, like a LOT of us, looked at the candidates offered by the Democratic Party — both of them — and came to the same basic conclusion: I’m for this Bernie Sanders guy.

[S]he believed Sanders could repair economic inequality, curb corporate greed and weed out special interests in Washington.

I have to admit, I never really believed Bernie could do all that. I mean, Bernie is a great guy, but he’s not Dick Bong–Ace of Aces (and by the way, if you’ve never read Harlan Ellison’s short story Repent, Harlequin, Said the Ticktockman, do yourself a favor — track it down and read it). The reality is there was simply no possible way Bernie Sanders could do all the things he said he wanted to do. But most of us felt he would try to do them. And that was enough; that in itself was exciting.

When it became clear Bernie wasn’t going to be the candidate, I (reluctantly at first, then enthusiastically) supported Hillary Clinton. This is where Ms. Cohen and I part company.

When Hillary Clinton said dismissively supporters of Donald Trump were “a basket of deplorables,” Cohen had heard enough.

“Well, then,” she sighed, “I guess I’m a deplorable.”

And she voted for Trump. She deliberately, knowingly, willfully filled out a presidential ballot selecting Donald J. Trump to be the President of These United States. She was offended by Hillary’s description of some Trump supporters as ‘deplorable’ so she voted for the guy who said Carly Fiorina was too homely to be president, who mocked a disabled reporter, who insulted the parents of a Muslim serviceman who died in the line of duty. What the fuck was she thinking?

When it came down to it, she was angrier at her own party’s leaders than she was appalled by a man who cozied up to white nationalist and anti-Semitic groups. She wanted to throw it back in the face of her party.

“It was my primal scream,” Cohen says. “I wasn’t gonna take it anymore.”

She didn’t like or trust Hillary, fine. Did she like and trust Trump? I’m guessing not, but she decided to vote Trump because she was angry at the DNC. Okay, we’ve all done stupid things when we were angry, right? Stupid, self-destructive, counter-productive things. And afterwards, we’ve all tried to justify our idiotic behavior. Or, if possible, shift the blame our behavior onto somebody else. Which is exactly what Ms. Cohen does.

Cohen doesn’t regret her radical act of defiance. She feels that by helping take the Democrats to rock bottom, they’ve been ‘given a gift’ to rebuild their party. “I wanted it burned down … so that we could build a new, hopefully more equitable one that meets the needs of all, not only the super-rich.”

A gift. A fucking gift. You see, it’s not her fault Trump got elected. It’s the fault of the Democratic Party for not nominating her preferred candidate. If she can’t have the president she wants, then she’ll vote the worst possible president. That’ll show the Democratic Party. And besides, she’s actually done them a favor, if you think about it. She’s given them a gift — a chance to rebuild the party, to start over after Trump has gutted every less-than-perfect Democratic policy. She’s provided the Democrats with the opportunity to remake their party to her specifications. And if they don’t? Who knows, maybe she’ll vote Trump again.

I loathe the smell of burning self-martyr. Worse, though, is the stink of sanctimony from pillocks who’ll piss in the soup tureen if they think you should have used Tellicherry pepper in the chowder instead of Malabar. That whole “You’re doing it wrong — tear it down and start over, and do it right this time. You’ll thank me for it” thing.

I will most certainly NOT thank you for helping elect Trump because you wanted to punish the Democratic Party for failing to nominate Bernie Sanders. I will curse you for being a self-righteous, self-absorbed fuckwit who would sacrifice the well-being of the tens of thousands of marginalized citizens — people who will suffer real and lasting harm because you indulged yourself in a primal scream. Jeebus Vaseline, you have fucked over a lot of people just to gratify your personal outrage.

And that brings me back to the subtitle of the Politico article:

A lifelong progressive was so disgusted with her party, she voted for Trump. Will Democrats care enough to win her back?

Win her back? No, thank you. There’s already a political party that serves citizens who make rage-based stupid decisions. There’s already a party grounded in temper tantrums. Ms. Cohen chose that party when she voted for Trump. So no, I’ve no desire to see the Democratic Party try to win her back.

Don’t get me wrong. The Democratic Party has consistently disappointed progressives. I don’t like it; it pisses me off. But I understand why it happens. Republicans, for the last twenty years or so, have played to the extreme members of their base  Democrats, on the other hand, have attempted to appeal to a wide swath of the populace. That means progressives rarely get exactly what we want.

And here’s the thing: we shouldn’t get exactly what we want. Nor should mainstream Democrats or conservative Democrats. Nor should Republicans. We should ALL get a bit of what we want. That’s how democracy ought to work.

I want steadfast progressives like Bernie Sanders. I want people who’ll fight hard for progressive policies, and if they don’t get the candidate they want, they’ll fight hard to make the party platform as progressive as possible. I do NOT want progressives who pout and act out of spite.

“I hope I never have to vote for a Republican ever again,” Cohen said.

You didn’t have to vote for one this time. You chose to vote for one. You think the Democratic Party should try to entice you back? Here’s an idea: go piss up a rope.

Donald J. Trump is the next President of These United States. That’s just a fact. Regardless of how or why he was elected, we have to acknowledge that he was fairly elected. In January he’ll be behind the desk in the Oval Office — and he’ll be there because people voted for him.

Those of us who opposed him must continue to oppose him. But it would be a terrible mistake, I think, to do that in a hateful way. We can be discouraged. Hell, I’m so discouraged I can barely stand to look at the news. Any news, not just about the election. We can feel depressed; depression is a natural reaction to tragedy. But we shouldn’t be hateful. We can be dazed and perplexed and disconcerted by this unimaginable turn of events. But we shouldn’t be hateful. We can be angry — hell, we can be completely fucking furious — but we shouldn’t be hateful.

That’s tough to say, partly because right now hate seems pretty seductive. We’ve just seen hate used effectively as a tool to get votes. We’ve just seen hate and fear rewarded. There’s a part of me right now that wants to be hateful.

But we can’t. We can’t because hate comes from fear, and fear and hate not only lead to racism and sexism and homophobia and xenophobia, it also leads to devaluing people just because we disagree with them. We can’t afford to be hateful, not even to the people who’ve benefited from hate.

So what do we do? First, give in to grief for a while. A short while. Then look around and find somebody who’s hurt, somebody who’s vulnerable, somebody who’s suffering. Listen to them. Really listen to them, and find out what you can do to help. Helping others is a good way to heal yourself. Kindness can’t stop hate by itself, but believing in the value of kindness can inoculate you from the worst effects of hate.

The cat still finds pleasure napping in the sun. So can you.

Second, live your life the way you want it to be lived. Walk your dog; your dog doesn’t care who the president is. Walk your dog and pick up its shit — because that’s what decent people do. Cook good food — for yourself and for others. Make art and read books and watch movies and listen to music and have a beer with your friends. Laugh. Laugh a lot. Laugh with, not at. But laugh. Laugh and be kind.

Things are going to be ugly for a while, and it’s important — even necessary — to nurture beauty and creativity and kindness, and to spread it around liberally.