On November 8th, 2016, I got up early.

I needed to vote before going to work since I wouldn't make it to the polls in time afterward.

This was a big election, after all. This was when we showed the rest of the world that we wouldn't let hatred be the platform by which someone was elected our leader.

I went through work all day feeling pretty good. I left at 8 p.m., right when the polls closed. Still feeling confident, I began my drive home.

I got home around 9 p.m., and checked on the election. Trump had won a few states, but that was to be expected. They were in middle America, after all. And yet, as more and more states began to report, a sense of unease began to rise in me.

I don't have cable, so I was looking at results online. In some ways, that made it worse. There was no one to spin it, to say "Hey, Hillary still has a shot at this". It was just cold, hard facts. And at the end of the day, they said one thing; Donald J. Trump had been elected president.

I voted for inclusivity. I voted for love. I voted for all the things I had been raised to believe in.

And it meant nothing.

Our new president is a demagogue with no experience who uses fear and hate to rise to the top. With a history of sexual assault and defrauding the people he had hired, that all mattered less to people than the fact that his opponent was a woman.

So while it's true that I don't have a ton to worry about as a white, straight man, I have female friends. I have gay friends. I have friends with different skin colors than mine. I have friends who believe in different religions. And they all have to worry. Worry about their right to be comfortable, about their right to pursue happiness, about their right to simply exist. And so I worry for them.

While it may be true that love will win the war, on this day, hate has won. And for that, we should all be deeply ashamed.