Well.

Uh... well.

How can I at the same time have no words and yet feel I can write a whole book about just what happened?

Without being there, I know for sure that this is far worse than what happened in the year 2000. Even with that divisiveness, neither candidate had ever come close to saying that the other was unfit to be President. It was never THIS bad.

Now. The point I'd really like to get at, the FUN part, is just. Who. Is. To. Blame?!

So I'll start with the main target- the actual Trump Supporters. To a Clinton supporter such as myself, my initial response was utter hatred and despair at the idea that more than half of our country would have voted for a crude, rape-y, misogynistic, racist, xenophobic, arguably fascist and overall bigoted con-artist with the IQ of a 4th grader who has led each of his businesses to bankruptcy over a politician with more than 30 years of political experience whose worst crime was not being tech-savvy. The support for Trump, naturally, went straight down the color line. I suppose I'd be less upset in understanding the Republican position if Trump were simply advocating policies that every Republican has advocated before, but he went beyond that by attacking the very nature of who these people were. There's no other way of understanding it. Did we not all hear the same words? He attacked women, he attacked black people, he attacked Muslims, he attacked Hispanics... and it didn't matter. White males, and in fact white people in general, overwhelmingly voted Trump. So I guess they're to blame....

But wait, WE'RE NOT THROUGH YET!

What about the Nader Effect? All those third party candidates and write-off votes that took away just enough from Clinton to get her to lose? Surely they're the real ones to blame here! But, to an extent, there have always been spoilers, only one of whom (Lincoln) ever actually won. Ultimately, though I disagree with it, telling people they're not allowed to vote for a third party only adds further vitriol to the argument. That would be taking away a voice, however unhelpful I may personally find it.

What about the people who didn't go out and vote, the 47% of Americans whose voices were unheard? Some people, I'm sure, chose not to vote- there was far less voter turnout than in 2012. But there is also the issue of voting laws that ban former felony convicts of ever voting, particularly in places like Florida, a key swing state. An estimated 1.7 million Florida citizens, or 11% of the state's voting-age population, are disenfranchised because of a criminal conviction. You can hazard a guess as to where that number falls racially.

So all of these parties are to blame, let's give 'em a round of boos. But wait! I forgot one, the most important one of all!

Me.

And you. Yeah, you, the reader, you're not getting out of this either.

You want to know why?

Because I laughed. I laughed my tuchis off for the first half of the year. Everything from his braggadocios elevator entrance when he decided to run to his continued insensitivity in the GOP race. The die-hard true believers on the Republican side were finally listening to a fun-house mirror of everything they stood for, and it was hilarious. Part of me really did think he was putting us on, especially considering his left-leaning stances from before this all began. I laughed, and I laughed, and I laughed until it wasn't a joke anymore.

And you laughed too.

But none of that matters now. It's all our fault, and we're going to have to live with him for four years.

I'm sorry.