The highest office in the United States may soon be so defiled by the presumptive presence of a vicious, sleazy conman that the office will no longer exist. Donald Trump will never be President of the United States because his presence obliterates all meaning inherent in the office. But he will, if not stopped, utterly destroy the United States.
That a single American voted for this repulsive charlatan remains an unfathomable mystery. Yes, the other candidate, a brilliant and experienced politician with a lifetime of service to our country, is a woman, and a significant percentage of men hate and fear women. Especially women in positions of power. 
But apparently some percentage of (white) women also hate women, at least insofar as they were willing to sacrifice all integrity in the interest of imagined personal financial gain or protection from Islamic terrorists. (Terrorists from other religions are okay.) That any woman cast her vote for a pathetic, predatory, narcissistic joke of a man, is insane.
But here we are and now, barring a miracle, we must reap the whirlwind of that insanity. If Trump is actually allowed the pretense of power, there will be no government. There will be nothing but a series of machinations the sole intent of which will be to increase the wealth of already-wealthy white men. The disabled, civic financial burden that they are, will be the first to suffer through curtailment of services. In Nazi Germany disabled people were deemed “life unworthy of life,” warehoused and slaughtered in the original extermination camps. That success led to expansion of the endeavor to include the massive inclusion of Jews and others who represented a threat to the wealth and supremacy of an imagined “race.”
An extremist comparison, but for the undeniable facts of human psychology. Severe economic stress, at-times realistic fear of “the other” and the innate primate wiring toward an alpha-male “savior” invariably combine in mass capitulation to a demagogue. And what follows is invariably horrific.
If nothing can be done to derail a Trump “presidency,” every American capable of understanding that this really is the end of a once-great nation and culture must be prepared to fight back. Day and night. With no concern for personal wealth or power. For as long as it takes to rebuild what has been sacrificed to primitive stupidity.
That means abandoning all gooey calls for “unity” under the tiny orange hand of a monster. That means opposing the beast and its lackeys publicly and incessantly in every way possible. They deserve no courtesy. The offices they will befoul once deserved those civil observances, but those offices are about to be defiled beyond recognition.
There may soon be nothing left of the United States but a landscape occupied by the forces of greed and hate. But in every occupied nation there is resistance. That has to be us.
Violette Szabo
French Resistance
Tortured and killed, Ravensbrück, 1945
abigail padgett 
You are so right,It atsounds me that otherwise lovely people have fallen for his (there really is hardly a word) visciousness.
Resistance!
Those “otherwise lovely people” have revealed the fact that they were never “lovely” at all, just hateful and/or hopelessly stupid.
Thank you for expressing my despair.
Despair can be so crushing that it immobilizes. Let it morph into relentless, focused outrage and fight back! So far the Resistance has no leadership, but it will.
When I woke up the morning after the election, I checked the election results on my nook devise. I thought it must be wrong, so I took my shower and got ready for the day, pushing the feeling of dread to the back of my mind. When I read the newspaper later, I still couldn’t believe it. I kept hoping that it would change as the final counts came in. I still can’t believe that enough people voted for that unprincipled braggart to make him president. The people he is appointing to office just enforce that feeling of dread. The only bright spot is that he is in for just 4 years. I hope he doesn’t get voted in again. His policies will make more “homegrown” terrorists out of muslim Americans who will be openly harassed by trump supporters. The best he has been able to come up with as a deterrent to the open expressions of hate is to say “stop”. Just the one wimpy “stop”!
If this nightmare isn’t somehow derailed before the beast is inaugurated, he won’t stay for four years. He never expected or wanted to win the election, just to feed his bottomless narcissism in the media-fed frenzy of the campaign. He can’t perform even the most basic tasks of the presidency, is clueless about the job and doesn’t want it. Watch. Within a year he’ll come up with some excuse to bail, leaving religious fanatic Mike Pence as president, which was Pence’s (and probably the RNC’s) idea all along. The only hope for our country is to prevent the beast’s inauguration. It probably won’t happen, but good and competent people are desperately trying.
Thank you Abby- with tears and power. Let réseau.
I keep thinking about how Ace would have reacted to this nightmare. Contrary to all expectations of a moody guy, he was frequently icily rational and blunt. He’d come up with a plan to obliterate the monster and restore Hillary’s presidency. And who knows, it might actually work. But Ace is gone and so far nobody’s scraped together anything remotely resembling salvation. Damn!
Did you incite, participate and condone the riots, burning of the American flag and threats to kill Donald Trump? Does Hillary Clinton support these actions?
If I understand correctly, you believe Donald Trump is an Adolf Hitler.
You have a picture of WWII SOE Violette Reine Elizabeth Szabo (née Bushell; 26 June 1921 – c. 5 February 1945) was a French-born British Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent during the Second World War and a posthumous recipient of the George Cross. On her second mission into occupied France, Szabo was captured by the German army, interrogated, tortured and deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany, where she was executed.
Why is Szabo the only woman you mentioned?
You talk about fighting back, what exactly is being battled? What is your plan, how much violence, life and property loss do you anticipate and what will it accomplish win or lose?
Hillary Clinton, as you already know, is opposed to all irrational, unproductive political action. I, personally, do not incite, participate in or condone “riots,” but definitely support political demos and marches These are naturally the purview of the young, whose responsibility it is to personify ideas. No longer a pup, my role now is to celebrate and support them.
The similarity between this horror and that evolving in Germany in the late 1920s and 1930s is hardly a “belief” but rather a fact. Economic crisis leading to the rise of a megalomaniac alpha-male leader who promises the impossible on a platform of nationalist racism. Trump adds a toxic misogyny and profoundly dangerous denial of climate change. I don’t think Trump is an Adolph Hitler. The two are very different, but the base from which both have risen is the same. Trump never expected or wanted to win, is completely incapable of doing the job and knows it. He’ll stay around long enough to secure whatever he can for himself through the power of the office and then find some excuse to bail. Hitler didn’t quit.
I know who Szabo was and included her as an icon of resistance. One was enough to make the point.
What must be “battled” is an overnight obliteration of every value on which this country rests at the hands of a narcissistic, self-serving con man surrounded by a motely crew of racist misfits with no background in government or diplomacy, chosen to placate his base while he makes personal deals behind the smokescreen. Trump is a clever magician, endlessly distracting the masses (with tweets, etc.) on the superficial, pop culture level while using the power of his presumptive position to expand his personal empire, unobserved.
If this desperately dangerous farce isn’t stopped before Jan. 20, it will be nearly impossible to prevent the ruin of my country. I don’t have a “plan,” I’m not a politician. I’m a writer and the only thing I can do is to write in support of what must now and quickly emerge – resistance. IF nothing is done to derail Trump’s inauguration, there is no other option and I will resist everything he does (before he walks away when he’s milked the office for every billion-dollar deal he can make, leaving us with a government in chaos and a religious fanatic running it) for the rest of my life.
It’s clear that you represent another perspective of some kind, maybe even pro-Trump, and I welcome your comments. In my entire circle of contacts here and abroad there has been until you not a single voice that isn’t shocked and horrified by Trump. We all live in bubbles. Now I can say I heard from another bubble.
Abigail, I appreciate your response.
In my opinion, each presidential election seems to bring a greater divide within the United States.
Are you related to Szabo? I used her wiki information as others might not know who she was.
Not related to Szabo. Wish I were! Countries, groups, families are always divided over countless issues and perspectives. Divisions are normal. What’s abnormal is that in this election the necessary façade of civility was smashed under the heel of a seething undercurrent of male supremacy, white supremacy, fear of “the other,” right-wing religious fanaticism and blind greed. The sickening promotion of these traditionally controlled factors makes this election unlike any other in American history. It is shameful, crushing to the spirit of the country. The divide is between a last hope for civility, the façade essential to all human interaction, and wholesale capitulation to every deplorable aspect of human nature. Trump has created a cultural hell from which his wealth will protect him. He doesn’t care. The only honorable thing for the rest of us to do is to fight back, resist. My hope now is for the recount and/or electors with sufficient courage to risk literal death by casting their votes for Hillary. Neither is likely, but then neither was this nightmare. We’ll see.