Yes, being in a community of grievers helps. Haven't determined if so much of the electorate is ignorant or stupid.  Maybe, some of each, differences being in the proportions. Apparently, some civically untethered thought Joe Biden was on the ballot.  And, then there were those who voted to include the right to abortion in their state constitutions, but then voted for the guy who  made it necessary to do so.  Go figure.

So, I'm still processing what happened. There's a lot that simply doesn't make any sense unless I turn into a crackpot conspiracy theorist myself and then, they're coming to take me away, ha-ha, they're coming to take me away, hee-hee, ho-ho, etc. And I refuse to go there.

Anyway, take all the time you need to self-nurture the soul and recalibrate your trajectory. We probably all need to do that.

At my age, there are only so many years left and I'll be damned if I'm going to spend them covering Trump or his family or his actions.

Politics and democracy will take at least one generation if not to to recover from the morons who pushed him to power: the billionaires and the malcontents.

I'm not stopping blogging just developing my new interests and figuring out how to fit them all under one umbrella.

And that thought process was six-days-before-Sunday stupid. He can surely take comfort in Trump's rationalization that "it doesn't cost $60,000 to bury a f---ing Mexican."

The US Constitution is done. Not worth the paper it is printed on. SCOTUS has already proved that.

In the case of friends and relatives, it is worth the effort to maintain relationships, although I do not subscribe to "when they go low, we go high", despite my admiration for Michelle Obama. Continued interactions would be a good effort, but a vacation may be a lot of togetherness if there are tensions.

I give it maybe a year before a majority, outside of the religious fantatics and the Murdoch brown-nosers at Fox, start having buyer's remorse.

I still say a lot of this is the result of a kind of upsurge of an undiagnosed post-Covid mental disorder.

Brains are broken in this country, there's no getting around it.

According to him, she turned to her father and said, "You can go phuque yourself, Dad!", then immediately gathered her two kids, left the house and has since refused to answer or return phone calls from her parents other than to decline her mother's invitation to come for both Thanksgiving dinner AND Christmas.

So, I met my other cousin for coffee in Chicago (they live in the city on the north side) and she said her father (my uncle) "never used to be so phuquing intolerant of others' opinions until Trump came along", and she's now decided that she doesn't want to expose her children (ages 9 and 11) to it any longer, given how impressionable they are. "Dad's only gotten worse over the last eight years," she said, "and it's not going to get better with that man back in office."

The first and most immediate consequence to MAGA Republicans of Trump's re-election will likely be the fallout within their own families and circles of acquaintances. The rifts will become very real as many non-MAGA folks start to reprioritize their own relationships and emotional needs in the wake of what just happened. If they do eventually choose to re-engage with MAGA individuals, it will likely be on a select and limited basis and entirely on their own terms.

So, as I said earlier, take your time, Cap'n. Nobody else can best look out for No. 1 other than yourself. You know what's best for you, and there's no need for explanation or apology for deciding to self-nurture for awhile.