I’ve had a week to digest what happened last Tuesday night, a week to wrap my head around this thing. I got nothing.

Donald Trump won. Is shouldn’t be that hard to handle. Donald fricking Trump won. He’s going to be President of the United States.

I mean, I guess I’m a little angry, though it’s hard to pinpoint at who (or whom). There’s definitely some depression in there, too.

Disappointed? No question. Uneasy? Yep. Stunned? Abso-fricking-lutely.

Mostly, though, I got nothing.

Here’s an example of my week: A few nights ago, after I sleep-walked (slept-walked?) through a day at the computer, I watched 45 minutes of a Tom Cruise movie on TV. It was the one where he gets killed by some aliens in some future war and wakes up the next day and has to start the day all over again. I didn’t move a damn muscle for that whole 45 minutes. Not sure I even blinked. Didn’t understand a single thing that was going on, either.

Maybe that’s not me. Maybe that’s Tom Cruise.

Whatever, that’s where I am right now. A little numb. A little bummed. A little out of it.

And now I’m faced with this:

Should I just shut up about it, accept the outcome, quit my cry-baby liberal-ass sore-loser whining, throw my support behind the fairly elected Commander-in-Chief and give the guy a chance, like President Obama says I should? You know, for the good of the country?

My brothers and sister — I hear them now — all are saying, “Suck it up, you bleeding-heart wimp.” Friends of mine, both liberal and conservative, are saying, “Yep. Let it go already. It’s done. Nothing you can do about it.”

Pretty much everybody is sick of this thing by now, right? Let’s just move on and hope for the best, OK?

But … no. Absolutely not. No way. No fricking way.

Moving on not so easy

Look, I don’t want to keep writing about politics. I don’t want to keep thinking about politics. If there’s one thing all of us in this on-its-ear country can agree on, it’s that politics suck.The whole dang circus. Sucks.

But I cannot — you know I’m serious because I’m spelling out “cannot” — in any kind of conscience support a man who talked the way Donald Trump talked, who said the things he said and who threatens to do what he threatens to do. I didn’t vote for the guy in the first place. Now I’m supposed to say, “OK, you won, forgive and forget”?

Nope. Can’t do it. Won’t do it.

I don’t agree with him on the issues. Any issue. I don’t like his attitude. I don’t like his sense of entitlement. I don’t like when he calls people — people whose only crime is to think differently than he does — stupid or liars or crooked or losers.

I don’t think he’s smart enough to make the tough decisions. I don’t think he’s smart enough to put the right people around him to help him make the tough decisions. I don’t think he has a clue of what he’s getting into.

I think he’s potentially dangerous.

Do I hope I’m wrong? Sure. Absolutely. With my whole heart I do.

I hope President Donald Trump is kind and generous and honest. I hope he is measured in his tone and actions, respectful to all people, open-armed to those in need and open-minded about other cultures. I hope he’s environmentally responsible and reasonable with those who disagree with him. I hope President Trump is thoughtful and reserved and interested in serving his country. I hope he is a good man.

After about the 10th time, I was hoping Tom Cruise would just stay dead in that damn movie, too.

He made this mess …

The problem is, Donald Trump can’t be one thing in the election, say all those awful things he said, and be another thing in office.

From John Oliver’s epic (and spot-on) post-election post-mortem (linked here and embedded below):

[W]hile some are arguing that Trump might not have meant all those things, that leaves us with two devastating options: Either we just elected a president who didn’t mean a single word he said, or we elected one who did.

I guess the thing is, I just wanted us to be better than Donald Trump. That’s all. I wanted us to rise above his clownish bullying, his scowling, his lying and his scare tactics. Instead, we have someone who says he will deport people and turn away refugees, someone who wants to let the rich get richer and who threatens to pull the very basics away from the needy. Someone who endangers peace. Someone who has shown as much compassion for his fellow man as a snake has for a baby iguana.

I want to blame this on poor white folk and redneck racists. But it was liberal douches who thought the election was preordained, too. Minorities that didn’t care. The media. Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump.

The fact is, we did this. All of us. Our society picked a mean, old, rich, maybe not very smart white guy who lives in a literal tower with his name on it to represent us.

And we have to fix it. As soon as possible.

What lies ahead

I do have realistic hope for a Donald Trump presidency. It goes like this:

I hope people stay angry, me included. I hope we take a long look at ourselves, all of us, reach out to those who are hurting — including many who voted for Trump — and realize that the answer isn’t in shutting people out but understanding each other.

I hope Democrats fight Trump, the Republican Congress and their reckless policies as hard as the Republicans fought President Obama. Harder, even. I hope Republicans who see Trump as dangerous — and yes, there are some of them — grow a spine and stand up for what is right and decent.

I hope the media is fair, honest, absolutely ruthless and totally unbowed, and holds Trump accountable for every misstep. I hope people blinded by his BS finally see through him, and that it doesn’t take something disastrous to open their eyes.

Most of all, I hope Donald Trump’s presidency is short-lived. And I hope that he doesn’t screw the world up so badly that the next guy in line — or, maybe, the next woman — can’t fix it.