I voted for Clinton this morning so that a proud fascist is not elected President of my country. Trump’s very candidacy as the Republican nominee is a wake-up call for all of us. The reality that more than 40% of my fellow Americans will vote today for a proud racist who has no understanding of the Constitution is hard to deal with. But Trump will lose today because he has embraced the absolute worst aspects of our collective reality. It’s a good thing to shine the light of day on the seamiest parts of our nature in the process of rejecting them. Trump has been more honest than his recent Republican predecessors, who quietly tolerated racism and catered to the hate groups with coded language. We need to remember Trump when GOP leaders revert back to this slightly more subtle form of bigotry, and we need to remember the progressive vision that Bernie Sanders crystallized for us this year as we aggressively challenge the new President to move in that direction.

I’m thinking today of my mother and all of the women in my family. Women are voting today who were born before members of their sex were allowed to vote in this country. This is a long overdue step forward for our country. I was proud to vote twice for the first African American President, and I’m proud to vote today for the first female President. I had been feeling that historical significance of today’s vote was being lost in the horrific backwash of Trump’s campaign, but a friend recently signed me up as a token male member of an overwhelmingly female pro-Clinton Facebook group, and it’s been truly moving to read the posts by these women explaining what this election means to them. This is the significance I’ll try to take away from this election--not the dark, odious spectre of homegrown fascism.