What does a the Donald presidency look like? In two months the big top will roll into town and we will see.

The three ring circus he brings will consist of both chambers of congress and an unknown Dr. Stuffitz in the supreme court. Get ready to bend over.

With well fewer than half the voting public sticking up their thumbs for the Donald, the majority of us are right to feel wronged. Only 59,233,335 voted for the man who called our system rigged; contrast that with the 59,419,852 who voted for Hillary, the four million who voted for Johnson, and the 2 million or so who cast votes in other directions. Almost 66 million of us refused to ride this awful circus caravan, and it turns out Trump’s “rigged system” was rigged to his delight.

I will now do the dishonorable thing of quoting myself to you. I do so because I dread the fact that the light has gone out again in America, re-creating the conditions we had in the days after 9/11 when the ignorance, fear, and hatred emanating from limited quarters brought us to a disastrous war in Iraq.

In this excerpt from Two Pumps for the Body Man, Security Chief Jeff Mutton departs the consulate he is sworn to protect in Saudi Arabia soon after five heavily armed terrorists storm his compound, take hostages, and kill staff. This is what he sees:

During his ascent out of the Kingdom he saw how dark the country was: a breathtaking darkness just shy of infinite. The bright cluster of city lights ended abruptly, surrounded by a desert of black into which he had no hope of seeing. For all the wealth it generated, the Kingdom remained a vast, unanswered space. In this empty quarter the perpetrators of 9/11 had been swaddled and raised, trained to believe, trained not to think. Nothing could enlighten this place. The generations of hearts and minds that stewed under the scorching sun of this desert shared no communion with civilization. They belonged to themselves. They belonged to a version of Islam incompatible with today. They belonged to the 7^th century.

Twenty-four hours later Mutton sailed above the great American Homeland. He saw a similar blackness: a swath of America that was wasteland, emptiness producing ignorance, excess producing an unchecked will to consume and destroy. A desert. The two worlds, polar opposites, had come to the same end. Religious zealotry. Bigoted xenophobia. Ignorance. Bloodlust. Had Mutton’s flight arrived in New York, approaching the cavities on its skyline, he might have felt only rage against the Kingdom. But he connected in Detroit and as he took the final descent through the abundant desert darkness toward the unholy light of Vegas, Mutton was driven toward understanding and recognition of the human frailty of both nations.

In his first act as president elect, the ringmaster has called for unity after campaigning entirely on lines intended to highlight what divides us—US as Americans; US as members of humanity.

If I wish for his ultimate success, its because I love my country. It’s because I recognize our human frailty but believe we can work past it. It’s because I know, ultimately, that our nation is stronger than its weakest parts.

I stand with the 66 million who did not vote for the Donald. And I know that 4 years after the Cubs won the World Series in 1908, Republican William H. Taft was tossed out on his ear.