I’ve been in California since Saturday and will be here for the rest of the week. Susan had a break-in last week, so I’ve been here providing moral support and working from the mother ship in Emeryville. Turns out after yesterday I might be the one needing moral support.

I gave up hope pretty early on while watching election coverage, mainly because Bush was clearly carrying the popular vote. This more than anything reinforces that I’m living as a minority, in a country where the majority believe things I don’t, things that Bush stands for: that gay marriage is wrong; that Saddam Hussein orchestrated the 9/11 attacks in New York; that America has a right to go to war based on the flimsiest of evidence; that a cluster of unthinking embryonic cells is more important than saving lives.

Bush made “moral values” central to the election and the American public lapped it up. 51% of Americans said, by voting for Bush: we don’t care about accountability, the environment, the economy, the war, foreign policy, separation of church and state, heck the rest of the world. I am a coward. I am never leaving for vacation again without a red maple leaf on my backpack.