There will be the inevitable attempts to downplay the threat of a second Trump presidency, but this time we need to take Trump both seriously and literally. We can expect Trump to begin a massive purge of the federal workforce, and begin the process of mass deportations. The reign of Stephen Miller, Elon Musk and RFK, Jr. will begin. Trump will pardon the January 6 rioters, and summarily fire the prosecutors who tried to hold him accountable. Having been immunized by the Supreme Court, he will instruct the DOJ to go after his political opponents. He will abandon Ukraine and begin the process of weakening our alliances. A newly empowered Trump will gut or kill Obamacare outright, while imposing massive new tariffs on the economy.

We also know that the guardrails will not hold, because they did not hold before. If they had, none of this would have happened. Neither the impeachment process nor the justice system blocked his return to power. And now the ultimate guardrail has failed.

Whatever the final outcome, the American people (or enough of them) have returned him to power. In the end, nothing mattered. Not the sexual assaults, the lies, the sedition, or the felonies. Not the raw bigotry of his campaign, not insults, nor the threats. In the most graphic terms imaginable, the American people were warned of the danger. His loyal vice president refused to endorse him; his top general called him a "total fascist"; some of his closest aides and cabinet members described his erratic character and his indifference to the Constitution.

But in the end, Trump was right. He could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and not lose any votes. But, we know now that it was worse. He stood at the center of our politics and incited a violent mob to attack the Capitol. It didn't matter. And it didn't matter that he tried to overturn a free and fair election. It didn't matter that he he was found liable of raping a woman; and it didn't matter that he had called for terminating the Constitution to restore him to power. And it didn't matter when he called for the execution of Liz Cheney, threatened to use the military against his fellow Americans, or lied about migrants eatings cats and dogs; or called the United States a "garbage country."

This is the hardest part about today: realizing that our fellow Americans saw all of that; watched all of that; listened to all of that, and said, "Yes, that's what we want." That's who we are.

"And black people, you are next." -

First there was this ...