[JonInMiddleGA]

Okay, I'd say it's as official as it gets until January so I'll sum it up.

Without question, it's the darkest day in our nation's history, no pun particularly intended. The lowest point we ever descended to, and perhaps the first time I've truly been ashamed to be an American. We have no one to blame but ourselves for it ultimately, decades upon decades of mistakes & missteps all leading to this moment.

While I believe a good bit of the blame rightfully rests at the feet of those who came before us, I can't deny that this ultimately happened on our watch. We allowed the utterly clueless to put the equally clueless in charge and barring a miracle, or even a series of miracles, we'll never reach or even approach greatness again. Mediocrity, or much much worse, is officially the new standard and that isn't something that's easily overcome because the reality is that mediocre regenerates faster than greatness.

It's sad, but it is what it is. Defeated and without any reasonable degree of hope, all that's left is to fight to the end & deny the enemy as much of the spoils as possible. Maybe there's at least enough backbone left to do a decent job of that.

That's about all the emotion you're likely to get out of me tonight, subpar rant though it may be, I'm simply too sad to do rage very well. And I'm not planning to deny myself whatever pleasure I might find in playing with the numbers, screwing around with the hypotheticals, and fantasizing about the scenarios in which we might manage to survive this disaster but (to the disappointment of my liberal friends I'm sure) I definitely won't be holding my breath for them to take place. I'll just get what good I can get from it & leave the rest.