So the election’s over and Donald J. Trump won, even though at this writing, it’s looking like Hillary Clinton,  may come out winning the  popular vote, much like fellow Dem Al Gore in 2000.  All over the Blue States people are clutching their heads and wailing, and I must admit I lost some sleep last night too, staying up late to watch the returns and laying awake wide-eyed, contemplating what it all means. The end of the two-party system? The return to institutionalized racism? The acceleration of global warming? Another stock market convulsion? The collapse of democracy and the world economy?

The improbable has suddenly become possible. How could a country that has elected someone as elegantly intelligent and steadfast as Barack Obama spin a one-hundred-eighty and end up with someone as bombastic and narcissistic as the thin-skinned Trump? You ask me, it was inevitable.

Hello–American and French Revolutions. Hello–American Civil War. Hello–Brexit. People pushed down, can only take so much pressure.  It’s not that I agree with the method, but Trump is only a symptom, not the disease. There is a real income inequality in not only this nation, but in all of Western Civilization, and the Middle Class, once the shining symbol of our economic affluence, has contracted to the point of breaking.  Like a bridge without suspension, its collapsed under its own weight.

But like Barack Obama said last night, “the sun will rise in the morning.” But it’s a cloudy day in New Jersey, and a little while it started to rain. Still, I’m not losing hope. Not completely, that is. Being a bit of an optimist, I’m trying to remain so.  The comedians will have at least four years of good material. Alec Baldwin must be especially happy.  The Republicans won’t have the Dems to blame anything on now, and they’ll have to perform. Here in New Jersey, we have a new governor to elect next year. Perhaps we’ll get the chance sooner if Christie finds a place with the new administration. (Fingers crossed.)

As for me, I have a new book to write. I’ve been zipping right along with NaNoWriMo, making great word count, and the ideas have just been flowing.  It’s set in Atlantic City in 1983, back when the new casinos were rising, back when The Donald had two of them and Ivana was doing the decorating.  If anything, the A.C. of then and the A.C. of now makes great copy, and being a veteran of the casino scene of yore, I have some of my own truths to tell. You see, with distance come clarity and back then, as with now, once you sift through all the noise, the flotsam and jetsam, the hyperbole and the shouting you can get at the truth. Things always get clearer in the light of day, after the sun rises in the morning.