happy voting day, america!

I’m sitting here thinking that it’s impossible for Trump to win today’s presidential election. Not a chance. I mean, let’s face it, the guy’s a buffoon. But then, I thought the same thing about Brexit four months ago. I remember feeling shocked, absolutely stunned at the news that early morning back in June. I didn’t realise that I was living in a bubble. A London bubble, surrounded by open-minded, multicultural, non-divisive people. A beacon of light. I just assumed that the rest of England felt the same way.

For those of you old enough to remember the Superman earthquake scene, when the San Andreas Fault cracked wide open, like the teeth of an alligator, and swallowed Lois Lane and her little red car whole? That’s kind of what Brexit felt like. A giant divisive crack in the earth’s core between those who voted to remain and those who voted to leave.

I’m not a political writer. Never have been. Politics were my dad’s domain and he used to get red in the face ranting about them so perhaps that turned me off of the whole thing. Not to mention that I can read bullshit fluently, I can spot it from a thousand miles and the amount of bullshit being produced in political circles is more than I can stomach.

But I do know what it feels like to wake up with a punch in the gut. To feel like we turned the clock back on 40 years of history. I’m all for patriotism, for feeling a sense of pride in one’s country (hell, I’ll always be Canadian in my heart, I love my country) but I’m also a citizen of the world and with all the war and the terrorism and the bullying and the hate, I had hoped, perhaps idealistically, that we had learned our lessons, that we were becoming more global, that maybe we were evolving as a species. But man, some days you guys, I feel like we’re just heading right back to the dark ages.

Still, there is always hope. So good luck today, American friends. May love and kindness and compassion guide you at the polls on this historical day. I truly hope that you don’t wake up tomorrow morning feeling like you’ve been punched in the gut by a hamster-headed sexist (which is neither a loving, nor kind, nor compassionate statement but it is the least profane one that I’ve got at the moment.)

Go on, America! Do us proud.