The sky is black, and we are very small

That's what we said about Columbus - where now there are people walking around in Nazi Schutzstaffel jackets with swastika tattoos on their necks like in some towns in rural Ohio - like the town my wife is from. Both our states went Red this election. I think it has emboldened some people who want to take their country back (to the dark ages). If I was going to move states again, I'd probably go back home to Vermont, or some other part of New England (it would be nice to be close to my family... but not TOO close).

It's MRS. Galaxy, and I'd like to keep it that way. Remember America (and the rest of the world's economies) just *barely* survived the last right-wing majority congress, supreme court, and president who were at least theoretically "moderate". Now there's no pretense of moderation. KANSAS. They said they want to model the economy after Kansas - the state that unimpeded Republican economic policy plunged into bankruptcy so deep they had to auction off confiscated sex toys to pay for basic government services. My wife heard someone quoting "Hey, we survived Reagan", and someone she knew replied, "The next time I hear someone say that I'm going to strangle them with the AIDS quilt." That's the thing, there are 'certain kinds of people' who don't get to weather the storm the way everybody else does. Thank all-powerful Atheismo we're white. I know we'd be getting a lot more trouble if we weren't. Non-white folks at my wife's campus have been getting a lot of trouble from Red-Hats. But, because of Pence, LGBT people are high on the list of "first they came for"s. They've already drafted legislation to, if not take away our marriage, make its legal power all but non-existent. They're not even in yet and they've already drafted that, so we're already on the chopping block. They've also said they would get rid of all LGBT protection passed under Obama, some of which (thanks to childish congressional Republicans stonewalling) was done by his executive orders - which the new administration is keen to remove as soon as possible. My wife's got a lot of fight in her, and so does her family, to their credit (her parents were Republicans for many years until the present election). I'm a little worried she'll abandon our plans to tuck tail and flee, in order to stay and help other people. She's been to almost every local protest, she comes home late at night, hoarse, with new horror stories of shitty counter-protestors or new reports of hate crimes and harassment on campus. I don't want any of that. I'm not that young, I've never been outspoken, I honestly try to avoid hearing about most of this stuff so my heart doesn't put me back in the hospital. I'd really rather lay low. But we'll see. I'm getting my papers in order regardless.

We don't speak Spanish, but we may be open to non-English-speaking countries if necessary. In the end it won't be up to me, it'll be up to who wants to give my wife a job as a scientist (and in what countries it's legal to make porn). ^_^'''

I forgot to add this: In geologic time, nothing ANY human does has any meaning at all. And if you must move look at Madison Wis, (my hometown) or the Twin Cities Metro (Minneapolis/St. Paul Minn. ) Very progressive places with open minds.

Another dull, boring white male, Army veteran, adding to the responses. I did not vote for the new Satan. America survived Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. America will survive Donny. However, Ms Galaxy, please don't leave US. The next 4 years may be far more challenging than ever in post WWII US. America is going to need young, intelligent, out spoken, people to get involved in (legal) resistance, political parties, local politics, etc., etc., etc. Don't run away, fight!

Although Spain is currently not in its best economical shape, is very LGTB-friendly, with an annual gay-pride parade festival. Also, free health-care system ;)

Atramedes Verzathion

I know plenty of people aren't going to take it lying down. My wife's already been out protesting multiple times (and seen some very nasty, very racist, misogynist shit from the other side while she was out there, unsurprisingly).

1. That solar system map is where I learned about the scale of distances I mentioned in the post! It has always amazed me how much of everything is just empty space (whether the empty space between planets, or the empty space within atoms - where if the nucleus of an atom was a ball in a stadium, the electrons would be grains of sand circling around the outermost nosebleed seats). 2. It was a good post. Your first link is something every "innocent" Trump supporter should read. I'm not interested in letting them forget what they've enabled in this country. It sounds just like what my wife has described at her college campus - young men in Trump hats following women around, harassing them, standing en masse outside the dormroom door of a Latina student (an American citizen I think) shouting at her to get of this country. These people have a bizarre notion of what making America "great again" entails. For fuck's sake. I agree that the Democrats are the best alternative *currently* - I found I had to talk down a lot of people who wanted to vote for a third party. As I said at the time, those aren't parties. They are one-in-a-million protest-vote shots at the presidency. You don't build a party from the president down. What they need to do is to spend YEARS building a base, fielding candidates for local and state offices, getting state congresspeople, mayors, maybe some governors, and national senators and congresspeople if they can. ONLY when they have all that, will they have a base of support and legitimacy that will actually give them a shot and make them anything more than a spoiler vote, or a middle finger vote. BUT I don't see the Greens or any of the third parties interested in actually doing that work on the ground. And until they do, they have no chance - and even if by some miracle, one of them got elected to the presidency, they'd go into Washington with no support in the houses of Congress, none in the Supreme Court, and if they didn't follow the agenda the major national parties wanted anyway, they'd just get stonewalled for four years and look like a "do-nothing" president - which would hurt their chances of ever being taken seriously again. I'd love to see the Greens put that actual work into politics, but until they do, the Democrats - warts and all - are the only alternative to a Republican party that has gone farther and farther right over the years. 3. D'AWWWWW! KITTEEEEEZE! ^_^

Three things for you. 1. Speaking of space and how it makes us feel very small and insecure, here's a TO SCALE map of the solar system: <a href="http://www.joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html</a> The scale has the Moon equivalent to one pixel (thus the name of the page). The empty space between worlds is filled with the occasional fact and philosophical musing. It's worth scrolling ALL the way to the right. 2. I've put up a "What next?" post at my own blog: <a href="http://pureblather.com/2016/11/10/our-long-national-nightmare/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://pureblather.com/2016/11/10/our-long-national-nightmare/</a> Page views and comments are appreciated. 3. Because kittens always help, here's a live streaming web cam at a cat rescue facility: <a href="http://kitten.academy/live-stream/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://kitten.academy/live-stream/</a>

rtpoe

I send my best of hopes towards all the sane people over in the US... hoping there will be a solution to this disaster.

Sheenariel

My wife, despite having friends in Oz, is scared of going there because of poisonous animals and fire tornadoes... I don't think the cities have many of those though. We've talked about New Zealand. It seems comfortably far away from all our country's new anti-NATO pro-Russia possible-nuking-things rhetoric. We're likely to end up in Canada in the near future, just because it's easier to move a few hundred miles away, than a few thousand. I love George Takei. And he's right, things have changed a lot during that time... maybe with a "two steps forward, one step back" kind of approach. Even I've seen massive social changes in the United States and in the world during my lifetime. The fact that gay marriage is a thing that even exists to be taken away (even if it's taken away for a while), is pretty amazing, and it was absolutely unthinkable when I was growing up. If you look at history, religious fundamentalist nutjobs do occasionally collapse and regress entire civilizations rather than accept that their institutions have become oppressive and their beliefs are outdated by the standards of the time... I HOPE that's not happening here, and realistically, it's probably not. There are too many people now who will fight for the future, instead of for the past.

It's funny, the Republicans think the Democrat half of the country hates America and wants to destroy it. I'm sure it's because we mean different things when we say "America". But the economy is already tanking in response to the election, that's for sure, and of course it will - it does even under the care of SMART Republicans (not that I'm saying Democrats are necessarily blameless, pure, or competent, themselves). I hope everything will be mostly okay. Probably a lot more will be, than in the worst-case-scenarios we're currently running through our heads. We're not taking chances - the far-right chopping block includes Muslims, Latinos, immigrants in general, and LGBT people, and we don't know yet what order they'll be in - so we're definitely going to invest in a strategic retreat. Maybe we'll end up somewhere unexpected and interesting. O_O

Actually, I can agree with that. At it's best, it's a really awesome country - but it can also be really shitty at moments, and this is one of those moments. It'll pass, and probably relatively soon. We're definitely high-tailing it while our marriage license is still valid, with a religious fundie career douchebag like Pence getting a "mandate". But our families will be here (mostly), and all the worst and best memories of our pasts... and hopefully my wife will be able to start a solid career that affords us the ability to travel (also as a side note, she wants to have tons of babies... and still have a career so at some point I'm going to be the stay-at-home mom &gt;_

Hey, no badmouthing straight white dudes, you guys are my biggest supporters. ^_^ I appreciate the sympathy, but as bothered as I am by the current state of affairs (and the likely immediate future) in our country, I'm not going to let this cast me into another pit of despair - I've spent too much time being miserable in the past few years as it is. I really think we'll end up being okay. Actually... especially after seeing the gloating of some of the most "deplorable" of Trump's supporters on the internet, I'd never give them the satisfaction of crying over this. It's really just time to get to work, with some grim determination. You don't know how to help? You're already helping. You're supporting me on Patreon, this is one of the ways I need to raise money. So thank you!

Discrimination might be hard to pull off, but with a president (who said he might "leave the work of running the country" to someone else, probably his far-right religious fundamentalist vice-president), and senate, and congress, and soon, a supreme court supportive of a mid to far-right agenda, changing the laws that defend against discrimination won't be hard at all. We live in a very LGBT-friendly city, but it's in a swing state that swung Red in this election... as with most cities outside California or the Northeast, it's a "blue spot on a red tablecloth". In general there's been a lot of backlash against social progress recently - far-right and even openly fascist (and even openly neo-Nazi) politicians and parties have been springing up all over what I'd still like to consider the "civilized world"... So, we may be in for years of some losses and backtracking, even if the overall historical trend (on the scale of decades and centuries) is toward more peaceful coexistence. I think WE will be okay in the short term, we've got supportive families, and options for taking care of ourselves. I think THINGS will be okay in general, eventually, even if it feels a little bleak for the moment. It's really just a blip on the scale of history, and may be little more than a blip on the scale of a lifetime.

I'd like to say come here to Australia, but we also have a dickhead in charge. New Zealand is fairly safe for the moment though. The best things I've seen written in the past few days have been from George Takei, when he mentions how far things have progressed in his life, despite some of the backwards steps that take place. As a child he was locked in a camp because his family was from Japan, where as now he is married to his white husband. I've seen people theorize about Trump, and talk of him as the lesser of two evils. regardless of what Hilary may or may not have done, Trump is the one who has threatened people I know and supports people who want harm them. I find that very hard to forgive. Aside from that, lots of hugs/puppies/kittens/whatever. Take a break, go camping, curl up with your wife and watch a movie and most importantly look after yourself.

Ben

I share your frustration over the current state of the election. Yet again the majority of the country choose a democrat but it's the unqualified republican that becomes president. The last one almost crashed the world economy and people STILL think unintelligent Republicans would make good presidents? I'm starting to think that the Republican half of the country actually hates America and wants to destroy it. If that's what they want to do Trump seems like a good choice for many of the reasons you mentioned and more. Even though I'm a straight white male, I'm scared. I see the train wreck that's coming but can't do much myself to stop it. I see so much suffering now and even more to happen in the near future and I can't do much about it. For what it's worth though there are good people out there that fight the good fight and aim for a more loving, peaceful world. So many people could be happy if they just wanted it more than the illusion of power or being "right". I wish you and your wife peace and happiness, wherever you decide to go. While I will continue to fight and support progressive movements, I feel the most I can offer you directly is my love an support. May it bring you peace and gladness.

swerner

Relax, you are overreacting (typical artistic response.) It is not a shitty country.

louis henderson

I'm sure any words of encouragement may feel shallow in the face of the massive shit we're all going to face soon, but damn, I gotta try something. I say this as a lame straight white dude - I feel so terrible you feel so bad. Reading the internet, I read about so many people scared about the results of this shitty election - and as a guy who can call himself "a goddamn war vet", I just feel sad and I don't know how to help. I honestly don't know what to say, what to do - and it makes me feel terrible. This is bad and horrible and wrong and I think the only thing we can do is talk with each other. Together we can help each other. United we stand, I guess. All of us is stronger than one of us.

Bud Chudley

I am greatly saddened by the situation you and your wife find yourselves in. I sincerely hope that despite recent events progress on LGBT rights, amongst other rights, are not thrown back fifty years. For what it is worth, Trump appears to have lost the popular vote, so I would say there is a very large group in this country that does not agree with him and thus your family still has a ton of allies here. Furthermore, anti-LGBT efforts have been hit with nasty backlashes in recent times (see the effect on North Carolina in regards to NCAA Basketball). My idealistic conclusion is that culture is still progressing towards finally treating everyone based on their actions and character instead of who they love or how they look. Also, nationwide discrimination is going to be rather hard to pull off when literally 50% of the country is probably against it, and the number is probably even higher since not everyone who voted for Trump did so because of his social stances. Stay strong Galaxy. Those hoping for anti-LGBT-fest 2017 will be greatly disappointed at how much flak they will receive, and that flak will only grow each day.

sblgpfan