I happened to read Kevin Baker’s opinion piece in the New York Times Sunday Review today, titled The America We Lost When Trump Won, where he states, (referring to the outcome of the election in November):

Today’s passive, unhappy Americans sat on their couches and chose a strutting TV clown…

as the 45th President of the United States. Damn, I think I just threw up in my mouth.

Baker begins his missive by saying:

NO, I’m not over it.

and I have to agree with him. I’m not even close to getting over the grave disservice 62,979,636 of my fellow Americans selfishly inflicted on the entire nation by casting their ballots for that idiotic, preening, self-absorbed, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, narcissistic a**hole on November 8th. In fact, I’ll go so far to say I’ll never get over it.

Donald J. Trump is not my President. He never will be. But the real tragedy is he never should’ve been nominated, let alone elected, in the first place. You see, those passive, unhappy, couch potatoes Mr. Baker referred to fell for the con, the countless lies, the blatant conceit; they fell hard and they fell fast.

…and if Spicer’s dubious debut is any indication of what we can expect, I’ll also mourn the total loss of civility, humility, decency, integrity and yes, even basic common sense emanating from the White House Briefing Room for the next four years. Nobody – and I do mean nobody – is going to convince me otherwise.

Mr. Baker continues:

Yet when I say that I have lost the America I knew, I’m not talking about policy, or even fundamental rights, disorienting as their loss would be. I mean a greater, almost spiritual faith that I had in my fellow citizens and their better instincts, something that served as my north star…

The America where my working-class parents lived and loved – the America where I was born and raised – has been lost. No, it was not lost decades ago, nor was it lost even a few short years ago. Rather, it was lost two days ago, on January 20th, 2017 at 12:00 PM EST.

It was lost, but not forgotten…