Scattered thoughts on the worst of all days

It's happened. We're screwed. Here's what comes next.

Yeah, you know what's happened. No need for an introduction. These will be very scattered thoughts.

• It's OK to despair. This is the kind of event that challenges everything at once: your politics, your sense of justice, your conception of morality, your faith in people. It's OK to be in shock and to struggle for any kind of productive response. Kamala Harris wasn't perfect, but she was decent and she spoke to people's better nature. Donald Trump spoke entirely in terms of fear, hatred, victimhood and grievance - the darkest corners of the human instinct. Putting aside any political element, it is shocking to see such a clear cut victory for all that is rotten over all that is decent. You don't get up from that quickly. You don't get over it fast. It might take some time. That's OK. Have chocolate cake for breakfast. Have a double serving of whisky tonight instead of one. Call that friend of yours. Watch the movie you've seen a million times before that makes you feel better. Go hug your friend, or your child, or your partner, without saying exactly why. Give yourself the things you need. 

• Reach out to your American friends. You probably have them. Check in with them, offer condolences. Don't for a second engage in any of that British condescension about how foolish America can be. We are in no position to judge anyone. We're just as stupid as they are. They'll be hurting, more than you are hurting. Remind them that they have friends and that they feel the same.

• Ignore the people online who are motivated by your misery. There is a now familiar routine to this stuff, which started after the Brexit referendum. After the successful populist event - whatever it is - people will pop up to say how much they enjoy your suffering. They'll talk about "copium" or demand that you "cry more" and speak of their love for "liberal tears". You know how it is: the standard dehumanised language of the internet, with its proud insistence on a total lack of empathy. Just block them and move on. One of their purposes is to run you off social media, to close down your voice. Do not allow that. Remember that anyone who writes in this way has already lost. Anyone who gains joy from the misery of others is wandering in the mist, never to find their intended destination. You would not want to be them. Even in their moments of greatest triumph, they are pitiable. 

• You can be angry at voters. We're taught not to do this. We're told that it is contrary to democracy. That's nonsense. Democracy simply states that public votes are superior to control by a single individual, or a clique. This is because they reflect individual liberty, increase scrutiny of executive power, and make it easier to throw leaders out. It does not mean that the voters are always right. It does not initiate some magical metamorphosis whereby voters are correct simply by virtue of being voters. It's OK to say that voters are wrong. It's OK to say that they are misguided. It's OK to say that some of them are clearly racist and hateful, while others will have turned a blind eye to racism and hatefulness because of economic anxieties. Political parties can never say voters are wrong, because their job is to attract and maintain them. But civilians are under no obligation to abide by the niceties that political parties must maintain and it's stifling to insist that they are. 

• Lots of the blame in the next few days will be misplaced. It's like grief. There's lots of anger sloshing around looking for a place to go. Since the results this morning I've seen it directed at Joe Biden for staying in the race too long, David Lammy for the mandatory diplomatic nicety of congratulating Trump as foreign secretary, and, most ridiculously of all, Rory Stewart for reading the polls wrong and predicting a Harris victory. These are all decent-minded people. They are not the reason this has happened. But sometimes I think we need to pick on the decent minded among us, rather than the monsters, because the monsters feel like a different sort of species. It's a waste of time and it directs anger at people who are privately feeling the same way you are.

• Remember that history has no direction. This is reassuring as well as distressing. I was reading a book on Ancient Rome when Brexit happened. I'd never really read about that period before, or anything before 1066 really. I had no idea how developed Rome was, how sophisticated it was in so many ways. And yet it was followed by a period in which progress basically stopped and then reversed. Brexit seemed a version of that in the present day: dreams of reason, international cooperation, freedom of movement all being suddenly paused and then driven backwards. We have to learn this lesson. History has no direction. The arc of the moral universe does not necessarily bend toward justice. The world does not become more just over time. Progress is not guaranteed. But also: this means that there is no inevitable defeat. There is no carved-in-stone law that says that populists must win. The journalists who act like a Trump victory is inevitable are as wrong as the ones who act like a Marine Le Penn victory is inevitable. We can turn back the tide as easily as they have created it. In the immortal words of Sarah Conner: "There's no fate but what we make for ourselves."

• The solution lies with Europe. I'll write about this more later this week. But safe to say that, from a British perspective, this is the chief political realisation. Europe should have realised that it needed to stand on its own two feet in 2016. Instead it survived, then developed a false sense of security in 2020. Now it is where it is. Britain is even worse. We left Europe. And now where are we? Outside of the customs union as we head into a tariff war. How servile and unseemly will we have to be to try and dodge the tariffs Trump may impose, without Europe's strength behind us? On Ukraine, we have to put in serious thought and money to maintaining its capacity to fight against Russia. This is now an exclusively European problem. America is no longer an ally on this matter. As one of Europe's pre-eminent military powers, much of this will fall to Britain, as indeed a lot of Ukrainian support already has. If you put these concerns together - trade and security - the answer is simple. The answer is Europe. We must now make the case for it passionately, vociferously, proudly.

• Join a group today. Do it. Give them money, if you have it to spare. Give them time, if you don't. Ideally do both. Perhaps it's the RNLI. Perhaps it's an organisation protecting refugees or speaking up for immigrants, or helping women secure abortions. Perhaps it is completely unrelated to the events of the US election. But pick one and support them. Do something that makes the world a better place. Yes, it is small. Yes, it is thankless. But it is through these small initiatives that change comes. And you will feel better for having done something practical and useful. Then go back to your 2pm ice cream, or your double shot of whisky, both of which you deserve, perhaps at the same time. 

No one can guarantee that we'll beat them. No-one can guarantee that the good guys win. But we can guarantee that we will fight for the people they tyrannise. That much we do have control over.