Kerry Lost!!!

Have a good friend who believes, gloomily, bitterly, resignedly, that not only are we in for four more years of painful and cheerless Bush Co-branded tyranny and misprision and aww-shucks dumb-guy shtick, but also that we are actually at the beginning of a long, brutal, fear-based Republican juggernaut that will last a good 16 more years, at least.

Because this is how long it will take for the current horrific conservative cycle to play itself out, and this would resemble a more typical and historically proven 20-year pendulum swing. In this case one toward neoconservative right-wing hate and homophobia and warmongering that will careen us toward heretofore unprecedented extremes of sadness and isolationism and far too many overweight white people with guns.

However, here is the catch. Here is the argument: This dark era, this wicked
20-year dystrophic America could now be facing, it might be a very good and necessary thing indeed.

Not, as you might dream, because four more years of Bush Co and a dozen more of sneering Republican domination means there will likely be good times ahead. Not because we will enjoy an unprecedented era of peace and stability and generosity and environmental sustenance, humanitarian progress and U.N. cooperation and fiscal responsibility and a generally relaxed and open-minded attitude toward religion and multiculturalism and sex. I mean, do not be ridiculous. Besides, the Clinton era already happened.

But, rather, it will be necessary because the moral and spiritual and physical hemispheres of our existence will quickly become so dire and toxic and the nation's socio economic situation will become so extreme and desperate that maybe, just maybe, we will finally learn something.

This is the argument. It is bitter and defeatist and, maybe, if you let your inner devil's advocate speak, a little bit true.

Look at it this way: If Kerry had won, the nation won't have suffered enough, won't have travelled far enough down the road of right-wing egotism and misogyny and homophobia and religious self-righteousness and deficit mauling and sanctimonious ideology and mangled grammar to really learn anything indelible. Nothing that will affect a permanent sea change in our worldview, and we will just continue to limp along, never really healing and never really refocusing our intention and never fully