We asked a grief expert
Dr. FitzGreebins
Those of us who are rational are grieving the election loss which will deliver our nation into the hands of the irrational come January. I spent one entire day recently staring at finches and eating bags of Wallaby black licorice, this, after being intoxicated the previous three days straight, sleeping in my Kamala T-shirt and clutching my Obama doll.
But I’m feeling better.
In fact, I am resilient enough to share this transcript of my chat with a grief expert named Dr. FitzGreebins.
Dr. FitzGreebins. how is Vice President Kamala Harris processing what happened?
Oh, about as well as roughly half the nation. There are a lot of blue people out there. There are so many ways she could be grieving.
She could be pumping 2,040 rounds out her Glock at an undisclosed indoor shooting range at Quantico.
Kamala: Ha,hah,aha,hah,ha,ha..that feels good! Dougie, tell the lieutenant I want him to keep the range open until I’m ready to leave. I’ll-”
Doug: What? Wouldn’t beating pillows be more-
Kamala: Doug. I’m speaking here. Make it happen. Cover your ears, Elmer Fudd.
Doug: Okay… but you are telling your Secret Service team. Not me…
Kamala: Dougie…
Or she could be working through her pain in an anger room in a strip mall in Reston, Virginia.
Taylor Swift: She’s been in there for five hours, Doug.
Doug Emhoff: I still hear things getting smashed. Oof! Did you hear that, Taylor?
Kamala: Dougie! Tell the management I want more TVs. And a fresh axe. I broke the handle. I want..more..TVs..with faces..I want talking heads.
She could be at an exclusive retreat in Peru attending a shaman guided Ayahuasca with Beyonce.
Bumbatturazuli : Psychedelics can cause a person to hallucinate to see things that do not exist or are distorted.
Kamala Harris: Can you unsee what has been seen only to have it never be seen again?
Bumbatturazuli: What?
Kamala Harris: Is it possible to never see the color orange again?
Bumbatturazuli: What?
Or the Vice President could be attending grief counseling in Oakland, as many do, two flights up from a Starbucks on 9th.
Therapist: Okay everybody, you know the drill. Who will be first to take the talking stick?
Kamala Harris: I’ll take it.
Therapist: Take the stick. Tell us your name.
Kamala Harris: My name is Kamala.
Therapist: What are you grieving?
Kamala Harris: I lost…
Therapist: A partner?
Kamala Harris: No..I lost…
Therapist: A child?
Kamala Harris: No..no...I lost…the… most important election in this democracy’s 248-years of existence. But that’s not why I’m here. I can handle it. I’m a strong woman…(She chokes) I’m grieving for my republic.
Therapist: That’s our time. My next patient, a Mr. Zelenski is here.
Kamala Harris: The President of Ukraine?
Therapist: He’s a mess. Guess who he ran into in the hall? Melania!
Kamala Harris: She’s in grief therapy?
Therapist: No. She’s taking “Improv 101”. See you next week! Remember acceptance, anger, denial and whatever the other two things are.
Thank you, Dr. FitzGreebins for speculating on Vice President Harris’ possible grieving processes.
In the meantime I will hold to the view that Kamala Harris is grieving by continuing to perform her official duties. Resting when she can. Finding healing comfort with her family. And her friends.
You do the same.
Grief is hard work.
“And what do we say say about hard work? Hard work is good work.”
-Kamala Harris
This is from Andy Borowitz's blog - please subscribe, it's free for emails and you can pay for additional content. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't mind me sharing this here:
(FROM THE BOROWITZ REPORT)
Quick quiz: what do these three statements have in common?
1) Donald Trump won in a landslide.
2) Kamala Harris lost because she ran a terrible campaign.
3) The Democratic brand is toxic.
Answer? They’ve all been spread by the mainstream media. And they’re all false.
Let’s take a moment to factcheck these classics of the gaslighting genre.
1) Donald Trump won in a landslide. FALSE. As of this writing, Trump’s popular vote margin over Harris is only two percent. As votes from western states continue to trickle in, his margin may be even tinier (insert Stormy Daniels joke here). This election will likely wind up being the closest since the 2000 contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore.
As for the Electoral College, Trump’s margin there was far from a landslide by historical standards, as I showed here. What’s more, only 780,000 votes separated the two candidates in all swing states combined. That’s how close Kamala Harris came to being president.
Why does this matter? The fact that this election was so close means that the 2026 midterms are eminently winnable for Democrats. If, on the other hand, the media convince you that Trump won by a huge mandate, you might feel hopeless. And hopelessness is not a plan.
2) Kamala Harris lost because she ran a terrible campaign. FALSE. No campaign is flawless, but Harris’s came pretty close. She had to mount hers in a mere hundred days and did so brilliantly, with a masterful convention and a dominant debate performance.
So why did she lose? For starters, Harris was linked to Joe Biden, who was deeply unpopular. His approval rating was a lowly 40, which she wildly outperformed. She also had the misfortune to run in a year when incumbent parties were swept out of power around the world.
And last—but certainly not least—she made the fatal error of being a woman. That’s no small data point in a nation that has yet to choose a female head of state—something that 88 other countries have somehow managed to do. Even macho Mexico just elected a woman, and—eek!—a Jewish one at that.
Evidence that Mexicans are smarter than we are: they wouldn’t pay for Trump’s border wall, and they elected Claudia Sheinbaum. (Photo by Hector Vivas/Getty Images)
3) The Democratic brand is toxic. FALSE. As Democratic “strategists” (euphemism for “unemployed gasbags”) bloviate on cable news about why their party lost, I’m reminded of a famous quote from the great political humorist Will Rogers: “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.”
The mainstream media have been amplifying the lazy critiques of this circular firing squad to attract clicks and viewers. But there’s no evidence that the Democrats—who have a stellar bench of popular elected officials including Andy Beshear, Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, and Wes Moore, to name just four—are in such dire straits.
And there was good news for Democrats this cycle. In North Carolina, for example, Democrat Josh Stein defeated MAGA Republican Mark Robinson by a thumping 15 points. If that proves anything, it’s that the Black Nazi brand is toxic.
If you’re like me, you’re sick of being gaslighted and have decided to turn off the gaslight.
Since the election, cable news channels have seen their ratings crater. And hundreds of thousands of Washington Post readers have cancelled their subscriptions to protest the craven behavior of the paper’s owner, Lex Luthor wannabe Jeff Bezos.
So you might be wondering: now that I’m over mainstream media, where do I get my news?
Answer: mainly from BBC Sounds, the app from the BBC, which delivers high quality radio reporting from all over the world, for free. It’s not perfect, but it’s a huge upgrade over what the for-profit American media companies have been dishing out.
For example, you could watch MSNBC’s entire primetime lineup and never know that there’s a continent called Africa. Tune in to the BBC and you’ll learn all about the civil war in Sudan, which is affecting a huge swath of your fellow humans. Such coverage will make all those cable roundtables about whether Tim Walz was the right choice seem pretty silly.
But I wouldn’t recommend consuming the news—even from an excellent source like the BBC—around the clock. I’m not a neuroscientist like George Santos, but in my experience, turning off the news is good for your mental health. And you’ll have more time for things you actually enjoy. Read a novel. See a friend. Walk your dog. Which is what I’m going to do right now.
I remember when President Biden won and all hell broke loose. We found out this Nov 5th before 10 pm that Trump won. How was it that fast? Why is no-one asking questions. We the blue are just saying ok, and we are in for hell the next 4 years starting in January.
Signed,
So sad, so blue