- The 2016 election results were not what most voters wanted, with Donald Trump winning the presidency.
- The implications of Trump's presidency include concerns about his access to nuclear codes and his potential impact on the Supreme Court.
- Trump's statements on the campaign trail regarding military actions raise concerns about violations of international law.
- Some people are happy with Trump's election, but for others, it raises questions about how we got here and what to do now.
- Optimism about Trump's presidency should be tempered with caution, as some of his proposed policies are alarming.
- Trump's promises, such as repealing Obamacare and building a wall, are concerning, but it is unclear if he will follow through on all of them.
- Trump's potential cabinet members and transition team choices, such as Rudy Giuliani and Myron Ebell, raise concerns about their qualifications and beliefs.
- The reasons for Trump's election include misleading forecasts, a flawed candidate, and racism or indifference to racism.

- The media failed in catching Trump's lies during the election
- Mainstream TV news gave Trump too much free media coverage
- Trust in mainstream media has been falling and people now get their news from social media
- Social media is filled with fake news and misinformation
- Trump used his platform to share wildly incorrect information
- Some Republican lawmakers called out Trump's lies, but later supported him
- Trump will soon be sworn into office and there are concerns about his presidency
- The answer is not to move to Canada, but to stay and fight for each other
- Support organizations that will need help under a Trump administration

- The author recommends making donations to organizations such as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Trevor Project, and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund to support marginalized communities.
- They suggest setting up recurring donations as the issues faced will not be resolved quickly.
- The author suggests donating in the name of relatives who supported Trump as a way to fulfill holiday shopping.
- The press will face challenges under Trump's presidency, and it is important to support actual journalism by subscribing to reputable news outlets or donating to organizations like ProPublica.
- The author emphasizes that it is important to actively mitigate the damage caused by Trump's actions and not normalize his behavior.
- The year 2016 is described as awful and the author highlights various negative events and celebrity deaths that occurred during that time.
- The author concludes by expressing their dislike for 2016 and Donald Trump.

- The 2016 election resulted in Donald Trump winning the presidency, which was not desired by most voters.
- Concerns include Trump's access to nuclear codes, impact on the Supreme Court, and potential violations of international law.
- Some people are happy with Trump's election, but others question how it happened and what to do now.
- Optimism about Trump's presidency should be cautious due to alarming proposed policies.
- Uncertainty exists regarding whether Trump will follow through on his promises.
- Concerns are raised about the qualifications and beliefs of Trump's potential cabinet members and transition team choices.
- Reasons for Trump's election include misleading forecasts, a flawed candidate, and racism or indifference to racism.
- The media failed to catch Trump's lies during the election, and mainstream TV news gave him excessive free coverage.
- Trust in mainstream media has declined, with people turning to social media for news, which is filled with fake news and misinformation.
- Trump used his platform to spread highly inaccurate information.
- Some Republican lawmakers initially criticized Trump's lies but later supported him.
- Concerns about Trump's presidency persist, and it is recommended to stay and fight for each other.
- Support organizations that will need help under a Trump administration, such as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Trevor Project, and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
- Set up recurring donations to address long-term issues.
- Donate in the name of relatives who supported Trump as a way to fulfill holiday shopping.
- Support actual journalism by subscribing to reputable news outlets or donating to organizations like ProPublica.
- Actively mitigate the damage caused by Trump's actions and avoid normalizing his behavior.
- The author expresses dislike for 2016 and Donald Trump.

Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States. How did we get to this point? And what do we do now?

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♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ Welcome, welcome,

And let us begin with our first and only story, the 2016 election.

Or, as you may know it, I thought I wanted it to be over, but now that it's over, I wish it was still going on, because it turns out the ending is even worse, 20-fucking-16.

The results on Tuesday were a little different than what just over half the voters wanted.

We can now project the winner of the presidential race CNN projects.

Trump will become the 45th president of the United States.

It turns out, instead of showing our daughters that they could someday be president, America proved that no grandpa is too racist to become leader of the free world.

Now, if you're like me, the implications of this have been hitting you in waves.

1 minute you're numb, and the next minute you realize that Donald Trump, this man, will soon have access to the nuclear codes.

And then maybe you get distracted by daily life until it hits you again.

Oh, our future president was supported by a former Grand Wizard of the Klan, and 60 million people voted for him despite that.

And then Maybe you finally manage to get some sleep, but then you wake up realizing, oh, shit, the Supreme Court.

Who the Republicans have refused to confirm all year?

You know, the guy whom we asked you to choose a Supreme Court dog for.

We never announced it, because we figured that we would tell you when he was confirmed.

Well, he's not getting confirmed, and that dog is dead now.

Actually, not really, she is fine, but she's not getting on the court.

Donald Trump will fill that seat, and maybe more.

And there are other justices who've talked bandied about the idea of retiring.

Bottom line, Donald Trump is going to shape the Supreme Court for decades to come.

That is 1 of those phrases you just assumed you would never have to hear.

Like, Vanilla Ice is picking up his Nobel Prize in physics.

Or Henry Kissinger just came out with a line of skinny jeans.

Now, it has been wave after wave of nausea all week.

I woke up on Thursday feeling fractionally better, but then I turned on the TV and saw Trump in the Oval Office with President Obama.

And just look at the president's face there.

He cannot believe what he's looking at either.

In fact, just listen to the actual audio in that room.

-♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ -♪

Oh, Fun fact, that is the new national anthem now.

And then you remember, Trump's going to be in charge of the military, and leaders there do not know what to expect.

They have seen Donald Trump's statements on the campaign trail, talking about waterboarding, talking about bombing with little regard to civilian casualties, talking about taking the oil in Iraq.

All of these things potentially, very serious, violations of international law, violations of the Geneva Convention.

Yes, our president-elect has, at various times, said he'd bomb civilians, loot oil, and waterboard, which isn't a military strategy so much as the series of words that Donald Rumsfeld mutters so he can stay hard while he's masturbating.

By which I mean he won the electoral college, which for reasons I will never understand no matter how many times it's explained to me, is how things are done.

And many people, it's important to remember, many people are happy to see him in office.

Some are voters who think he'll bring jobs back and shake up Washington.

Others are happy simply because he isn't Hillary Clinton.

And others, of course, are Vladimir Putin and Scott Baio.

But for the rest of us, we are faced with the same questions as a guy that woke up the day after a Vegas bachelor party deep in the desert, naked, tied to a cactus, and a dead clown.

Namely, how the fuck did we get here, and what the fuck do we do now?

Because Donald Trump will be president, and respecting democracy means accepting that.

Although, there is 1 sentiment that I would argue takes that a little too far.

The man hasn't even been a president for a day yet, all right?

Let's give him a chance to be the president.

We now have to give him a chance and see how he's gonna govern.

The American people should give him a chance to govern, because if he succeeds, we succeed.

Now, in the broadest sense, I get that impulse.

Hope for the best in the face of very long odds.

It's like we're on a plane, and we just found out our pilot is a wombat.

I don't like this, I don't understand how it happened, and I'm pretty sure we're headed for disaster, but what the hell?

Optimism is nice if you can swing it, but you've got to be careful, because it can feed into the normalization of Donald Trump, and he is not normal.

He's a human, what is wrong with this picture?

He sticks out like a sore thumb, and frankly, he even looks like a sore thumb.

So, so giving him a chance, in the sense of not speaking out immediately against policies that he's proposed, is dangerous, because some of them are alarming.

Build a wall along the southern border with Mexico and get Mexico to pay for said wall.

Deport all 11 to 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country, including children.

Appoint a special prosecutor to investigate and potentially jail Hillary Clinton.

Temporarily ban Muslims and immigrants from terror-prone nations from coming into the United States.

Because it sounds like you're reading the to-do list on Satan's refrigerator.

Which, of course, Satan no longer needs now that hell has frozen over.

And while some are arguing that Trump might not have meant all those things, that leaves us with 2 devastating options.

Either we just elected a president who didn't mean a single word he said, or we elected 1 who did.

Earlier tonight, he did his first major post-election interview, and he was asked about Obamacare, which remember, he had labeled a disaster.

When you replace it, are you going to make sure that people with preconditions are still covered?

Yes, because it happens to be 1 of the strongest assets.

Also, with the children living with their parents for an extended period, we're gonna...

So, get ready for a barely changed version of Obamacare called Trumpcare, which sounds like a healthcare plan where doctors fill your breasts for lumps whether you ask them to or not.

But by the way, don't get complacent that he is going to keep those aspects of Obamacare.

Every time you shake him, he gives you a different answer.

And sometimes the answer is just, Big League or That's somebody on my daughter, right?

So, we have to take all of Trump's promises seriously.

And the truth is, they were not all universally bad.

For instance, he ran on a promise to drain the swamp, cracking down on corruption and ending the reign of Washington insiders, which sounds great.

So let's try and be positive for a moment.

Some of the potential cabinet members that are being reported by CNN that are under consideration.

Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, Chris Christie, Reince Priebus.

Right, so that's the longtime head of the RNC, a former Speaker who entered Congress in 1979, a former mayor turned professional arsehole, and a man whose name is more synonymous with scandal than Shonda fucking Reince.

That is so swampy, you're gonna need to swap out Air Force 1 for 1 of those shallow bottom boats with a big fan on the back.

And the thing is, it actually makes sense for Trump to appoint people with significant experience in government.

Until a few days ago, the highest office he'd ever held was on the 26th floor of a shitty building on Fifth Avenue.

But some of the people he's bringing in are horrifying.

His transition team includes people like Ken Blackwell, who has argued that homosexuality is a choice.

And he's named Myron Ebell to lead his EPA transition team, making him a front-runner for administrator, despite this.

The whole case for global warming, I believe, is silly, and I believe the vast majority of scientists think it's silly.

And therefore, I'm a little bit embarrassed that I waste my time on a silly issue.

Okay, well, first of all, the vast majority of scientists believe humans are contributing to climate change.

And secondly, this man does not have a science degree.

He wouldn't even be qualified to head the agency of baking soda volcanoes.

Well, clearly, there are many possible answers to that question, including misleading forecasts that bred complacency, a flawed candidate who failed to appeal to white, rural, and working class voters, and, and this is worth repeating, deep racism and or indifference to it.

And for those, including us, who were shocked by Tuesday, we're gonna be examining all of this for years.

But for tonight, let's look at just 1 narrow element that may have helped bring us here, because it will be important going forward, and that is on media.

Specifically, how a system that is supposed to catch a serial liar failed.

And I'm not just referring to mainstream TV news, although some did wait far too long to take Trump seriously, giving him billions of dollars worth of free media.

CNN, for instance, sometimes ran his speeches almost in their entirety.

And their president, Jeff Zucker, now admits that might not have been such a great idea.

I'd say that if we made a mistake last year, it's that, we probably did put on too many of his, campaign rallies in the, in those early months.

Un, you know, unedited and just let them run.

And I think in hindsight, we probably shouldn't have done that as much.

Yeah, it turns out hindsight, much like the year we're all now desperately looking forward to, is 2020.

That is not to say that there wasn't some great coverage of Trump in this election from outlets like The Washington Post and The New York Times.

Even CNN eventually pivoted and began correcting Trump in lower third graphics, such as, Trump, I never said Japan should have nukes, parentheses, he did.

If I gave a speech saying I'm the sexiest man alive, it would be fair to tag that with, parentheses, look at him.

Now, That's a mean joke to laugh at, but the problem is...

The problem is, the impact of corrections like that, which may have sunk a candidate in another era, was compromised.

Because there is no longer a consensus on what a fact is.

Trust in mainstream media outlets has been falling, and people can choose to get their news from echo chambers that validate their views.

And there is nothing inherently wrong with media that has a viewpoint.

We fact check everything we say, but I don't pretend to be neutral on things like Criminal justice reform, I'm for it.

They're a seamless blend of style and performance.

Walking up 1 is like ascending to heaven on a golden cloud.

But a healthy media diet has to be broader than that.

And unfortunately, the way that many of us consume news now is micro-targeted.

The majority of Americans, 62%, say they get their news from social media.

According to Pew Research, 44% of all adults say they get news specifically from Facebook.

News is now 1 of the 3 things that we get from social media.

The other 2 being our entire sense of self-worth and pictures of shaved alpacas.

And fake facts circulate on social media to a frightening extent.

You may have seen this quote from Donald Trump online about Republicans being dumb.

Just as it's not true that the Pope endorsed Trump.

But that story was shared almost a million times, which is absurd.

Everybody knows the candidate the Pope endorsed was Joe Exotic.

They have very similar views on deregulating tiger preserves.

is now a whole cottage industry specializing in hyper-partisan, sometimes wildly distorted clickbait.

BuzzFeed News researched sites like Addicting Info on the left and Freedom Daily on the right, both of which have over a million followers on Facebook, putting them in the same range as Anderson Cooper 360, and found that some of them were publishing many viral articles containing flat-out falsehoods.

Over 2 weeks, 38% of news on some Republican-leaning Facebook pages was partly or completely false, compared to 19% of news shared on some Democrat-leaning Facebook pages.

Yeah, and before you say, well, Republicans are twice as bad, 19% is still terrible.

And it is not news that there is misinformation on Facebook.

The accurate version of that would clearly be, in 3 weeks I'll be single, but I can't admit it yet.

Your news feed may have been full of the Times and the Post stories about Donald Trump's actual scandals, but many Americans logged onto Facebook every day and saw shit like this.

And this cesspool of nonsense would be a problem anyway were it not for the fact that 1 of the people in thrall to it is our future president.

Back in March, he claimed that a man who had rushed the stage at 1 of his rallies had ties to ISIS, something that had circulated online and had been found to be untrue.

And when that was pointed out to him, this was his response.

There's no ties to ISIS for this man, no law enforcement official, and this video that you linked to appears to be a hoax.

Being on the Internet is not a high bar for accuracy.

If I edited Wikipedia to say that Diane Weist's real name is Diane Frosted Mini-Weist, our next president would believe that to be true.

In fact, during the campaign, Trump routinely used his platform to share wildly incorrect information, and even fellow conservatives tried to point out how irresponsible this was.

You tweeted out that, whites killed by blacks, these are statistics you picked up from somewhere, at a rate of 81 percent.

Hey, Bill, Bill, am I gonna check every statistic?

I've got millions and millions of people...

But this came out of radio shows and everything else.

I got it from radio is maybe the weirdest nonsense explanation I've ever heard.

It's like if someone said, this sandwich tastes weird.

If there's something wrong with it, then what was it doing sitting in a hole?

And that is the evil genius at work here.

Weird conspiracy bullshit has always been bubbling under the surface, but Trump was the first major candidate to harness and fully legitimize it.

He came along and told millions of people every crazy email you've ever forwarded was true.

And that, at least in part, is why he will be our next president.

And to their credit, some Republican lawmakers were calling him out on this during the campaign.

I'm gonna tell you what I really think of Donald Trump.

He doesn't know the difference between truth and lies.

But before you think Republicans might now stand up to Trump, I will remind you that by the end of the campaign, Ted Cruz, like many others, not only said he'd vote for Trump, but was doing this.

I was calling to encourage you to come out and vote on election day.

Hi, this is Ted Cruz just calling to remind you to vote for a man who insulted my wife and said my dad helped kill JFK.

Anyway, life has no meaning, thank you, I want to die.

--So, There is very little holding Trump back.

And remember, in January, he will be sworn into office.

And there is another wave of nausea for you.

It hits you in small ways and large, doesn't it?

For instance, had you considered the fact that portraits of Trump are going to be hanging in our airports, or that the man who disparaged a Gold Star family will now be expected to comfort the families of fallen soldiers.

And maybe you've tried to make yourself feel better, fantasizing that he might Google, how much does the president get paid, get depressed, and then resign.

But that is when you remember Mike fucking Pence, who might be even worse, because he looks like he's from the 1950s, but he thinks like he's from the 1650s.

Her pregnancy was terminated before birth?

Hold a funeral for the fetus and throw the mother in a lake.

And I know this is all depressing, but it does bring us back to the important question, what the fuck do we do now?

And for the record, the answer is not move to Canada.

Literally, the only excuse to ever migrate to Canada is if you were born there originally, it's springtime and you are a goose.

No, instead, we're gonna need to stay here and fight.

And not just politically in 4 years when he's up for re-election, but constantly monitoring legislation as it moves through Congress, and fucking voting when your legislators come up for re-election in 2 years.

But that is still below the barest minimum of what is going to be needed.

Because for the last 8 years, we've had a president we could assume would generally stand up for the rights of all Americans.

So we're gonna have to actively stand up for 1 another.

And it can't be just sounding off on the internet or sharing think pieces or videos like this 1 that echo around your bubble.

I'm talking about actual sacrifice to support people who are now under threat.

So, if you can afford the time or money, Support organizations that are going to need help under a Trump administration.

For instance, if you're concerned about women's health, donate to Planned Parenthood or the Center for Reproductive Rights.

If you don't believe man-made global warming is a silly issue, donate to the National Resources Defense Council.

If you don't think refugees are a terrorist army in disguise, donate to the International Refugee Assistance Project.

Oh, and also, given these guys' track record, I would also recommend donations to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Trevor Project for LGBTQ Youth, and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

if your compassion for Latinos goes beyond, say, I don't know, occasionally eating a fucking taco bowl.

And do check the box for recurring donations, if you can, because this is not a short-term problem.

And also, just for a dash, I'll give you just a dash of fun here.

I will point out, if you have relatives who supported Trump, you can give money in their name.

So consider your holiday shopping this year done.

will single out for help here, and that is the press.

Because as we've seen, Trump is a masterful denier of both reality and responsibility.

He's a man who would kick you in the nuts and then tell you that your penis did it.

So the press is going to face challenges.

Not just because Trump's chief strategist is Steve Bannon of Breitbart News, but also because of yet another promise that Trump made.

If I become president, oh, do they have problems.

I'm gonna open up our libel laws, so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.

Well, first, there is no federal libel law for Trump to open up.

And as many supposed recipients of Trump's charitable gifts might tell you, you can't open something up if it doesn't exist.

But that attitude of punishing the press is genuinely worrisome now that he is going to be president.

So instead of sharing partisan memes you found on republicoofs.redneck and democrapy.cuck, you need to support actual journalism by buying a subscription to outlets like The Times, or The Post, or your local newspaper, or donating to groups like ProPublica, a non-profit which does great investigative journalism.

The point is, if we don't get actively involved to at least mitigate Trump's damage, things will not be okay.

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