electoralism

Trump winning in 2016 was (at least to my lib-ish brain at the time) akin to stepping out your front door and finding yourself on the surface of Venus in terms of sheer shock and confusion. I went to bed the day before not even paying the slightest amount of attention (I might have even forgot it was even election day until I woke up and saw the results) because it was so obvious that Hillary was going to win that I was making absurdist jokes with my friends about how Trump was going to win, because the whole idea that it would even happen was so laughably far-fetched.

So I think this year, it's a little less surprising than that - everybody knew that it was at least a possibility because it had happened before - but still, given all the triumphant rhetoric from the Harris campaign and smug overconfidence and Trump's relative lack of energy this time around, this is still a major, major shock. So I'd say that this is within 90% of the feeling of 2016. Like, 24 hours ago, if you asked me who I thought was going to win, I would have said Harris without much hesitation.