It has been only two days since the horrific election results were announced and, even in a “safe” blue spot like New York City, I have noticed an increased conformity. Everyone is now on their best behavior. Which, of course, is exactly what the Republicans want. This is why Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerburg showed great pusillanimity in praising Donald Trump after his victory. They fear being punished by Trump’s new tariffs, which are estimated to remove $78 billion of spending power each year from Americans. I have already heard sussurations among international friends about boycotts being organized against America. There is talk of other countries punishing us much in the manner in which we froze assets in Russia. We are about to be dropped into the worst economic quagmire since the Great Depression. And frankly we deserve it. I’m deeply ashamed to be an American right now.

Out of morbid curiosity, I listened to Bill Burr’s podcast and he made no mention of Trump. He, like Bezos and Zuckerburg, knows where his bread is buttered. And he has become a gutless and timid shell of his former self. His jokes were remarkably inauthentic and he desperately tried to pad out his show with laughter. Presumably he — like many other prominent entertainers — has been informed by his manager to not talk politics. Only two days in and the more robust truth tellers are already turning into Trump sycophants. I’m sure we will see many more disappointments. My money is on Jon Stewart to be one of the first to sell out. He did, after all, defend that vile racist Tony Hinchcliffe.

Now I was already a polite fellow, but even I have found myself doubling and even tripling down on courtesy, adding a few more thank yous even when I have already effusively expressed gratitude. After all, we have no idea who will start ratting us out once Trump’s version of a Gestapo becomes a reality. People don’t really trust each other anymore and there is an increased nervous edge to people’s laughter. I have attempted to crack jokes, but my comedic instincts seem to have desiccated. Because the thought of what is about to come is just too chilling. The thought of having to tone down my exuberant loudmouth qualities for four years in order to increase my probability of not being shot under a fascist regime is a complete affront to who I am as a human being. I am also getting my passport renewed while it is still possible.

The streets have become lonelier and emptier. People are hiding in their apartments. The liquor store in my neighborhood seems the only place where you can listen to the ribald honesty and goodhearted camaraderie that flowed like limitless wine at the start of this week, but that is now as rare as plutonium deposits. The frightening thing is that we are all falling into these new routines with a distressing ease. It seems we’re fated to accept our new fascist world faster than the Germans did after Hitler became Chancellor in 1933. In 2016, there were protests against Trump the next day. But not this time. Everyone walks with a forlorn face and an unshakable fear. Nobody is having a good time and you can feel a palpable anxiety exuding from nearly everyone. It’s much stronger than the dread I recall in November 2004, when George W. Bush was re-elected.

I have to hand it to Donald Trump. He has destroyed the spirit of life in America overnight. He has turned us all into people trying to save their own skin. And his incorrigible cult has continued to lie and gaslight and fabricate reality in the comments on my TikTok posts — this even when I was reporting nothing but objective facts. I did make a good faith effort to try and get through to one such MAGA cultist today, only to be received by a corpulent and pustulant face of unrepentant rage, screaming at me for “fearmongering,” despite the fact that I had quoted from Project 2025 and directly from the Orange Menace himself.

I spent much of the last two days working the phones, calling two dozen friends to remind them that I love them and that I have their backs. A few were reluctant to talk altogether, but they did text me back. The bravest among my coterie broached the question of personal retaliation. Nobody’s ever going to say this on social media, but it seems to be on everyone’s minds. My friends all agreed with me that, if it comes to it, they would rather be shot in the head than capitulate to Trump and his fascism. That’s how I knew I could trust them. But then I’ve known all these amazing people a very long time.

I have found it impossible to read or write new pages of my audio drama. Yesterday, I slipped and succumbed to binge drinking for the first time in two and a half years. But I am now sober and thankfully my worst solecism was calling a friend and not remembering the conversation we had. She was extremely kind and understanding. Yeah, I need to stay off the sauce. But I am human and deeply worried and frightened about the future.

Living seemed so easy only a few days ago. I had a happy life and a creative routine in which I pumped out five good clean pages each day. But I have been plagued by the worst depression I have felt in ten years: in large part because I cannot determine how I can possibly be myself or be social with others in this hideous new order. I have no idea what “living” is going to be like once that monster takes office again. If I can’t be lively and outspoken, then how can I be me? Will I have to flee this country? Will I have to hide people in my apartment? How quickly will they detain me? Is there a single woman in Canada who can pluck me from this nightmare, whisk me away to Toronto, and marry me? I mean, the girl I was seeing just broke up with me: amicable, no hard feelings between us. So I’m now available again. Are these pragmatic considerations or paranoia?

It is a deeply soul-destroying time to be a thinker. I’ve never really considered myself an intellectual, but I feel that the very bedrock of ideas has been permanently sullied by a populace that would rather hear the sweet white supremacist lies that Donny whispers into their ears. I fear for the intelligentsia, the academics, the librarians, and all the other guardians of thought and knowledge. I can imagine books being burned. I can imagine professors being beaten to death by MAGA thugs in classrooms. This has all happened before. Just read any book about the Holocaust. What’s particularly sickening is that Trump has silenced nearly everyone and created a system where sycophancy is the only way to make it to tomorrow. The fascists have the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate, and, unless there is a miracle, the House of Representatives. For the first time in a long time, I truly have no idea what our future will be. I am a solitary stranger in a nation that I once loved with all my heart. Contrary to President Biden’s speech today, I cannot see the great American experiment continuing. We are a nation lost, with a spirit that feels as if has been permanently asphyxiated.