8:15am: Four more years of a nation led by criminals. I was making coffee with one eye on CNN when the news broke, and I called my dad, a man who's spent many years fighting for good things, sometimes at great personal cost.

"Get over it," he said, "The way you feel now is exactly how I felt when Nixon won a second term -- crushed. I just couldn't believe America was that stupid. But remember what happened to Nixon that term."

"Change comes from discontent," he said. "And right now, there's a lot of discontent."

I finish pouring my coffee, and agree when my dad says what we're faced with right now is considerably more frightening than Nixon. BB pal Jim Graham IMs a few minutes later: "Yeah, and Karl Rove makes Lee Atwater look like a choir boy."

Dan Gillmor sums up what the continuation of Bush's presidency means for America.

The Republicans have an even stronger congressional majority. They have shown how gladly ruthless they can be in using their power. Bush and his allies have never believed in compromise. They have even less incentive to govern from the middle now, even though the nation remains bitterly divided.

There's no secret about what's coming. We don't have that excuse this time.

Here comes more fiscal recklessness -- as we widen the chasm between the ultra-wealthy and everyone else, cementing a plutocracy into our national fiber, we'll pay our national bills on the Treasury Bill credit card for the next few years. Many economists expect a Brazil-like financial crisis to hit the U.S. before the end of the decade. If we muddle our way though the near term, we'll still have left our kids with the bill.

Here comes an expansion of the American empire abroad, a fueling of fear and loathing elsewhere on the globe. This is also unsustainable in the end. Empire breeds disrespect.

Our civil liberties will shrink drastically. This president and his top allies in Congress fully support just one amendment in the Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment's right to bear arms. Say goodbye to abortion rights in most states. Roe v. Wade will fall after this president pushes three or four Scalia and Thomas legal clones onto the Supreme Court. Say hello, meanwhile, to a much more intrusive blending of church and state.

The environment? We'll be nostalgic for Ronald Reagan's time in office.

This is not sour grapes. This is reality.

I hope, but doubt, that the Democrats re-discover enough of their collective spine to block the most extreme moves. If they do it'll be a change for a party that stands for so little these days.

People say there are two Americas. I think there are at least three.

One is Bush's America: an amalgam of the extreme Christian "conservatives," corporate interests and the builders of the burgeoning national-security state.

Another is the Democratic "left": wedded to the old, discredited politics in a time that demands creative thinking.

I suspect there's a third America: members of an increasingly radical middle that will become more obvious in the next few years, tolerant of those who are different and aware that the big problems of our times are being ignored -- or made worse -- by those in power today.

That third America needs a candidate. Or, maybe, a new party.

Reader Dave in the UK writes,

"As a British citizen, I just can't understand why. Does the British media unfairly portray Bush, or are more than half of American voters just fucking stupid? I write this as an appeal to BoingBoing - please, please help me understand how this could have happened, and why, why on God's earth would so many Americans support Bush?"

Mateusz Pozar in Sweden (the place that has no army) echoes the emails of BoingBoing readers around the globe today: "I must say that i’m surprised (and most of the world with me actually) that Bush got a second term. Seriously, would he have to rape kittens to get kicked out of office?"

Iranian expat blogger Hossein "Hoder" Derakshan says -- welcome to the Christian Republic of America.

"You know what? I really think Iranians should export their revolution to America. They badly need it. Unbelievable, half of Americans go to Church once week at least? Even Iranians don't go once a week to Mosque, thanks to the Islamic revolution. So I guess America really needs a Christian revolution, maybe people would see what religion really is."

"I am from Texas (born and raised). I am a white male. I did not vote for Bush. I guess we all have our reasons. I voted for Kerry. I find comfort in what you posted about what your father said about Nixon. Bush likes to use old Texas sayings a lot. I have one for him. In Texas there is a saying that goes, 'Give em enough rope and they will hang themselves.' Well, I guess the Republicans have all the rope they need."

"Thanks for the consolation, however small. We can only hope and keep on trying.

"I, too, remember being aghast when Nixon won re-election, and the sense that everybody was blithely oblivious to his evil. My high-school civics teacher had a "four more years" sticker on his podium, and once bragged to us that he laughed out loud when he heard JFK had been shot.

"This country and this world are full of idiots. This country's idiots are just a little more cock-sure that they deserve what they've got. A lesson in humility is certainly on the way, and we can only pray that it will be no more painful than it needs to be."

John Shirley, another ex-BB-guestblogger, says

The newspaper today says that millions of young people who said they were anti-Bush and who were registered to vote Democratic *didn't show up at the polls.* They were too busy playing Grand Theft Auto or renting Jerry Bruckheimer movies or smoking weed or babbling in chatrooms. It's their fault we're heading into a theocracy. But they're not alone in their culpability."

Bill Hicks once told a story about an American friend of his who complained about the USA. When told, "well, if you don't like it then move somewhere else" the friend's reply would be, "What? And become a victim of our foreign policy?"

Geek and new dad Glenn Fleishman tells BoingBoing,

I've been Jewish, not very observant, my whole life. I'm one of the first generations of Jews to not fear assault as they went to school or lived their lives in secular or religious ways. To not worry about slaughter. I have only met a handful of concentration camp survivors, including a teacher in college. I don't know what it is to be oppressed or insulted for my ethnic and religious heritage.

Today is the first day I am afraid in America because I am Jewish.

Today is the first day I fear for my new son, who is not, but has a Jewish father.

I'm lucky to live in Washington State, and specifically in Seattle. A haven of secular and broad-spectrum religious views in a sea of red. We went strongly, even among Republicans, to Kerry, and maybe I just won't leave this state much for the next four years.

Me, I just keep thinking about this kid's face. And promises of endless war. Link to portrait of LC David Murphy, shot at Camp Abu Graib near Falluja by Kevin Sites.

From Kerry's concession speech:

Audience member: We still got your back!
Thank you, man. And I assure you -- you watch -- I'll still have yours.

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