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Donald Trump has inflicted incalculable damage on our country, and it’ll take us decades to recover from all the “open letters” written on Medium this week. American populism scored its biggest victory in a century last night . . .when it lost the popular vote. And there are a lot of winners and losers coming out of last night. Take Mike Pence, whose new job as vice president is really going to cramp his ability to become president. Sorry, Mike. This is HUFFPOST HILL For Wednesday, November 9th, 2016, and we’ll see you at our president-elect’s fraud trial ON November 28th:

TO SAVE YOU A SCROLL, HERE’S COMFORT FOOD

- Turtle does a not-very-good Owen Wilson impersonation, but we love this video nonetheless.

- Poem generator makes even lazy people decent at summoning their muses.

CLINTON: BAN MEN, ER, GIVE DONALD A CHANCE - S.V. Date and Paige Lavender: “Hillary Clinton asked her supporters to give president-elect Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt on Wednesday as he prepares to lead a divided nation after his stunning election victory. ‘We must accept this result and then look to the future. Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead,’ Clinton said in a brief concession speech at the New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan. ‘Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power,’ she added. ‘We don’t just respect that. We cherish it. It also enshrines the rule of law; the principle we are all equal in rights and dignity; freedom of worship and expression. We respect and cherish these values, too, and we must defend them.’” [HuffPost]

Obama, preparing to have his legacy be Bo photos, mostly: “Obama stood in the White House Rose Garden to deliver remarks hours after Donald Trump was declared the president-elect of the United States. Obama, who said he had spoken to Trump on Wednesday morning, promised to make the transition between his administration and Trump’s as seamless as possible. ‘Everybody is sad when their side loses an election. But the day after, we have to remember we’re actually all on one team,’ Obama said. ‘This is an intramural scrimmage. We are Americans first; we are patriots first.’ A peaceful transition is key, Obama said, because everyone is now ‘rooting for [Trump’s] success in uniting and leading the country.’” [HuffPost’s Laura Barron-Lopez]

.9987342 MAN, ONE VOTE - The Great Sort and Gerrymandering is both an explanation for our disjointed national politics and the group opening at 9:30 Club this Sunday (actually, that last one is STANAJ and Miesa:)”[F]or the second time in 16 years, Democrats will have lost the White House despite winning the popular vote. With votes still trickling in, Clinton held about a 200,000-vote edge in the popular contest, even as Trump appeared headed for a stronger Electoral College win than George W. Bush secured in his first election ― when he lost the popular vote by 500,000 ballots. How could that happen? The short answer is key Democratic voters didn’t bother to go vote, while white Republican voters in rural areas of swing states did. In 2000, turnout was low, with a 55.3 percent turnout by eligible voters helping to hand Bush the White House after the infamous contest in Florida was decided by the Supreme Court. Based on initial vote tallies, turnout for the 2016 election will be the lowest since then, when Al Gore won the popular contest, but lost the Electoral College, 271 to 266.” [HuffPost]

REMINDER: TRUMP DUE IN COURT - Say what you will about the results, at least some of our institutions work, kind of. Josh Gerstein: “Before Donald Trump raises his right hand to take the oath of office in January, he’s set for a less-auspicious swearing-in: taking the witness stand in his own defense in a federal court civil trial over alleged fraud in his Trump University real estate seminar program. Trump faces a legal ordeal no president-elect has ever encountered: juggling defending himself before a jury with preparing for the vast challenges a political novice will face in assuming the presidency.… Beyond that, there’s litigation that Trump himself launched, like the pair of suits against celebrity chefs who backed out of plans to open restaurants in his new luxury Washington hotel. However, the most immediate challenge for Trump is a Trump University class-action lawsuit set to begin jury selection Nov. 28 in San Diego, with Trump called as a witness by both sides and certain to face sharp questioning about his venture’s marketing practices.” [Politico]

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GREAT NATIONAL POLICY DIALOGUE UNDERWAY - Michael McAuliff and Elise Foley: “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell often found it difficult to answer questions about Donald Trump’s more extreme immigration proposals over the past 16 months. Trump’s victory in Tuesday’s presidential election hasn’t made it any easier for him. The Kentucky Republican was asked twice Wednesday about immigration, particularly about whether he’d back Trump’s proposed wall across the U.S.-Mexico border and whether he could reassure immigrants living in the United States who fear Trump. McConnell dodged both questions. ‘I’m not going to go back and relitigate events of the past,’ he said when asked about Trump’s plan for a border wall. ‘We have a new president. I would like to see him get off on a positive start. I think we should look forward and not backward and kind of rehash and relitigate the various debates we had internally and with the Democrats over the past year.’” [HuffPost]

OH - We’re not sure if “LOL, nm” is a potent first-hundred days strategy. Elise Foley: “Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus insisted on Wednesday that Trump only plans to deport criminals. ‘He’s not calling for mass deportation,’ Priebus said on MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe.’ ‘He said, “No, only people who have committed crimes.” And then only until all of that is taken care of will we look at what we are going to do next.’ Priebus made the comment moments after saying part of Trump’s ‘message was following through on the promises you make to the American people.’ And while he’s right that Trump has shifted somewhat on deportation policies ― at least in rhetoric ― the idea that he plans to only deport criminals would be an extreme diversion from his promises, and not one that he’s clearly indicated he will make.” [HuffPost]

NATSEC COMMUNITY MORE THAN A LITTLE WORRIED RIGHT NOW - What’s the over-under on Trump wondering why everyone is in the habit of burning those McDonald’s bags. Ali Watkins: “Trump, who will start getting read-into some of the nation’s most closely held secrets and covert programs as early as Thursday, is a wild card for a national security establishment overrun by Washington insiders. He’s publicly repudiated and contradicted his own briefings by intelligence officials, and has surrounded himself with a team of B-list national security ex-pats who have been largely exiled from an otherwise insular community. It remained unclear Wednesday who Trump’s current national security team transition includes, and whether any of them are properly cleared and vetted to start working on an in-depth transition.… The problem with Trump, several officials pointed out, is that no one knows who his team would be if he indeed took office. Obama, they said, at least had a deep bench.” [BuzzFeed]

ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES - Come to the Republic of New York Englandstan for the abortions, stay for the universal health care. Cristian Farias: “Judge Merrick Garland was possibly hoping that Americans would choose Hillary Clinton as their next president and thus push the Republican-controlled Senate to quickly confirm him to the Supreme Court. Any such hope collapsed Tuesday night. The election of Donald Trump made it virtually impossible for President Barack Obama’s nominee to be elevated to the nation’s highest court. And that means Democrats are once again denied a dream they’ve held for a generation: to see a liberal tilt in the Supreme Court’s membership. With Trump as president, Republicans, who spent millions to keep control of the Senate, can also secure their grip on the high court for years to come ― by naming justices who are more conservative and far younger than the 63-year-old Garland.” [HuffPost]

BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR - Here’s a really stupid dog video.

DEMS .... WAIT FOR IT ... IN DISARRAY - Gabriel Debenedetti: “There are decisions to be made, and soon: on Capitol Hill, Democrats are actively wondering whether a minority leader Chuck Schumer would welcome Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders to the leadership ranks.… At the DNC, Brazile’s term is set to expire…’I don’t think Donna will stay, but there will be a chairman who will be elected by the members who understands politics, from outside of Washington,’ said [Howard] Dean, echoing a sentiment expressed by a handful of party members who were casting about for names of potential next chairs from the ranks of operatives and elected officials on Wednesday morning.… And then, inevitably, there’s the question of what happens before 2020, the party already expecting a furious fight to oust Trump, but the fury not yet overtaking the despair. No senators or governors have been laying any groundwork for a run, though Tim Kaine has an obvious step ahead. There haven’t been any trips to Iowa or New Hampshire. No recruiting of national finance teams.” [Politico]

TRUMP OUTPERFORMS IN UNION HOUSEHOLDS - The union makes you strong, very strong, so strong your head will spin. Dave Jamieson: “CNN’s exit polling found that 51 percent of union households went for Clinton, compared to 49 for Trump. That would be an unusually poor showing for a Democratic presidential candidate. The numbers from the Fox News and ABC exit polls weren’t as bad for Clinton. Fox News said union households broke for Clinton by an 8-point margin, and ABC gave her a 16-point margin. But those would still be weak performances compared with other recent candidates. Exit polls from 2012 showed Obama taking union households by 18 points. Trump did something unheard of for a modern Republican presidential candidate: He made a direct appeal to union workers and claimed to be their champion. When the AFL-CIO announced its endorsement of Clinton ― the federation went on to send millions of dollars to her and other Democrats ― Trump predicted that ‘their members will be voting for me in much larger numbers than for her.’” [HuffPost]

TWITTERAMA

@mobute: paul ryan looks like somebody used some makeup to paint an undertaker’s face on a foot

@aedwardslevy: The fact that a psychic animal predicted a Trump win doesn’t mean we should invest in psychic animals. And Dukakis had record crowds too.

@HayesBrown: I have “Fight Song” stuck in my head and it feels crueler than ever

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