It fucking sucks for those of us in the American majority who voted for Democrats. Three million more of us voted for Hillary Clinton than Trump. In the Senate, the 48 Democratic senators received a combined 78.4 million votes, to the 54.9 million votes earned by the 52 Republican senators. We don’t live in a real democracy, and Republicans have been able to game the system to their advantage.

My compassion, and sympathy, and fears all rest with people who voted for a kinder, gentler, more compassionate and inclusive America. But the assholes who voted for the other team? They finally are getting what they voted for, unambiguously. Democrats no longer have the ability to bail them out. And now, over the next two to four years, they’ll get to decide: is this what they really wanted?

If it is? So be it. But Democrats need to remind those Republican voters, time and time again, that all the shit coming down the pike is their fault, it was their choice, it was their vote. Those of us on the left had their interests at heart, and they didn’t give a damn. Instead, they built their own hate-filled bubble and stocked it with fake news.

(Remember, the people who are really in bubbles are the ones who need to create a fake reality to support it!)

But maybe, as these Republican voters start losing their health care, losing their jobs, losing their wage protections, losing their children to war and conflict, and losing their shorelines and crops to climate change—perhaps then they’ll reassess their electoral choices. Perhaps. Really, that’s a choice they’ll have to make, and they’ll have to make it on their own. Either they’ll get it or they won’t. We don’t have a say in the matter, particularly in this era of fake news. Their bubble is impenetrable.

What we need to do is make sure that our core voters register and turn out and vote. We need to create a culture of activism, so that more of us are rallying and organizing and engaging. We need to better educate people, outside our own media circles, reaching marginalized and underserved communities.

There are more of us than there are of them. In a real democracy, we’d already be in control of everything. But we don’t live in a real democracy, and we need to be exponentially bigger than the other side to win. So be it. We have the numbers, we just need to engage.

As for those conservative voters, time to see if they enjoy getting the governance they voted for. And if they don’t, whether it forces a change of worldview. I wouldn’t presume to know the answer to those two questions. Only time will tell.