Living in a country by choice but without voting rights - voting with our feet, I suppose - does raise some interesting questions, most pertinently: when is it time to get out? If the mass deportations start? If press freedoms get curtailed? If the price of Twinkies goes up?
Of course, the real question is "what happens next?" The new president looks like he'll be the least favoured in history from the popular vote. None of the Republicans I've met bear even a passing resemblance to the rally-going-news-featured ones (because I've only been a coast-dweller?) The political system here is founded on checks and balances, which allows the paralyzing inertia we've seen from DC this past decade but is also meant to stop extreme swings. Most US elections, including this one, are very very close.
So as of now I can report that the sun has risen this morning in America, the trains are still not running on time, and England are doing remarkably well in the cricket in India. Things seem normal (apart from the cricket). "We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office," noted one political commentator. But his name was Aesop and he died in 564BC, so let's aim for gradual improvement.
One day...
