A dark cloud fills my consciousness this morning. The unthinkable has happened. I am sad for my country. I am sad because I probably will not feel the same about it again. My innocent good faith in Americans as inherently good is broken. The majority chose fear instead of hope. I hope that my hope returns sooner rather than later or never.

However, now I see I was part of the problem. I believed that Hillary Clinton deserved the presidency due to her great experience and obvious competence. I discounted the huge crowds turning out for Bernie Sanders. I turned my head as the Democratic National Committee screwed him out of any chance for the nomination. If that had happened to Obama in 2008 I would have been up-in-arms mad. I now must look at myself more clearly and question why I accepted their manipulations. I believed in the things that Bernie was saying so why did I not fight for him? My rationalization was that Hillary would know how to get things done and in the process missed the real anger that was reflected in the huge crowds turning out for Bernie and, yes, for Trump.

We should have known that the energy around Bernie was real. He was tapping into the same anger that fueled Trump’s win. I sincerely believe, now and too late, that Bernie would have won last night. I was wrong about him and people like me helped give Trump the White House. Hillary Clinton was obviously too flawed as a candidate to win the presidency. We should have understood this and that’s our fault. Trump did not win, he was handed the office by a Democratic Party that insisted on nominating someone with baggage so heavy she could not even overtake someone as repulsive as Trump.

Those of us who believe in hope, equality and tolerance have a lot of work to do. The first step is to clean up our own house - the Democratic Party. We can never let this happen again. The Party must listen to the people and the Democratic National Committee needs new leadership. Next we must focus on the Congressional elections in 2018 and get a majority in at least the Senate. I firmly believe that Trump will be so disruptive that he will be a one-term president. We need to start searching for our 2020 Bernie Sanders right now and this time we need to listen to the people.

It will take me a few weeks to get over this darkness and regret that I did not understand what we had in Bernie, but after that I intend to get to work trying to repair this self-inflicted damage we have done to our country.

As crushed as I am I cannot imagine the sadness of so many women throughout our country who believed their time had come. We all must find a way to shake this off as soon as possible and get to work. The next elections will be here before we know it.