Remind yourself: we got more people out to vote against the cancer people call the Bush administration than have ever voted for any previous president.
I've been turning to historical precedent for comfort these last few days. Look at the Republicans in 1964. After their humiliating defeat, they got to work building the tools they would need to steadily and relentlessly push their movement out onto the American landscape. It was an unsteady progress, but it has now claimed a terrible victory, mobilizing an army of true believers and dupes alike, ruthlessly wielding the tools that they built during their years in the desert.
We have begun to lay the foundations for the infrastructure we will need to reclaim our once and future great nation: grass roots activist groups to pick up the baton from the aging unions and civil rights organizations, an actual liberal media to counter the pressure of the right wing shrill machine of Murdoch/Scaiffe/Limbaugh/Drudge, liberal think tanks to sharpen our message and generate new proposals. And remember that the corrupt Right had, in Nixon, their first victory just four years after their humiliating 1964 defeat.
We could wallow in our self-pity, asking why we have to live in this America that we neither recognize or understand. But we can't take long. We have to get to work. It may take a while, but we must win. Failure is simply not an option. Win, or America dies. It's that simple.
For inspiration, read this essay by Bill Moyers. It will remind you that we can't just sit back and pity ourselves. We have work to do. It's work that has to be done, and the odds we face aren't nearly as bleak as those of past generations.
Read it. Then get back to work.