We are not, in some fundamental ways, a single country. The map of that vast red swatch of states and rural counties that voted for Trump, and the blue coastal edges and scattered urban centers where Clinton won, are a pictograph of mutual contempt.

After Trump, how can we credibly say that our process for choosing a national leader yields the best possible result, or even someone capable of uniting the country, let alone running it?

The America that clings to Confederate statues and flags, and that jealously guards the social privileges white Americans have long enjoyed, form the stalwarts of Trump's base.

The fact that many journalists approach the Clintons - especially Hillary Clinton - with a presumption that she has done something that if it's not outright corrupt is at least worthy of looking into, inevitably colors the way the public views the former secretary of state, and the way they respond to her in the polls.

Being on a grand jury felt like attending a series of hangings in a legal Wild West. Hands up for a true bill. Hands up for a dismissal. A show of hands to save a life, or to end it.

From jazz, the blues, country and rock to Hollywood movies, culture has in many ways been our greatest export (or our most obnoxious one, depending on your point of view).

For many Americans - many humans - Trump's presidency can often feel unbearable.

There is a twinge of abandonment that comes with being a member of the African Diaspora. But 'Black Panther' fearlessly introduces and then complicates this and other deeply held albeit rarely expressed emotions; that indeed is what makes this film so profoundly innovative.

The American presidency combines elements of the efficient and the dignified. The president presides over governance - not making legislation but proposing it, cajoling the co-equal federal legislature and then signing and executing the laws.

Even without the euphoria of 'yes we can,' Hillary Clinton is to white women what Barack Obama was to African-Americans. She represents the opportunity to see a like image in the Oval Office for the first time.

Trump's more outre economic ideas, like repealing trade bills and implementing a massive surcharge on imports, would seem like non-starters in a Republican-led House and Senate, except when you consider a second point as a kind of syllogism: Republicans fear their angry, white electorate. Their angry, white electorate chose Donald Trump.

The sharp differences between the way city dwellers and rural, suburban and exurban residents vote, think and live cannot be papered over by federal laws, federal rules or, clearly, by a president.

Too great a love for the presidency has caused Democrats to neglect state and local politics and to overly prize compromise and a futile quest for bipartisanship. It has made liberals too allergic to federalism and too shy about grassroots politics.

American populist politics has a long tradition, from Andrew Jackson to Huey Long to Joseph McCarthy. But the politician Trump is most like could be George Wallace.

The goal of the eight Benghazi committees, one of which produced and nurtured 'emailgate,' has been clear from the start: to prevent Hillary Clinton from becoming president of the United States.

Trumpists want a return to a white, Christian America.

What White America and Black America wanted and expected from Obama were fundamentally different and opposite things.

I always want to be doing something - going somewhere, doing a project, teaching a class, writing an article. I try to use up my day. You have a limited time on this planet - try to use as much of it as you can for productive purposes.

I think social media tools are helpful, so long as you pick your social media wisely.

If you've never feared the police - if you don't get a dull ache in the pit of your stomach when you see red and blue flashing lights, even when you know you're not doing anything wrong - consider yourself lucky.

Authoritarianism doesn't fall on a nation like a book falling from a shelf and striking you in the head. It rolls in like a slow tide.

Trump is as hollow a vessel as there has ever been in the White House. His rule lacks even a shred of moral authority.

Trump's affinity for Russia dates back at least to the late 1980s, during the time of the Soviet Union, and it intensified after his financial empire collapsed.

When I was 15 years old, my sister and I went on a trip to Europe. We went on scholarship because my mother didn't have the money to pay the full fare for the two of us, which ran into the thousands of dollars.