The whole world knows the news by now. Donald Trump is going to be president of the United States. Again.

As a Canadian, I had no say in that decision, and at the same time, I’m going to be affected by the outcome. All of us will.

It hardly needs to be said, but this guys is simply unfit to lead an after-school intramural soccer team, never mind the most powerful country in the history of the world. You know all this.

So I’m actually not that angry at Trump directly. We know who he is. He is nothing if not consistent.

But I’m livid. Like, scintillating, stars-in-my-eyes outraged at the approximately 51% of voters who chose that guy. How?

My best, most generous take, is this: young people in particular are looking at the world they’re inheriting, and they’re simply getting priced out of existence. Rent is too high, home prices are stratospheric, and any hope of having the kind of reasonable, middle-class life their parents had sounds like a fantasy.

I am super-sympathetic to this. Democrats in particular, and “the left” world-wide, have not taken this seriously at all. The Liberal Party of Canada, to whom I donate every month, makes a token gesture at solving the real estate crisis while coming nowhere close to the scale of the problem. I’m furious at them. Meanwhile, the gap between the wealthiest and everyone else only widens. Our society has become unequal and un-just.

People like Trump (and in Canada, Pierre Poillievre, damn his eyes) are promising to fight for the people most disadvantaged by those forces. But they are fucking lying. When they get into office, they’re going to forget who put them there, and they’re going to fall back on the same old small-C conservative tropes: enriching themselves and their wealthiest buddies in the corporate world. And they’ll distract the masses with red meat: blaming immigrants, the gays, and the “deep state” (code for the competent bureaucracy that keeps the government running). And things will get immeasurably worse.

So when I was watching CBC’s coverage of the election, I was equal parts horrified and furious at the young people in particular: the cute blonde 21-year-old college student who likes Trump because “he believes in family”, or the dudebros who say Trump will fight for them (yup, they were white). They are all being sold a bill of goods.

Meanwhile, actual important, grown-up shit is going to get broken. The kind of stuff that twenty-somethings don’t know or care about: the post-war alliance of liberal democratic nations, the moral leadership of a great country around the world, the blazing bonfire of innovation at the core of America’s power, soon to be doused at universities and government labs.

Throwing Ukraine to the wolves. Standing aside as China runs roughshod over Taiwan. Letting the Palestinians burn.

Leaving women subjugated to their insecure, violent, petty men. Waging war on anyone not born white and straight.

Giving up on fighting climate change, consigning all of humanity to catastrophe.

So when I saw those stupid kids on TV, the only words I could muster were “you stupid fucks. You dumb fucking fucks, shut your stupid fucking mouth."

What do I say to my daughter, also a cute 21-year-old college student, who looks at what’s happening with despair? There’s nothing I can offer that would meet this moment. The tragedy is, she’s going to suffer, just like her ignorant fellow gen-zedders.

Stay tuned.