As the broad democratic movement painfully absorbs this major defeat, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that Hillary won the popular vote (nearly 60 million), nor the challenge of connecting with these same voters in the weeks and months ahead. Sober and big circle thinking with people of diverse views – not panic, not finger pointing, not despair, not score settling, not turning inward – should be the centerpiece of what we say and do now. There are dangers to be sure – big ones in fact – but there are institutional obstacles, historical traditions, and a potentially broad scale multi-class, multi-racial, people’s coalition in early formation that when taken together could offer substantial resistance to any sweeping swing to the right and authoritarian rule attempted by the Trump administration and his Republican allies.

Moreover, Trump’s mass constituency and coalition is beset with its own contradictions and incoherencies that may not surface and unravel immediately – and that’s a problem – but as things and time go forward.

This may all sound pollyannish to you, but at moments like this when it seems like night has completely overtaken day, it’s one beginning.