The five stages of grief as applied to this presidential election, 2016
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross first published On Death and Dying in 1969, wherein she described the five stages of grief people go through when someone close to them dies or when they realize that their time on earth is finite, likely to be cut short by a terminal cancer or other fatal health complication. This election, those stages keep circling around in my brain, because it does feel like something died today. It would be hard to define what exactly it was that died and easy to say it was hope, but that's too sentimental. Maybe it's more like a faith or certainty that Hillary Clinton would win--had to win. She was clearly the much more prepared candidate, performed well in all three debates, had the backing of the President and other well-known figures, and was surrounded by a team of really smart people who know how to run campaigns. And then there's her competitor; the man for whom the word "buffoon" was designed--ill-prepared, angry, unqualified, wildly temperam...