The last two days I’ve gotten up with the goal of writing a purposeful review of the last few weeks from my point of view as a liberal with Attention Deficit Disorder. I got distracted by Facebook and printing out my novel in progress and simply forgot to get around to it. Today I would be identified as gifted as well, though back when I went to school I was just “smart and lazy.”

But I digress. It happens a lot.

You may have noticed by now, if you’re following along at all, that I have a laser-thin focus on certain aspects of this year’s election process. This is a sometimes positive, sometimes hellish aspect of ADD. It allows me to work on a task with a frightening single-mindedness that excludes everything, often including tact.

This morning, as I left services that were devoted to counting blessings and honoring our veterans, this song popped up on the radio.

Subtitled “Stop, Hey What’s That Sound” by the record company exec who signed on Buffalo Springfield, For What It’s Worth is often associated with the Vietnam war, even though its writer, Stephen Stills, was actually inspired by the Sunset Strip Riots of 1966. The song captured my attention as an excellent jump-off point for this post.

I’ve been paying increasing attention to the political rhetoric that has brought us to where we are today, with a second term president and a congress that looks very much as it did two years ago. Such close attention, in fact, that I’ve flooded my friends’ FB feeds with warnings of the coming apocalypse if Romney should become President. Thankfully, we avoided the mess, but it’s a short-lived happy dance because now the real work begins. And some really don’t want to believe it’s over, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. Me? I had a four-hour nap the day after the election because holding my breath that long meant taking a very long recovery nap afterward. I’ve tried being more relaxed about the results, but with conversations between my friends, it’s clear I wasn’t the only one stressed out.

There are, to be sure, key differences in balance and in the winners of this year’s election cycle, but I’ve been surprised at the ongoing and frightening comments that haven’t gone away post-election.

In the last week, two Facebook friends have taken me off their list, mainly for pointing out the inconvenient truth. It’s as if Karl Rove’s disbelief in the election results has spread like a virus. It’s still gloves off with those who think President Obama should not be in office, that no matter what we say about those who’ve obstructed progress, it’s still somehow all his fault. Small business employees are facing retribution in the form of layoffs now that it’s clear the Affordable Care Act will go through. Somehow, the abysmal record Bain Capital has for moving American jobs to China are irrelevant.

Really? Why? Because employers might suddenly have to pay their fair share? Because we’re dealing with a looming Fiscal Cliff that was of the Republicans’ own making?

The GOP’s deal with the Devil, Sequestration, was supposed to be a threat to scare voters into choosing Romney, but it failed. The GOP’s rhetoric should in theory have coaxed those voters into Romney’s corner. Instead, the GOP threw insults at the 47%, as Romney so handily identified the Brown voters, questioning their intelligence, value and dignity.

This campaign season has overflowed with vinegar, not honey. We’ve suffered through some 20,000 campaign commercials.

Twenty. Thousand.

Saturation. All thanks to big money and Citizens United.

How could they expect it would go otherwise? The GOP continues to run on the assumption that the “minority” vote isn’t real enough to beat down the “white” vote, but they’ve just been handed a warning that they’re wrong. No amount of rounding up Hispanics in Arizona will keep the voting the way they want it to go.  Five days after the election and they’re still counting votes, to the tune of over 500,000 early and provisional ballots. Voters are rightly concerned about disenfranchisement.

This isn’t about Black and White anymore. It’s about Rich White and everyone else. If you need a label, call the rest Brown. And by Brown I mean all shades, from pale on down to rich, deep chocolate. President Obama might not have carried a landslide victory in the popular vote, but then he didn’t have to, thanks to the Electoral College. His supporters are all shades and ethnicities, from many religious and a-religious backgrounds, of all ages and all financial backgrounds. And genders.

Two years from now, we’re going to see all this nastiness again, only this time we’ll be on the other side of Sequestration. I suggest strongly that you pay attention to what happens between now and New Year’s Eve, because that’s the direction Congress will take in the coming year.

And in the meantime, I think it’s time the rich men in charge put on their big boy pants and learn to play nice with the rest of us. If we can do without, so can they.