This morning I woke up, and Donald Trump was the president-elect. By tonight, a number of things will have happened.

I and my family will be poorer, along with anyone else who has invested in the stock market over the years. The market will eventually come back, but—if President Trump gets to carry out any significant part of his fiscal plan—it’ll take a long time. The top marginal tax rate is now the lowest it’s been since 1929, and we know what happened then.

White power and other ethnic purity groups will be making their post-inauguration wishlists. They’ve been hearing Trump’s dog whistles for over a year and surely figure that he owes them something. David Duke was shown celebrating the new president-elect’s win.

Any minority in this country—blacks, Muslims, LGBQTs, Hispanics, or any other—will feel less secure as part of the American society.

Some Trump supporters will take to the Internet to explain how blind, dumb, morally perverted, and politically incapable those of us who supported Hillary Clinton are. The memes asking for graciousness and courtesy will not be universally honored

And that’s just the beginning.

If Trump does everything he says he’s going to do in his first 100 days, it’ll just get worse.

Insurance companies will return to the good old days, when they could refuse to insure anybody with a serious preexisting condition.

We will be embroiled with a lot of countries, some of whom are our allies, in dealing with treaties that Trump has said that he would not honor or would “renegotiate.”

Our mutual aid pacts will become suspect because of what he said during the campaign and possibly severed unless cooler, wiser heads prevail.

Somebody will finally be appointed to the Supreme Court. Hearings will finally be held. And there will be a lot of 5-4 decisions as the court rolls back some protections and constitutionally justifies what Trump now thinks he can do all by himself. I’m sure somebody will explain the Constitution to him and tell him he needs to have the court’s backing for some of his more grandiose ideas. Some, such as birthright citizenship, will—contrary to what he thought—will require a constitutional amendment.

In all, I fear that President Trump will boldly lead us into the 20^th century, somewhere around the middle of it.

But that’s my fear. It is not yet fact. Although Trump has been elected president, he has not yet governed, and there’s always hope that he will rise to the office, surround himself with good people, and actually do what is good for the country and all of its citizens. It’s happened before.

When FDR died at Warm Springs, Harry S. Truman became president. It was pretty much an accident. FDR wasn’t that enthusiastic about Truman being his running mate, and nothing in Truman’s background made anybody consider him presidential material. He’d spent his adult life as a cog in machine politics.

However, when he had to be president, he became President, making the decisions and taking the responsibility for them. Being president did not turn him into a polished person, such as the one he followed, but he served, and for the most part, I think he served well.

I pray that Donald Trump will grow into the job. Or—worst case—like Martin Van Buren, serve without harming the Republic irredeemably.

One of the difficulties of being an English major is that almost nothing happens that doesn’t attach itself to some sort of quote. Last night in the middle of the night I woke up thinking about Wallace Steven’s “Emperor of Ice Cream.” It’s about people gathering around a dead body.