Other than in the last few Morning Briefings of the week, I tried to abstain from any hot takes on the election, the state of democracy, or whether we are all, in fact, sims.

At the beginning of the month, I wrote that I did believe that democracy is being threatened, but the threat is coming from the left. I also issued the following disclaimer, which is necessary every time I opine on this topic:

I am well aware that we don’t live in a democracy, so don’t sprain your wrists scrolling to the comments to correct me. Democracy is, however, the word that those other guys use in this false narrative, so, for simplicity’s sake, it’s what I’ll use in this column.

As I write this on a beautiful Sunday afternoon here in my beloved desert, I’ve had three-and-a-half solid days of post-election rumination. (Wednesday was a bit hazy after my election night deep dive into the potato vodka, so it doesn’t count.) Now that I have the benefit of a little perspective, I have to honestly say that my democracy is less than impressed with the saving it got last week.