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These Election Results Are Straight-Up Terrifying

by Chris Tognotti

Well, this is a little nerve-wracking, huh? Despite Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton being an odds-on favorite in the polls heading into Election Day, the actual election night is not exactly following that script. In fact, what's transpiring is probably setting off panic attacks in Democrats and progressives all over the country ― Donald Trump is currently locked in dead-heats with Clinton in multiple swing states, and is threatening to win the whole thing. And if you're not scared enough as it is, here's why these election results are straight up terrifying.

Because Trump is one or two states away from becoming our next president! That's the simple explanation. To get more specific, though, what's terrifying is that while Trump's path seemed razor-thin at the start of the day, it's now Clinton who's been backed into a corner ― she absolutely needs to carry Wisconsin, Michigan, and Virginia to pull this thing off, and although she's narrowly ahead in Virginia and expected to pull ahead in Michigan, Wisconsin looms as a potentially devastating loss.

Alex Wong/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Really, there probably isn't much need to put too fine a point on it. From my perspective, the United States is currently within a hair's breadth of electing a wildly unqualified, unstable person to be its 45th commander-in-chief. If you're not nervous, well, I believe you probably ought to be.

Here's the simple fact, as the race stands now: if Clinton drops Michigan or Wisconsin, Trump will be the 45th president of the United States. There is not, sad to say, any other path for Clinton to make a comeback ― she also needs to hold Nevada, where she had a colossal early vote lead, but a similarly positive early vote outcome for her has crumbled in Florida, raising concerns (cited by Nevada reporter Jon Ralston) that something similar could happen there, too.

In short, the future of the United States is sitting on a needle's edge right now. On the one hand, an overqualified woman, and on the other, one of the most openly misogynistic candidates in American history, and one who hasn't shown any ability or temperament to handle the job, either. Suffice to say, if you had any plans to flee to Canada if Trump won the White House, you could find yourself shopping for air fare sometime soon. It shouldn't be too much longer until everyone knows what's up, in either case; the results from Michigan and Wisconsin are streaming in at the time of this writing.