This election has done some serious damage to the way I see America. It’s been hard to accept that a country I’ve been raised to believe is free and prosperous, brave and fair, is lacking in those qualities by greater and greater degrees.

And while Trump is a horrible example of just how far our culture has fallen, it’s not necessarily him that really signals to me that America is truly no longer what it was meant to be. Yes, he’s a massive indicator that our nation is easily lead by the nose, and willing to sink into a cult like status in order to vote for the same damn thing they’re fighting against.

But anybody who reads me regularly knows my thoughts on this topic, and those who don’t can easily search my article history for more. I don’t exactly keep my feelings hidden on the guy.

It’s actually the rise of Hillary Clinton that bothers me more. At the center of all of this is Hillary Clinton. This woman should be the laughing stock of the long line of Democratic presidential hopefuls. She entered into the campaign embroiled in scandal, consistently revealed to have been involved in illegal activity, and what’s more, through all the released emails, proves just how much of an underhanded cheat she and her Democrat hoard are.

Yet still she wins, because she was able to play the populace like a Vegas hustler at a dorm room poker game. She got the candidate she wanted to run against, a media that is relentlessly supportive of her, and government officials who are willing to look the other way when she breaks the law.

And it’s that last part that really makes me wonder if America really has breathed it’s last, and we’re now living in some shadow of it’s former self.

Yesterday, I was writing an article on James O’keefe’s latest sting video. In it, I talked about how top Democratic officials implicate Clinton herself in the breaking of campaign finance law. As I was writing it, I began to wonder why I was writing it. I started to feel like it wasn’t going to make any difference whether people knew Hillary Clinton was involved in anything illegal or not.

She’s going to get away with what should amount to treason thanks to an FBI that is only too willing to look the other way, and a media that won’t hold her accountable if she punted a puppy off a bridge. If she can walk away from that and right into the oval office, then there’s nothing that can touch her. What’s more, is that she’s being sent the message that she knows it.

Hillary Clinton is a walking, talking example that law and order in the United States is subjective, and that justice is a lot less blind than we thought. Clinton proves that there is a bonafide ruling class that can make rules for us, but has to follow none herself. We’re not electing a President, we’re enthroning a Queen.

What saddens me is that in truth, we’ve more or less just gone to shrugging our shoulders and accepting what we’re being dealt. I can’t count the number of time I’ve gotten a response filled with resignation. Like there’s nothing we can do, and all that’s left is to shout “long live the Queen,” and hope we’re the ones the crocodile eats last.

Even as I type this, I’m feeling like that’s something I can’t accept. Between Trump and Hillary, it was damned if we do, damned if we don’t, and I did my best to go with neither. I still think there’s an America out there worth defending, and while it will be a long uphill slog after another 4 years of regressive policies, it can be reclaimed. I can’t resign myself to being like the backward countries we left behind long ago.

There are still Republicans out there worth voting for, and even politicians without R’s next to their name to get excited about. Parties that can rise out of this mess that will truly lead us back to something I can, as a free-ish man, support. Values and principles I can still defend, and a Constitution that I can still protect.

That’s the attitude I’m going to attempt to strike as we’re plunged into a Clinton presidency. Hillary’s not a queen. She’s a woman in a pantsuit who needs a crew of hundreds to make her seem competent. I’m not going to make this easy on her, and I hope you don’t either.