There is no Combat! blog today, because Jodi and I are flying to Salt Lake City to see Curt in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. I saw that shit at the Kennedy Center, but we’re doing it all again, because I am a Beautiful: The Carole King Musical superfan, at least as long as Curt is in it. While I prepare to critique another lighting design, how about you read this terrifying article from Buzzfeed, which found that fake news outperformed real news on Facebook during the last three months of the election. We always worry about the legal half of democracy being usurped by some tyrannical government, but we rarely talk about the social half—the informed citizenry that makes democracy not just constitutional but wise. It does little good to have everyone vote on the issues of the day when no one agrees what those issues are, or they agree on some pleasing lie they told one another on Facebook. On a completely unrelated note, the president-elect took to Twitter last night to take credit for keeping a Ford plant in Kentucky from moving to Mexico. Minor detail: the plant was never closing. Ford planned to move production of the Lincoln MKC to Mexico and produce more Escapes at the Kentucky plant, for a net change of zero jobs. But Trump declared that he “worked hard with Bill Ford to keep the Lincoln plant in Kentucky. I owed it to the great State of Kentucky for their confidence in me!” Welcome to the post-truth presidency.

I wrote this week’s column for the Missoula Independent on Monday, when all I could think about was the outcome of the election. It ran this morning, which, as you may have heard, is after the election. The conceit is that I hedged my bets for either outcome, in a column about local traffic light replacement that didn’t need to mention the election at all. I can’t tell if it’s funnier this way or not. Probably the part about stamping tin hats for war with Mexico isn’t really going to happen, but you be the judge. I admit that, as I wrote it, I was picturing a Clinton presidency. What makes God laugh? A plan. We will not be back tomorrow with Friday links, because I am on my way to New Orleans for a much-needed dudes weekend. This, too, was planned with a Clinton victory in mind, but I bet we’ll have fun anyway. In the meantime, keep batting ideas around in the comments. We’ve got the whole future ahead of us.

What are you doing on the internet? Stop reading this immediately and go vote—unless you are reading this while waiting in line to vote, in which case, okay, I guess. It’s really important that you vote. Today is basically a free roll on something very bad happening to America, and even though it’s not thrilling to cast your ballot for more of the same, it’s crucial that you do so. This decision needs more input from people who can read. I voted by mail two weeks ago, so I’ve got the whole day to bite my nails. I’m just kidding. I never bite my nails, so any snapping or grinding noise you hear coming from my mouth is purely tooth-on-tooth. We’ll be back tomorrow to talk about the results or declare our unwavering loyalty to whatever brown-shirted citizen police force emerges to patrol the United States, depending on which way it goes. Vote!

Owing to a dispute wherein I wanted him to stop fucking up and he didn’t, I stopped seeing my old dentist. It had therefore been a while since my last cleaning when I consulted Ike Heaphy, DDS. Reader, let me tell you about a phenomenal dentist. Not only did he look in my mouth and find no cavities, but he also scheduled me for a two-hour, comprehensive cleaning. That cleaning occurred this morning, and now I am just blood. I belch and it tastes like blood. I eat a Triscuit, stupidly, and my gums emit blood. I run my tongue over the pleasing, tartar-free contours of my lower dentarinos and taste blood. I’m squeaky clean but pretty gross, is what I’m saying here, and my usual gameness was spent in the chair. I’m going to sip La Croix, shiver a little, and get back to you tomorrow. In the meantime, how about you watch some epée videos. Did I tell you I competed in an epée tournament for like six hours on Saturday? My legs were feeling pretty sore, until I did this thing with the teeth.

It’s a busy day at the Combat! blog offices today, so I thought I’d take a moment to direct you to this post from one year ago today. Remember when Donald Trump’s speech patterns and fantastic insistence on his own greatness were funny and new, instead of grim warnings of a degenerate future? Me neither. It’s crazy how dated this feels after just one year, like some light satire on the confidence of young Cassius Clay. I guess the difference is that Clay went on to become an icon of forward-thinking greatness, whereas Trump has made more of a circular progression. I’m glad he’s a joke again, but I’m a little scared of what his meteoric rise and vertiginous plummet have done to our senses of what’s normal.