I’m still in a state of shock, after watching the election returns. The best qualified candidate in modern history was defeated by the least qualified candidate in history. President-elect Donald J. Trump appealed to fear of the Other….and won. The pundits and editorial writers will have much to feed upon in the days ahead.

The world is reacting. Global stock markets are in free fall. That affects our savings, our pensions, the equity in our homes.

What does this mean for education? The Republican Party is committed to school choice. Trump rarely spoke about education but this is the little we know. He pledged to take $20 billion from existing federal programs, probably Title I, and give it to the states to be used for charters and vouchers. It will be up to the states to protect what they can of public education.

This will be a boon for charter operators and for-profit entrepreneurs, and we can expect to see religious groups reach out for federal funding. But ultimately the decision about how to spend these block grants is in the hands of the states, a power strengthened by the new federal law, ESSA.

Trump said through a surrogate that he would not put an educator in charge of the Department of Education. He doesn’t like Common Core, but that’s in the hands of the states.

Truth is, he knows little about education and cares less. It didn’t play a role in the campaign. What kind of people will be making decisions about K-12 education and higher education? No one knows.

We will have to rely on the Democratic minority and moderate Republicans to restrain his worst instincts.

I had friends stay over last night for what we thought would be a celebratory evening. They brought their 10-year-old grandson for a sleepover. This morning, as we grownups were moping around, little Shawn shrugged and said, “There will be another election in four years.”

At least, Trump will stop saying it was a “rigged election.”

In the political earthquake that follows the election, we all need to sit back and evaluate who we are, how we can make sense of what happened, how we can survive the next four years, how we can build a viable movement to protect our democratic institutions, and what we need to do to restore hope in the future of our nation. Much depends on whether Trump governs as a pragmatist or a demagogue.

i have to stop now. My brain hurts. I am watching television as I write, and a sunny commercial just aired, sounding like a campaign ad, promoting justice, great schools, a new day. I wondered why anyone would be running a campaign ad on the morning after. The sponsor was Koch Industries.