I was in Troyes, in northeastern France (in the Champagne region) on Wednesday, November 6. Which is the day we learned, most of us to our dismay and dread, that Donald Trump had been reelected as President of the United States.

I waited a couple of hours before allowing myself to believe that it was going to be true; that Kamala Harris was going to concede the election, that we would be faced with another Trump presidency.

But it was true, all right. And when I went into the Office de Tourisme in Troyes later that day to buy some pretty postcards like the one pictured above and the woman asked me (as a matter of course, for their records) what my nationality was, I said “Américaine.” And I added, “I’m so sorry for what we have done.”

We’ve only begun to see just how bad things are going to be this time around with this man as our president. It’s not looking good: not for the US, not for our neighbors and allies, not for all of Europe.

But I had certainly suspected it might be this bad: and that is why my first thought was to apologize to the first European who asked me about my nationality.

This choice was not mine. It was not the choice of many millions of Americans. (Probably more than the current records show. We’ll leave it to future historians to figure that out.)

But in the meantime, it’s clear that this presidency is a disaster not only for the US, but for much of the world. For many people in many other places around the world. Especially those who need the most help just getting along. Just simply surviving.

And so, I just want to say, on behalf of my fellow citizens–the millions of us who feel the way I do–that I am so sorry for the harm that has been caused already, and for the harm that still will be caused by this disastrous situation.

We are also embarassed, ashamed, and a bit fearful of what lies ahead.

But many of us–I hope most of us–will be working hard to stop the damage, to reverse and undo the damage, and to turn things around just as quickly as we can.

We will need help to do this. It is good to see European leaders stepping up, determined to meet the challenge of supporting Ukraine quickly and meaningfully in the wake of the sudden loss of the help of an important partner.

There’s lots of work to be done, in the US and abroad, to rescue and safeguard democracy from the clutches of the authoritarian types taking hold in various places, including in the United States. It isn’t going to be easy, and it won’t happen overnight. But history tells us that working together we can find a way through whatever lies ahead. People have done it before.

And there is some good guidance out there for what to do, and how to go about it. (Timothy Snyder, Lady Libertie, Robert Reich, to name just a few.) There are many others, and many of them are posting on Substack, and sharing on Bluesky, two relatively new social media sites not owned by oligarchs that are answering the need for a public space where people who believe in democracy can find ways to work together to save it.

We’re all in this together. This is no time to throw up our hands in dismay. It is time to roll up our sleeves, and get busy. There’s no time to waste.

Janet Hulstrand is an American writer/editor who lives in France. She is the author of Demystifying the French: How to Love Them, and Make Them Love You, and A Long Way from Iowa: From the Heartland to the Heart of France. You can also find her writing at Searching for Home.