I’m not going to lie to you: the past 24 hours have been some of the most stressful in my entire life. The last time I felt like this before an election was when there was a referendum on whether or not we should join the European Union. I was too young to vote in that one and since I don’t have an American bone in my body, I have no say in whatever the outcome of this American election will be either. In both cases, I have been horribly aware of the ripple effect that other people’s votes can and do have.

With the way Trump has conducted himself in the last four years, with children being separated from their parents and put in cages, the racism, the misogyny, the endless lies and the overwhelming incompetence, this should have been as easy as taking out the rubbish on a Wednesday morning. And yet, as I sit here biting my nails (a habit which I don’t even have), I can’t help but shrug my head in disbelief and demoralisation. As the day has worn on, all my friends and I have been repeating is: How is it so close? It can’t be this close. What more did people need to vote this man out? What would have been enough?

Maybe in many ways, this feels so personal because I am projecting my disbelief about the state of my own country.

Lest we forget: a barrage of scandals so huge that we had people from Europe checking in on us was not enough to stop the party currently in power getting a majority of more than 40,000.

Even then the writing was on the wall: cases that are being heard now and accusations being brought in front of courts were already very much public knowledge three years ago, and yet as I type, people continue to defend the indefensible and make excuses for the morally bankrupt.

We need to cure this sickness that deafens reason- Anna Marie Galea

A few days ago, a journalist from this very paper was allegedly offered money, presumably to write favourably about a man who seems to have gotten used to buying whoever he wants as if he’s at Tal-Lira. Instead of people showing disgust and outrage, all that some could do was attack the paper instead.

To me, there is no logical reason why someone should react like this. It’s like showing a friend a photo of her boyfriend cheating on her and you getting blamed for showing it to her while she goes off and happily marries him under a Hawaiian, starry sky. The difference is that while love, loyalty and devotion are usually standard occurrences in most relationships, I’m not sure why many people seem to feel the same way towards the strangers they are electing.

We need to sit down and try to understand what is bringing this wilful blindness on. We need to get to the root of this mindless adoration which seems to know no reason. We need to understand why grown men and women will lie, cheat and vote for these hollow gods of clay. We need to cure this sickness that deafens reason.

I shouldn’t have to sit here and try to explain to people week after week that corruption and killing are wrong whoever does them for whatever reason. I shouldn’t have to explain why integrity is more important than money at dinner parties to the slack-jawed; and no, America, after the advice to drink bleach and the bare-faced mistruths, it shouldn’t have been this close.