Whether Trump or Clinton wins the US election, what follows is up to us | Rebecca Solnit

When the polls close, a new battle will begin - to resist a racist climate denier, or to force a centrist Democrat to deliver genuinely progressive change

Presidential elections are a form of madness that comes over us once every four years. They fit the great-man or -woman narrative of history, seducing us into forgetting how powerful we are. They erase our memory of grassroots power, direct democracy and civil society. Leaders beget followers; people pin their hopes on one person, and with that they seem to shed responsibility for anything beyond getting that one person into office. Or, they wash their hands of any further involvement if it's not their one person.

We forget our own influence, the innumerable times we've swayed outcome