When I woke up on November 6 and read the news that Trump had won the presidency, I was surprised – for about five minutes. And then my bubble was burst. It was so abundantly clear to me. Of course he won. Of course.

That Wednesday was such a silent, shell-shocked day. I watched a woman bawl her eyes out on the subway. I suppose she could’ve been crying about anything, but every one of us on that train car watched her, shared her grief.

I think that was the overall reaction in New York City. A collective bubble burst. We went to work or school wondering what had blinded us, realizing how removed we had been from the majority. Our blue-tinted glasses were torn off and all around us, that vague purple sea (it’s a tie! it’s a tie!) turned bright red.

For that disconnect I largely blame the internet. The election cycle created two simultaneous online realities in the United States, two worlds with their own media, their own personalities, their own memes. Our perceptions of the race were curated by social media algorithms, so while I saw “Kamala is brat” gifs associating Harris with the pop star of the summer, Charli XCX, Republicans were seeing photos of Trump at the wheel of a garbage truck, owning that “pieces of garbage” comment like a boss. Meanwhile, the garbage truck memes in my feed only mocked him.

Some would say that an “online reality” is an oxymoron. But my online world was so real to me that I had real confidence that Harris would win, though if I had stopped scrolling for a second, I would’ve noticed the Trump signs all over Ulster County. That’s the danger with these filter bubbles we inhabit online – we lose the full picture and enter the echo chamber that suits us best. It scares me that so many Democrats, myself included, fell into the “Kamala is brat” chamber, believed in it and only noticed the walls once Harris had lost.

Perhaps that false confidence can help explain the low turnout on Election Day. But memes only go so far. All the brat green coconut trees weren’t enough to inspire us, which means that at her core, Harris herself was not terribly inspiring. I wanted her to be, but looking back, the hype feels forced, superficial. She never really got out from under Biden’s presidency, and so much of what she promised was simply “I’m not Trump.” That was enough for a lot of us, but it is antagonistic and it helps me understand why so many Republicans and independents find the Democrats condescending. We turn up our noses at Trump and his followers, we the east coast academics, the cidiots, the urban elite. The fact that Trump is himself an elite never seems to make it into that bubble.

Looking at it this way, I see how out of touch these two American realities are. And even in a Trump presidency, I may very be able to continue living in the New York City bubble. If a national abortion ban goes into effect, could New York State hold its own? Marijuana is illegal nationally, but legal in New York. Could we keep abortion more widely legal here in the same way? These are the kinds of things my friends and I have wondered over the last two weeks. It’s hard to say.

Of course, it would be better if Americans could find some common ground again, but we’re not very good at that historically. We are so wedded to online media, it’s difficult to see a way out from under the tyranny of the algorithm. So, I hope Democrats can find a way to reclaim it, wriggle our way inside the Trump bubble and offer an alternative. There will be plenty of ammunition – the stresses of a Trump presidency will come back to us all too quickly. I sincerely hope we can find ourselves a party leader a little younger than 80.

That is my hope in the midst of dreadful nauseous anxiety. At least our eyes are open. It’s going to be a wild ride.