“When the whole world is crazy, it doesn’t pay to be sane.” — Terry Goodkind, The Pillars of Creation

A friend and I were talking a couple of weeks about about our current political situation. I love this friend more than most people in the world. I have known her more than half my life and she is my people in every possible way.

And it is with love that I say she’s crazy as all get out. Has been since the failed Occupy Wall Street movement. She was all in for that. And when it fell apart, she checked out of the political process. This is someone who was once an intern at The New York Times. She’s an Ivy League-educated woman who has more passion in her one of her beautiful brown eyelashes than most people have in their entire soul. But she shut it down, at least the political part of it. She decided media and politicians weren’t trustworthy and disengaged.

When I visit or chat with her, I try my best to draw her in. And she indulges me for the time we are together. Then goes back into her no-news, no-politics black hole. This recent election result has drawn her out, though. So when we last chatted, we both lamented how “our side” was in danger of become the crazies. Crazy like: Benghazi, the Clintons have people killed, #pizzagate, Obama isn’t a US citizen, Rush Limbaugh, climate change is a hoax, evolution is a theory, trying to repeal Obamacare 60+ times. The hysterical, no-facts kind of crazy. Sure, it seems like everything is different and we have a right to be hysterical, but we’ve got to be fact-based hysterical. We have to #makeramericacareaboutfactsagain.

So I told her I was going to write a blog post called, “Don’t be a crazy bitch.” We laughed, promised to keep each other in check, and said I love you before our goodbyes.

This morning, I woke up that crazy bitch.

It’s just all too much: Saying the media lies. Saying the CIA lies. Rex Tillerson. Being too smart for daily intelligence briefings. The thank you tour. Twitter replacing the press conference. Twitter in general. Nominating someone to head the EPA who is suing the EPA. And on Friday, Russia.

I am now in a world in which I agree with Glenn Beck, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and, as of today, Mitch McConnell and Fox News’ Shepherd Smith.

Russia is my tipping point. Not just that a foreign entity tried to influence our democracy. Not just that Russia tried to undermine faith our our election process. But that Russia possibly did this to influence our election process. And that @realDonaldTrump says the CIA’s allegations are “rediculous” (he later deleted the tweet). And that my family and friends who voted for him are silent. Crickets.

Their silence indicates one of two things to me:

1. That they want their side to be the winners so badly, they don’t care if Russia interfered with our election process to get the candidate it favored elected. (Translation: They would rather have Putin interfere in our government than have Hillary Clinton be our president.) Read those two sentences out loud. And picture your favorite Republican. Picture Ronald Reagan. What gives people?
2. They would not want a full investigation if the Russians hacked the RNC email and released incriminating evidence against it (not saying it wasn’t true, just incriminating) and Clinton had won. Again, picture your favorite Republican. Picture any Republican politician. Seriously, what gives?

This is the side of Benghazi and Obamacare and Obama is a Muslim. No. 2 just seems nonsensical with this crowd, right? As it should be! And this is where I worry about my crazy.

Now, I do not in any way believe we need a re-do on the election. I’ve listened to the experts and it just ain’t gonna happen. One can’t quantify the number of votes lost or gained because of this. I get that. I really do.

I have a degree in journalism/political science. I shun conspiracy theorists (and I was raised by one). I am a fact-based person who can almost always see two sides to every story — from abortion to drunken campus rape (I win over exactly zero friends in that debate) to term limits.

But this week, I’m embracing my crazy. I want the Electoral College to stop this man. My apologies to those of you who have been tirelessly carrying the Hamilton Electors banner. I thought you were crazy when I first heard about you. I thought you’d become the birthers of the Democratic party. But now I get it.

Is it fact-based hysteria? I can’t tell yet. I spent this morning watching CNN, Fox News, reading The New York Times, NPR, The Washington Post, and @realDonaldTrump tweets.

Here’s what the Hamilton Electors say our founding fathers intended when creating the Electoral Collage. That our incoming president must:

1. Be qualified.
2. Not be a “charismatic autocrat.”
3. Not be under the influence of foreign powers.

If Donald Trump doesn’t raise to the level of the emergency measures our founding fathers intended when they created the Electoral College, then what does? I’m still deciding what I think about the Electoral College. But if it’s here for THESE reasons and we don’t use it NOW, we might as well get rid of it. Have we ever checked even one of these three boxes? Much less potentially all three?

I don’t want to be the fringe. I am as liberal as you can get … but I’ve never been fringe.

Here’s how the Hamilton Electors say it can be done on December 19, when the Electoral College actually casts its votes. That’s one week from today. I plan to be crazy — but on the right side of factual — until that day. And then, in the incredibly likely scenario where Trump is still PEOTUS, I will go back to fighting for what I stand for that I believe he threatens. I will go back to my Pantsuit Nation meetings (I actually have one tonight) and my local politician’s community meetings and seeing what we can do in 2018 and 2020 and beyond. I will continue to want an answer to the non-partisan issue of whether Russia intervened in our election process. I will not go into a black hole of political knowledge, and I’ll try to keep my friend out of it, too.

Because crazy with facts and passion — in that order — is OK, I’ve learned today. We do not sound like the “show me the birth certificate” lunatics when we say “I want to know if Russia tried to get Trump elected.”

I have new respect for crazy today. Because, facts.