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By Amber Phillips

In the days after Tuesday's presidential election, Americans can agree on one thing: Who won was a surprise.

According to Gallup, three-quarters of Americans said Tuesday's results caught them off guard. It probably won't surprise you to hear that includes 9-in-10 Clinton supporters.

But as The Fix's Philip Bump points out, surprise is pretty much the only emotion a divided America shares. More than three-quarters of Hillary Clinton supporters say they're afraid about the coming presidency, while 91 percent of President-elect Donald Trump's supporters say they are excited.

Galup

Some 66 percent of Clinton supporters say they are devastated, while 80 percent of Trump supporters say they are excited. Some 58 percent of Clinton supporters say they are angry, while 75 percent of Trump supporters say they are proud.

You get where we're going with this: America is processing one very surprising election two very different ways.

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 9: Peple react to results at an election night event at the Javits Center November 8, 2016 in New York City, New York. (Photo by Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post)

Hillary Clinton supporters react to Tuesday's election results in New York City. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post)

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 8: Cheers for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump as results trickle in, inside an election night event at the New York Hilton Midtown November 8, 2016 in New York City, New York. (Photo by Jabin Botsford /The Washington Post)

Donald Trump supporters cheer on election night in New York City. (Jabin Botsford /The Washington Post)

Wait! There's still hope!

Maybe through the rubble we can cobble together some sense of unity, the more optimistic among us might say.

Trump supporters may reason that Tuesday's results humbled congressional Democrats into working with them. Or Clinton supporters may be buoyed by Trump's gracious acceptance speech, promising to be a president for all Americans.

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 9: President-elect Donald Trump addresses supporters at an election night event at the New York Hilton Midtown November 8, 2016 in New York City, New York.(Photo by Jabin Botsford /The Washington Post) (Photo by Jabin Botsford /The Washington Post)

President-elect Donald Trump addresses supporters Tuesday. (Jabin Botsford /The Washington Post)

To that, The Fix's Aaron Blake presents a big, comforting wet blanket.

Americans WANT their government to push back on the party in control. It's no coincidence that the party in the White House usually loses seats in Congress and state legislatures. During the Obama years, more than 900 state legislative Democrats were defeated and Democrats lost their majorities in Congress.

In America, politicians are often rewarded for promising to be a check and balance on power.

Blake: "If the last decade-plus has shown us anything, it's that we live in an increasingly polarized country in which there is little incentive — and generally much more disincentive — to work across the aisle."

President-elect Trump isn't necessarily preaching unity, either

On Friday morning, here's what he had to say about the thousands of people across the country protesting his win:

tweet1

Just nine hours later, he had a jarringly different tone:

tweet2

The problem for Trump is second tweet doesn't just cancel out the first, like Trump and his aides may have hoped.

The first is so factually inaccurate, so baffling incendiary and so frankly unpresidential that it's hard to see these two tweets as anything but Trump resorting to the defensive nature he assumed during much of the campaign — and then trying to clean it up.

Bump offers some unsolicited advice to our new president: "It's stunningly petty for a person who was literally just elected president of the United States to call protests in several cities 'unfair.' You're about to become the most powerful person in the world. That is not a position that engenders blanket acquiescence."

At least Republicans can have a kumbaya moment, right?

REDAMERICA

As the map above shows, Republicans' dominance has rarely been so pronounced.

Republicans control more governors' mansions, state legislatures and state executive offices than at any time in the modern era.

To put this another way, Republicans fully control state government (the governorship and state legislature) in 25 states; Democrats control state government in just four. Roughly 85 percent of the population lives in states either all or partially controlled by Republicans.

BLUEAMERICA

SPLITAMERICA

Republicans also have control of Congress, the White House and the chance to reshape the Supreme Court to be more conservative. In other words, they have reached the governing holy grail. Surely they'll at least get along, right?

Maybe not. So says Washington, D.C.-based professor Allan Lichtman. If his name sounds familiar, it's because he's that professor, the one who called Trump's big win before anyone else did.

As he was correctly predicting a Trump presidency, Lichtman predicted to The Fix' Peter Stevenson that if elected, Trump would eventually be impeached by a Republican Congress that would prefer a President Mike Pence — someone whom establishment Republicans know and trust.

Click to watch Prof. Lichtman predict Trump's impeachment.

Licthman explains: "This one is not based on a system; it's just my gut. They don't want Trump as president, because they can't control him. He's unpredictable. They'd love to have Pence — an absolutely down-the-line, conservative, controllable Republican. And I'm quite certain Trump will give someone grounds for impeachment, either by doing something that endangers national security or because it helps his pocketbook.”

A president impeached by his own party? It might sound outlandish, but given Lichtman's street cred with predicting an election result that surprised 3/4 of Americans, far be it from us to rule this out.

We'll leave you with those comforting thoughts for the weekend. Also a blissful baby panda. Good job getting through Election Week, everyone.

panda_s

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