Post-Election

We don’t know what kind of president Donald Trump will be. He’s never been president before. Lots of predictions are being made, but they are just that—predictions, theories, hypotheses. No one predicted he would win this election, save for a lone algorithm. And he won. We are practicing living in the moment, as that is all we have. We don’t even know what’s going to happen in the next minute or hour, nevermind what will happen when Trump takes the Oval Office.  

What we do know, and what most of us are rightfully scarred by and making future predictions based on, is what kind of words he said during his campaign. The first thing I thought when I woke up the morning after the election was, “What if I were waking up as a [fill in the blank with a member of a disenfranchised group…Muslim, disabled, gay, black, Mexican] woman today?” He didn’t just smear his opponent, which sadly would have been the norm and acceptable in our political landscape. He shot down and threatened the futures of so many groups of people who already had a way bigger mountain to climb. Even if he wasn’t serious, those words were heard ‘round the world and internalized, by our children, too. 

Many are asking, “What do we do now?” There is no choice but to move on to the next moment. Over and over again. Not knowing what will come next, because none of us do. You can move out of the U.S. (you’ll still have to pay U.S. taxes unless you renounce citizenship), you can join protests, get a gun to feel safe, whatever you want and whatever you need as long as you don’t hurt anyone. But at the end of the day, there is no choice but to hope that candidate Donald Trump said derogatory things merely to appeal to a certain demographic and thus get elected. Hopefully, that was reality star Trump, just saying ridiculous things to get good ratings. Hopefully, President Trump will be a person who represents many Americans, not just the small group of people for whom his candidacy and victory ignited a deep and dormant hatred toward certain groups. That is all we can hope. That his actions will speak much louder than his words. 

Forget Trump himself. He’s busy meeting with the Obamas and trying to figure out how to make sense of an intelligence briefing, like he should be. Right now in this moment, the acts of hate between Americans are the most upsetting part. There is a Twitter reel of peoples’ accounts of overt racism, sexism, and homophobia since the election. And the number of stories keeps increasing. THAT is deplorable. 

A lot is happening and we will see how it continues to unfold. The election was horrible and we are paying for it. Both parties failed in getting a name on the ballot that could reflect positive American qualities and values. We had no one to choose from, really, and there were so many variables that affected how people voted. Most of us voted for who we hated less, or the “lesser of the two [criminals?]”. That sucks. Our political system is broken and our political parties set up a horrible situation for us and now we’re getting angry at each other. We can’t afford that. We have to take care of ourselves and each other, regardless of who we are. If we were going to war with another planet, everyone on Earth would be fighting that planet together, defending one another. A common enemy brings people together and dissolves differences. But we cannot let that common enemy be fellow Americans who are in the minority for whatever reason. We can not.