I, like a family-sized portion of the rest of the country, am still reeling from Tuesday night. America hasn’t been this blindsided since the 2000 hanging chad. It feels nothing short of a bad breakup: tight chest, anxious restlessness, a shock reverberating through your body. It left so many frustrated and out of control and with no clear place to funnel the angst. Who are we actually mad at? How were we so off base? What will become our new normal?
I cried. In the office, actually. This came as a surprise to me and my coworkers, both of whom didn’t know I owned tear ducts, let alone that they were a fully serviced item on the menu. I knew immediately it wasn’t that I lost, or we lost, or that I was straight up miffed I didn’t get my way. Was I mad that there was this completely untapped reservoir of frustration that manifested into one of the most tectonic shakeups in election history? Not mad, sad actually. And a little confused. No American should ever feel left behind by their representation. But it wasn’t that. It was deeper and felt custom tailored to my most vulnerable spots.
I spent a lot of time examining why it felt so personal to me and trying to reconcile my feelings with friends and family. A lot of people shared in my frustration, some reasoned that the President can’t do a lot without Congress (and he’s winning no popularity contest there), some feel that we are in a day and age where he can’t actually repeal Roe v. Wade/take away the healthcare of 17 million/deport an entire religious group etc., some think his advisors will be smart enough and strong enough to buffer him. Many are equally baffled.
None of these rationales targeted exactly why I felt so slighted. I know the lawmaking process. I know checks and balances are supposed to push and pull a President to reasonable equilibrium, that there are good people in government, that no one person can change the heart of our nation. I am a rational person. I know this will not take down the free world. So why did I feel such a genuine foreboding waking up the day after, today, and likely tomorrow?
The mandate of the vote.
Our country used the political process to elect Donald Trump and in that moment, forgave him. We forgave it all. Every joke. Every impersonation. Every opinion rooted in misinformation and conjecture about women, Muslims, African Americans, the disabled, Mexicans, the LGBT community, Veterans, non-Americans, and dictators, was suddenly acceptable in America. It wasn’t before. Politicians treaded the line of appropriateness, toying back and forth, sometimes forced to rein it in, but never unapologetically crossed it and emphatically pushed forward. In your own process, whether you supported these statements or simply didn’t think they mattered enough to affect your vote, you forgave him for everything.
That is what separated the logical from the visceral. A pro-Trump vote inherently and fastidiously decided that the people targeted by Trump didn’t matter all that much.
You can say what you want about Hillary, but she is not Donald Trump. If you felt Hillary was untrustworthy, cold, too embedded in the political sphere, etc., she upheld a basic sense of decency. She weathered mudslinging of the highest caliber and still never went low enough for me to question whether she hated entire groups of people. I feel a similar sense of respect for Paul Ryan and John McCain.
As a woman, it feels like we said it was ok for Trump to continue to treat and talk about women the way he has. As a friend of someone with an autistic sibling, it feels like we said “yeah we’ll stop the R word, but impersonating a disabled person on a national stage is just fine.” As a Jew, the prospect, whether legitimate or not, of deporting people based on religion feels as raw as it did in 1939—and we fight hard never to close that wound for this very reason.
I have a few friends who voted for Trump who said it was based on foreign policy, economics, immigration policy, not the off-the-cuff tidbits. I believe them. I truly do. This becomes the perpetual progression into the always-admonished-never-actually-changed two party system conversation—you have to accept things you don’t agree with to get what you most want. Regardless of where the conversation falls, it feels all the same. You voted against me.
I’m not going to resent anyone for how they voted. There simply isn’t enough space on the list next to my third grade teacher, 9th grade frenemy, people who chew loudly and whichever animal ate my rabbit Thumper. My aim with this article is not to reprimand you for doing what you felt was best for you and our country, but to show you why it may take some of us longer to get there. I’ve talked to many of my Republican friends and can tell you that they felt this context helped them understand the vociferous resistance.
To me, this candidate seems unlike anyone we’ve ever seen, so these particular feelings could be original. But they’re likely not. I’m sure people felt Obama was in direct opposition to their values. Maybe still do. At the time I couldn’t recognize that. I can tell you that going forward, in life and politics, this election has unveiled a new layer of empathy in me. Regardless of leanings, I hope it does for you too. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and recognizing another’s reality does not mean you are betraying your own ideals. It means you are strong enough to know that empathy, not agreement, is the antidote to divisiveness.
My plea to everyone is to retain your sense of decency. Be nice to each other. Speak kindly. Laugh at each other’s dumb jokes and remember that our country is defined not by the tenant of 1600 Penn Ave. but by the things we do for each other that make it all a little better.