I stayed awake until nearly 3 a.m. last night awaiting the results of the election. I watched with bated breath, but mostly with horror, as states that were typically blue were drenched red, as county after county across the nation fell into the hands of Donald Trump. The commentators were genuinely shocked. They were scrambling to figure out what happened, what went wrong with their experts and their polls. And this morning, I awoke to a nation reeling. There has been so much grief. There will continue to be so much grief.
The outcome of the election breaks my heart not because I was a die-hard Clinton supporter from the start. It breaks my heart because our country decided, today, that a man with a history of sexual violence against women, who has mocked the disabled, who has generalized Mexicans and Muslims and African-Americans into dangerous stereotypes should be our nation's great leader. There is a woman out there who watched in horror as her rapist was declared the President-Elect. There are LGBT+ youth who see our Vice President Elect and are realizing that rights they have fought and died for are going to be torn away.
There are countless people telling those of us disappointed in the results to “think positively.” They are telling us that we must accept his presidency because it’s what the people chose (which, in fact, is untrue, because Clinton won the popular vote, although barely). But eight years ago, people accused Barack Obama of being Muslim as a means of justifying why he shouldn’t be allowed to be president. For eight years, our now-president demanded Obama’s birth certificate. In the aftermath of Obama’s election, there was no “positive thinking” -- there was anger and retaliation and a firm resistance to accepting him because of his skin color, amongst other things.
Positive thinking is impossible for many of us right now. We are in mourning. Our country, which had supposedly made so many strides for progressivism in the past eight years, is now forcing our first-ever black president to turn over the office to a man endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan. When we say we are fearful for people of color, for LGBT+ people, for women -- we don’t say this lightly. As a nation, we have watched Donald Trump and his team propagate constant dangerous rhetoric, threaten to deport all immigrants, threaten to harness Muslims with ID cards (something frighteningly reminiscent of Germany circa 1940). I do not fear him as a person, but I fear the power he has exerted over the people of this country. I fear the hatred he is fostering in the hearts of Americans.
It is only those with the utmost privilege who are able to feel solace or even happiness right now. It is only those wildly unaffected by a Donald Trump presidency that have any means of feeling safe. I have close friends who would be or will be directly impacted by the things Donald Trump hopes to accomplish -- who do not feel respected by this country as women of color, who feel the hatred of our country being descended upon them as LGBT-identifying people. To those who can sit back and tell those of us who are deeply upset by these results that "it’s going to be OK" and we "have to deal with the consequences:" you do not understand, and I envy you that ignorance.
People that ask for those who support Trump to "defriend them" are not being close-minded or rude or "sore losers." They are afraid. They are angry. Voting for Trump is the equivalent of stating that the rights of minorities don't matter, that sexual assault doesn't matter. This is not a matter of politics anymore. This is about human decency. And so many Americans failed this test today. So many Americans betrayed me, my friends and my peers today.
Yesterday, a woman who, for her many faults, is incredibly qualified for and passionate about this position was bested by a man with no experience, no education about the business into which he has entered and no sense of empathy for the people of this country. This is no new narrative; it is one that has been learned time and time again, one that every woman in this country has probably experienced and felt. Yesterday, our country told us all once and for all that women are not viewed to be as strong or powerful as men, no matter how hard we work. The glass ceiling has 30 layers of concrete behind it, and Hillary Clinton’s knuckles are bloody from trying so hard to break through.
Do not tell me to be positive right now, or that my ranting on social media is useless. Because it isn’t. The media is a huge contributing factor to the election of this narcissistic bigot. We allowed them to give Donald Trump endless free airtime; we watched them twist the story of Hillary Clinton and those emails until her policies, her hard work, her qualifications became lost amongst the sea of sexist and degrading rhetoric.
But more than that, do not tell me to be positive right now when you, and so many others in this country, have just told me that my rights to my body aren’t important enough. When I have to look into the petrified, hurting faces of my LGBT+ friends and my friends of color who don’t know if they can leave their houses today. So many tears have been shed, because while you said it was the "lesser of two evils," we all knew it wasn’t. It was hatred and progressivism on the ballot. And you failed us, today.
I will respect Donald Trump as the President of the United States. I will not respect him as a man, as a person. And my voice is not going to stop shouting; my hands are not going to stop fighting to break those concrete walls, from now until 2018 and 2020.
Today we mourn and we hurt, but tomorrow, and for the next four years, we fight for our freedoms, for hope and change and love to finally trump hate.
