Read what our selection of voters were thinking a week before election day
‘In the long run, I have hope’
- David, 43, Colorado, a lifelong Republican who voted for Hillary Clinton
I am very disappointed about the result, but I can’t be despondent. I am by nature an optimistic person. So, as the evening wore on and it became clear that Trump was going to win, I started thinking about what is actually going to happen after this. In the beginning, there will be dark moments, and things will happen that are not good for our country, or for the world. I’m sure that the Affordable Care Act won’t survive, for example.
But then, I believe that the Republicans will start to realize that they didn’t really get what they wanted. Trump, after all, isn’t a Republican. He has made that clear. He just agrees with them on some things, or claims to. I think the first half of Trump’s term will go very badly for the Republicans, voters will become disillusioned, and the midterm elections in 2018 will be disastrous for them. Democrats will probably end up with control of both houses of Congress. We’ll get a new supreme court justice, but I’m not worried about whether they’ll be too conservative. I would be more worried that they won’t be qualified. In the long run, though, I have hope.
‘I believe in checks and balances’
- Dan, 59, California, voted for Donald Trump
It’s done! Voted shortly after polls open on Tuesday and I voted for Trump –reluctantly. No disrespect intended to the third party candidates, but a vote for an alternate candidate is in reality a vote for either Trump or Clinton. So I was faced with a vote for an incompetent or a crook. I chose to vote for the incompetent. In the end it wasn’t the emails that sealed the deal – it was the remaining hope that “checks and balances” would modify the impending chaos. The system of checks and balances appears to be in position to better counter Trump than Hillary. Trump has already lost substantial support among the GOP. So he can’t count on either the existing supreme court or Congress to ignore him.
Then there is the press. What we see is a press overwhelmingly anti-Trump. A vote for Hillary means we can not count on the press to honestly and diligently keep the public informed of Hillary’s potential malfeasance. Nor at this point can we count on the institutions of government to counter Hillary in any meaningful way. So I voted for the candidate least likely to lead us into the weeds without opposition.
‘The establishment underestimated the public’s rage’
- Geno, 37, Pennsylvania, voted for Jill Stein
Well, I think we’re all astounded. Instead of Bush’s predictable fifth term, we’re facing … nobody quite knows what. I never thought this was a serious possibility until today, but the establishment apparently made a yuuuuge misjudgment in underestimating the public’s rage after decades of being impoverished to benefit the 1%. Since the primary was rigged against the only semi-progressive major candidate, this was the next prominent way to give the Democrats a well-deserved heave. (All else aside, it’s refreshing to see their awfulness finally backfire on them.)
I’m not exactly shocked at that, but dismayed that so many of my fellow citizens still refused to look outside the two-party duopoly or help the Greens reach federal funding levels. The impetus is understandable – this is a rejection of the two-party status quo more than an actual endorsement of Trump’s racism or anti-intellectualism – but the forces he’s unleashing are volatile and damn scary. As always, the bigger struggle starts after voting. Positive change only comes from public action, so there’s arguably a better chance for it now than under a Democratic president. If there’s no actual policy coming from the Oval Office, there’s space for saner voices to shape it. It’ll be tough, but at least the citizenry seems ready to seriously push back. The campaign got younger voters surprisingly engaged and proved that candidates don’t have to be owned by corporate money. If enough 99%-ers remember the power lies with us, we may have a fighting chance after all.
‘I am ashamed of how this plays with the rest of the world’
- Sarah, 28, Florida, voted for Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton lost this election because sexism enabled voters to perceive the most qualified candidate in the world as someone more reprehensible than, bar none, the most despicable person who has ever sought the presidency. Because the contingent of mostly older, white Americans overlooked empathy for minority groups due to their own positions of privilege. Because of voter apathy; because we watched Brexit happen and refused to heed its warning.
I am ashamed of how this plays with the rest of the world – ashamed of my state in particular – and dread what consequences it will bring. The fallout of supreme court turnover alone will last long after his term is done. It should go without saying that a president should not threaten the wellbeing of certain citizens as a main selling point in his campaign, and my heart goes out to any individual who feels unsafe. I know the cold fear you are experiencing. The only way we can think to proceed is to brace for a prolonged fight ahead of us.
The man slated to be president has built his platform on harming the vulnerable and shouting over the voices of the oppressed. If you find this rhetoric deplorable, if you are kind, then seize any opportunity to defy it – do not wait to speak out until they come for you. To Clinton, your loss is the nation’s loss. I am sorry they were too blind to see.
‘The America I’m waking up to today scares me’
- Monica, 51, Vermont, voted for Hillary Clinton
In my wildest dreams I never would have thought the public would swing so wildly away from reason as to elect someone like Trump. I grew up in a working-class Latino family. I’m a liberal but my father was conservative. I’ve been a single mom working multiple jobs to keep a roof over my daughter’s head and struggled to make ends meet as long as I can remember. I understand the feeling that Washington doesn’t represent the people, but the America I’m waking up to today scares me and I’m left with only questions.
What kind of world will my grandson grow up in? What will happen to friends and family, people of color who unlike me, weren’t born here – someone once called it my “golden ticket”? How could it be a good idea to elect a man who treats women so disrespectfully, makes promises he can’t keep, has no interest in learning the nuances of diplomacy, and brags about not paying taxes? Why does the public react so negatively to a woman taking a role of leadership? Where is the critical thinking? Decency and respect have gone out the door in this election and we’ve just sold our collective soul to the devil.
‘A country split in two and at rock bottom’
- Chris, 50, New York, voted for Hillary Clinton
It’s 3.25am in the morning and I’m sick to my stomach as I type this. The racist won. The misogynist won. The xenophobe won. I guess the moral of the story is: don’t trust the polls, not even Nate Silver.
Pundits and experts beyond my station will be dissecting this for years to come and there will be questions. How did the Republican party allow that reprobate to hijack it? Did the media in their quest for sensationalistic ratings become unwitting dupes providing thousands of hours of free and unfiltered publicity, missing opportunity after opportunity to fact check?
Allow the blame game to commence. And there’s plenty of blame to go around. As for me, I blame the Democratic party. I blame Hillary Clinton. I blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The Republican party has become the party of fascists. The Democratic party has become the new Republican party. The faction that Sanders represented was the electrified faction, the energized faction. And with good reason. Single payer healthcare, raising the minimum wage, climate change, tuition free state colleges and a variety of other progressive issues resonated with millennials and the working class. It’s unfortunate that Sanders’ version of progressive populism never had a opportunity to go to head to head with Trump’s regressive cynicism.
Clinton at best personified “it’s my turn”, or at it’s most cynical “at least I’m not Trump”. So many voters (myself included) weren’t actually with her, they were against him. Clearly that wasn’t enough.
And so here we are – the unthinkable for at least half the country has happened: a Trump presidency. The severity of this situation can’t be understated. A country split in two and at rock bottom. If you’re a woman, if you’re Muslim, if you’re Latino, if you’re African American, Asian, if you’re a member of LGBTQ community and, yes, if you’re white working class and poor, you’ve been put on notice. The next four years will be unkind.
