Words on the Election
Sushi Kaplan: Hey guys. This election was… Well, it was. What did you think of it?
Peyton Smith: Election night was extremely momentous. Every night for the past year and a half, the election was the top story on the news so there was a weird feeling before the polls began to close. Trump had been down in the polls for months, so when swing states like Florida and Ohio went to Trump not only was I shocked, but so were the newscasters. I have never seen newscasters that surprised. It’s one thing to see a sizable upset in a sporting event, but it is much different seeing one in a presidential election.
Austin Bartola: Watching the election results roll in around 11pm on election night, it occurred to me that one of the most significant events in modern American history was unfolding right in front of my eyes. The concept of Donald Trump actually obtaining the presidency was always something of a facetious hypothetical or dismissed as a definite impossibility. The CNN headline at 3 AM that morning read “Donald Trump Elected U.S. President,” seemed more like a piece from an SNL skit rather than a reality that many of us are now grappling to comprehend.
SK: To me, election evening went very quickly from a coronation to a Clinton concession. As the night progressed, and state after state turned scarlet, I rapidly went through the various stages of grief: denial (that this was happening), anger (at the rest of the country and the electoral college), bargaining (what if we gave Trump three billion dollars to concede?), and depression (that was about when I went to sleep). Have I reached acceptance yet? Nope, and I probably won’t until Trump’s inaugural address, which I’ll be watching from beneath the desk in my bunker.
AB: As Trump takes office, it will be interesting to see how much of his campaign rhetoric was bluster used simply to energize his base and empty promises or how much he will directly set out to accomplish. He has been known to flip-flop on a multitude of issues he even identified as a Democrat at one point, and we still don’t know if we’ll have a pragmatic Trump or whether he will fully align himself with the hardline conservative views of those who surround him.
PS: Throughout the election, Trump’s consistency was called into question. Since election day, we have seen Trump change his stance on key issues that drove his campaign forward like the elimination of Obamacare. Rather than eliminating all of Obamacare, Trump says that he wants to keep certain aspects of the program like coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. The question moving forward is what type of president will Trump be – one that keeps his word or one that changes his views from his campaign?
SK: I don’t think he himself will be a hardline conservative, but he may be uninvolved enough that he chooses to sit back and let the alt-right, white supremacist crazies like Steve Bannon run the show. Mike Pence may take the lead, which would be ugly for liberals. Even the political deplorables, from Chris Christie to Newt Gingrich to Rudy Giuliani, have an opportunity to grab power. I think Trump’s like a chameleon–he’s colored by his surroundings. No matter what happens, it’ll be fascinating to see what happens over the coming months, and no matter your political or personal leanings, everyone can get behind over-the-top hand motions and entertaining insults.
