Election night, six months later

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

Trump (Clinton supporter)

***

It was a chilly day that night. I walked out of the pizza bar onto the windy streets of Baltimore, thinking about the happenings that I saw on television. A lot of those who came with me – fellow members of our College Democrats club, with a smattering of others – also left, including the club president. They left mostly with feelings of annoyance, anger, and possibly even range. Why hasn’t Wisconsin turned blue yet? How the hell is Trump winning?

I left shaken. Not too shaken, only a bit, but still shaken. For I knew, in my gut, that it would be mere hours before the Apocalypse was upon us. For the past few months, my friends and I never thought that it would occur, whether because we assumed that the American people would never vote for someone with such base morals, or because we took for granted that the blue wall would hold.

No state was taken for granted as much as Pennsylvania was. Many friends who go to college there thought it was safe enough to vote absentee with their New Jersey addresses. I heard friends say that Pennsylvania would never go red. I heard friends say that it was a fake swing state. To be fair, who could blame them when rallies in Florida and North Carolina dominated the airways?

But that night, Pennsylvania became real. While walking down those windy streets of Baltimore, I still held up hope for Wisconsin and Michigan. Please go blue, I thought, please go blue. I know you two can. But Pennsylvania? It was still blue when I left on the TV. But in my heart, I knew it will turn red.

***

From the moment in Spanish class when my incredulous classmate said “Donald Trump is leading in the Republican primaries,” I feared the day that he would come. Every day I looked at FiveThirtyEight, eying their maps and eying their snake. Every week I contemplated whether my very existence, as a Chinese-American who immigrated here as a child and adopted its liberal values, would even be compatible in his worldview.

A week or so ago, I made a bet with some of the other College Dems. If Trump wins, they collectively owe me twenty-five dollars. In one sense, this would be a consolation prize; at least I would get something from an otherwise terrifying night. But on the other hand, it was my signal that I knew that a Clinton victory was far from assured.

Two, three days before that fateful night, I tossed and turned. What if Trump does win? Will I even be considered “American” anymore? Hell, what is the worst that could come, whether to me and my people or otherwise? Deportation? Internment? Genocide?

Part of me resisted. Trust me, Hillary will win! We will get a female president and those Trump supporters will learn a lesson! But as the night went on, I knew that I couldn’t assume that would be the case. I knew that I had to be ready for the worse.

What if it won’t be so bad? I thought. Even if Trump does win, what will he actually do to you? I thought some more before finally sleeping, before finally telling myself that, as Mary Poppins said, anything can happen.

***

From that night on, I made peace with the prospect of a Trump victory. Thus I was only a bit shaken as I walked back to my college dormitory. As I walked in, though, I saw rooms filled with college students huddled around Macbooks and smartphones, anxiously awaiting the electoral returns. Clearly, they had not made peace.

I walked up the stairs to put my stuff down. On the way, I heard two of my floormates storm up the stairwell in utter fear. “Oh my god, oh my god, my god,” one of them said, her mousy-brown hair shaking with the rest of her body. Her fears were not unfounded, as she is bisexual. How would she survive in a world where Mike Pence, promoter of conversion therapy and homophobe extraordinaire, is the vice president?

I looked at her roommate. Months later, I would learn that she voted for Trump, fearful of whatever horrors a Clinton presidency might portend. Maybe; to this day I’m still not sure. But at that moment, she too had fear in her eyes, as much as the rest of us. Perhaps she was fearful of the horrors that she had helped unleash. Perhaps she would be fearful no matter who won. But there was fear in her eyes.

I put my stuff down in my room, threw my Hillary campaign poster at a wall, walked back down to the first floor and went into one of those packed rooms. I surveyed the small crowd of people just sitting there, medium-sized pods of anxiety just waiting to be burst. It was a diverse group – Indians, Hispanics, whites, all desiring to know the state of their future.

I looked at one of my friends. She was sitting there, in one of her usual blue dresses, stroking her dark black hair. She is, like me, an immigrant from China, though one who immigrated under much different circumstances – a girl who, long ago, was put up for adoption and was taken in by a loving family from Durham.

I sat down. “I’m sorry,” I said to her, knowing well that I was not responsible for the results from North Carolina.

“It’s okay,” she said. She feigned calmness in her words, but I saw anxiety in her eyes and worry in her tone. I see in her a young woman with much potential, but what would someone like Steve Bannon look in her? Perhaps just scum who ought to be deported lest they ruin civic society and replace it with someone else’s babies.

Knowing that, I embraced her in a hug. “It’s going to be okay,” I said, “it’s going to be okay.”

“I know,” she said in turn, not sure if she could say these two words truthfully.

Then one of the others in the room raised his head and lowered it again in resignation. “They just called Pennsylvania,” he said. “It’s over.”

***

I was back on third floor. By then, people were out in the hall discussing the ramifications of the inevitable. “Riots are happening in Pittsburg,” I overheard. “That’s why we call them cheese-eating mangeheads!” a student from Illinois said, referring to the now-red Wisconsinites.

I ignored those conversations. I headed straight for the door and knocked. Slowly, my friend came out, her eyes red from the tears that stream down her check, her soggy her tie-dye shirt providing a stark contrast to the atmosphere of the moment.

“It’s happened,” she stammered, her words barely coherent through her sobbing. “It’s…happened.”

Throughout the summer, I occasionally told her the need to plan for a Trump victory. “It won’t happen,” she always replied. Then again, it didn’t help that at that time I, like most others, treated a Trump victory as something that would never happen. “We need to move to Canada” is not exactly a serious solution for serious people. Even so, part of me did feel the joy of schadenfreude in seeing her insistent predictions be knocked down spectacularly.

But I knew that this was not the time for schadenfreude. This was a time for sorrow. One of the bravest, most confident people I know had been reduced to a pile of tears. And for good reason. As a Pakistani-American and a practicing Muslim, she had much to fear. She would have to live under a President who called for the complete and total shutdown of Muslims coming into America. She would have to contemplate registering in a database of Muslims, not unlike what the Jews had to do under the Germany of Hitler.

So as before, I hugged her. “It’s going to be okay,” I said once again, my shoulder touching against the dampness of her tears. “It’s going to be okay.”

***

I walked back in front of my room, where my roommates were huddling around their Macbooks. Some of them were doing Calculus II homework. I sat. I saw on the screens: “Donald J. Trump Elected President.” I saw Trump himself ascend the podium, calling for the unity of Americans at a time when there was anything but.

“Come here,” one of my friends said. A white male with an imposing 6’4” frame, one would think that we would be privileged under a Trump presidency. Yet he too was not pleased at tonight’s happenings. How would he enjoy any newfound gains, after all, if all of his friends must suffer from their newfound oppression?

On his screen was Van Jones, also in tears, trying to explain the night to the other talking heads. “It was a whitelash,” he said.

We all tried to comprehend his words.

“This is a whitelash.”

And we knew what he said.

After a while I went back to bed. But I did not sleep. From time to time I checked my social media, a furious mix of news articles and desperate pleas, pleas from friends experiencing shock and horror when they expected elation. Nobody had expected the Apocalypse to come this day, and few had elected to make inner peace beforehand.

At least I did. So I laid in bed, eyes wide open, knowing that me and my friends will have to face a brave new world. Perhaps everything will be okay. Perhaps not.

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

- snip -

Many friends of mine expressed anger, disgust, sadness, and fear over the outcome. A friend of mine who is a nurse said patients and coworkers were in tears as they came into the hospital.

These are college kids, so it's natural for them to be hysterical. But let's get real. What exactly has Trump done to endanger law abiding American minorities and gays? Has he put them in internment camps? Has he deported U.S. citizens and legal residents of color? Has he tried to ban gay marriage? It's fine to disagree with his policies, but engaging in Hitler hysteria as if the Republic is ending, is immature and divorced from reality.

Sure, he hasn't done any of that so far. But we only know this as a benefit of hindsight. Back then, we truly had no idea what would happen. Maybe he would ban all Muslims and put them in a database; these were his campaign promises. Given his authoritarian tendencies, internment camps and deportations didn't seem that far of a leap.

And indeed, what has happened so far? Yes, he hasn't banned all Muslims, but he twice - twice! - attempted to ban people from certain Muslim countries, regardless of whether they were terrorists or victims of terrorism. And the first time he did it, he did had the gall to ban green card holders. His Congress has attempted to remove take away or make unaffordable the insurance of 24 million people. He has slowly eroded American democratic institutions by his attacks on free press and his obstruction of justice (e.g. the firing of Comey). He threatens to keep warming our planet and ruin the clean air and water we've enjoyed for decades. I can go on; I'm sure others can name more of such acts.

Perhaps these acts don't blind you; perhaps you support these acts from the bottom of your heart. But for those who saw danger in him six months before, even if the absolute worst of our fears haven't come to pass, see no reason not see danger in him today.