Sun and Moon - The Presidential Election of 2040

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

Also, does anyone know how to add the non-Puerto Rico territories (like American Samoa, Guam, and the Virgin Islands) onto the map? That would be greatly appreciated.

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

Unfortunately impossible.

I remember seeing some maps with the other territories in boxes in the lower-right corner (along with Puerto Rico). I guess I remembered wrong?

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

Some quick things:

1. 100 posts! Yeah!

2. To celebrate 100 posts, I want to ask you guys, the readers, for your reactions up to this point. What are your most/least favorite parts of the story so far? How many easter eggs/hidden details did you find? Do you approve of Tim Ryan's decision to drop out after Iowa?

3. University classes have started for me, so there will be fewer updates every week. I'll still update this story, but don't be surprised if there are dry spells from time to time; that probably means I'm busy with projects/finals IRL.

4. Speaking of updates, the next one should come this weekend and will be about the richest man in the world. After that, it's maybe one or two more narrative-type updates, and then we move onto Chapter 3 and Crystal's backstory.

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

Wow, so many questions, so many responses!

I would like to find out more about what caused the realignment and if it was in 2020 or 2024?  And, what happened to "movement conservative" types?  I see that Rubio is in the cabinet, but did he evolve to be significantly more moderate?  What are types like Cruz, Bevin, Walker, Tim Scott, etc. up to these days?

I hope you are patient, because I'm not going to spoil what's basically the first of two climaxes (the second one being, of course, the Election of 2040).

What I will tell you is that after the Realignment, the GOP fell into civil war between the various factions. At first it was basically a battle between the "movement conservatives," led by Cruz, Rubio, etc. and the cultural nationalists, led by Sen. Tom Cotton. But that didn't get the GOP any closer to their original power. Then in the early 2030s, Sun, Stefanik, etc. offered a new, socially liberal vision of American conservatism and strong-armed, ahem, convinced the rest of the party to adopt it. And to their credit, that vision has achieved impressive results.

As for Rubio in particular, he barely won reelection in 2022, but he decided not to run in 2028, as he was frustrated by the GOP civil war and the obstinate attitudes of the Senate Democrats. Since then he kept to the private sector, keeping a low profile until Sun gave him a second chance in the spotlight. So he agreed to become Attorney General, in exchange for toeing the Administration's line on criminal justice reform and other such social issues.

First, amazing job so far, I really like how it's set up, and I think Tim Ryan dropping out post Iowa was a good choice.

Second, I would like to see a list of Governors and Senators if possible, I'd like to see who was able to survive/come out of the realignment.

Third, personal request, could you tell me what happened to Bruce Rauner?  How badly did he lose in 2018(if he lost) and did he have any political career post 2018.

1. You're welcome!

2. I'm currently in the process of making the Senate list, so that should come some day. I will tell you that the Senate is currently 58 R, 42 D. (Technically it's only 41 D right now because Van Hollen retired, but his seat is Safe D so it doesn't matter.)

3. Yeah, Bruce Rauner fell and fell hard in 2018. Like Rubio, he kept quiet in the private sector, but unlike Rubio he never got a second chance to shine.

Speaking of Florida Senators...

Could I ask who represents Florida in the Senate?

Senior Senator: Stephanie Murphy (R-FL)



Junior Senator: Dwayne Johnson (R-FL)



Murphy was elected to the Senate as a Democrat after Rubio declined to run for another term, handily defeating her no-name opponent. However, as a Blue Dog, she became frustrated with the increasing progressivism of her Democratic colleagues, so she switched parties in 2034 and won as a Republican.

Johnson, after an illustrious career in acting, decided to satisfy the "Dwayne 4 President" people and entered politics. He defeated incumbent Democrat Andrew Gillum in 2036.

I wonder what its like in Virginia in this timeline...

NoVA has become more Republican. Not as Republican as Orange County (for example), but it's still pretty (Atlas) blue. The south and southwestern regions have become more Democrat, but that doesn't counter NoVA's R trend. Thus Virginia is in 2040 can be considered a tilt or lean-R state, though it would only vote for a moderate, socially liberal Republican.

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

Meet Barron Trump, The World’s Richest Man


Trump at the Mumbai Virtual Development Conference in 2038

Virtualearth Inc. CEO Barron Trump is now officially the world’s richest man, according to the Forbes World Billionaires List. His current net worth clocks in at $825.6 billion, which exceeds that of the previous record-holder, Alibaba founder Jack Ma, who has a net worth of $820.3 billion.

Trump, 33, acknowledged his newfound status on Twitter, saying “Great news. Now let’s keep on making the world a better place.”

Trump’s newfound status is an auspicious sign for his Sacramento, California-based virtual reality behemoth, of with Trump owns a 20 percent stake. The news comes only a few months after Virtualearth achieved the 3 billion global users milestone, across both conventional and brain-integrated platforms. The VR network boasts more than 1 billion users in India alone, 350 million users in China and 264 million users in the United States. It has a market capitalization of $1523 billion as of December 2039; as such, Virtualearth is the 4th largest publicly-traded corporation in the United States and the 17th largest in the world.

It is hard to imagine a life before Virtualearth and other virtual reality networks. Before, social media was mainly restricted to one-dimensional Internet posts. Now, friends and family on opposite sides of the planet can practically talk to each other in person. I can experience my friends’ vacation as if I traveled there myself and present to audiences of thousands without leaving my house. Millions of users spend billions of dollars through Virtualshop, play VR games with Virtualplay, and even enjoy virtual pornography with Virtualearth After Dark. And its influence, virtual and real, continues to grow; Virtualearth has been a prominent player in the VR device market since acquiring Oculus from Facebook in 2038 and operates a joint fiber-optics venture with Verizon Inc., whose board of directors include Trump as a member.

Unlike most Silicon Valley executives, Trump is not a man new to wealth; as the youngest son of the late president Donald Trump, he started Virtualearth with a $125 million contribution from his billionaire father. “I’ll admit, it’s not exactly what you call a ‘small loan,’” the younger Trump said in an April 2039 interview, referencing how the elder Trump himself started his business empire with a “small loan” of $1 million from his own father, real estate developer Fred Trump.

“My father used to say,” Trump said in his commencement address to the University of Pennsylvania class of 2038, “He is so good with these computers! He’s great with the cyber!’ He always told me that. And so I agreed and ran with the idea.”

With that $125 million, Trump was able to found Virtualearth in 2025, when he was still a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania. While virtual reality social networks were emerging at that time, it was Trump who, with his money, was able to acquire the necessary infrastructure, particularly the central servers, that would lead to Virtualearth dominating the market over its potential competitors.

Trump, who is fluent in English and Slovene, has often distanced himself from his father; for example, he is an unapologetic proponent of globalization and multiculturalism, a stark contrast to the elder Trump’s isolationist and nationalist worldview. In his April interview, Trump said that “my dad wanted to build a wall between America and Mexico. So I built a bridge instead. Now you and me here in New York can have a coffee chat with someone in Mexico City without leaving our rooms.”

Trump is an active philanthropist. To date, he has donated $10 billion to the Barron Trump Initiatives foundation, which Trump founded in order to develop Internet infrastructure and renewable energy for developing countries, along with helping them with adapting to the effects of climate change. He is also involved in politics, and was a strong supporter of Crystal Sun’s campaign during the 2036 presidential race.

That is not to say that Trump or Virtualearth is free from controversy. In 2038, five prominent Indian politicians were accused of accepting bribes from Virtualearth, though the company denies it; all were eventually acquitted. Likewise, Virtualearth has come under fire for accepting Chinese censorship requirements; regularly, Great Firewall bots censor posts for Chinese users.

However, any such controversy must be put into the context of Virtualearth’s remarkable success. It is rare that an entirely new form of communication is invented, but when that happens, the whole world turns upside down. As Trump implies, the fact that he’s now the world’s richest man is just an asterisk to his bigger accomplishment to changing the world, and this accomplishment is simply a hint of the shape of things to come.

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

Is that 58R-42D Senate after the 2038 midterms or before?

That's after the 2038 midterms.

Before that, it was 59 R, 41 D.

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

February 2, 2040 - Columbus, Ohio

Richard Cordray was a great chef. No, seriously; Cordray’s meatloafs was stuff from heaven. Not only did he know how to cook them, he knew what meats to choose, which slices of the cow to buy. And it had to be a cow, usually, though artificial meat was also acceptable so long as it was from one of those new boutique labs in Wisconsin or Chicago. None of the vat-grown crud that most supermarkets sell these days.

But Richard Cordray was not just a great chef. He was a distinguished Ohio politician, the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Board, and one-time Secretary of the Treasury. It was a resume almost as distinguished as his guest’s, the 46th President of the United States.

The two men sat down at the dinner table in Cordray’s lovely Victorian-style house. They were joined by Cordray’s wife; the former president was once married, but had long since been divorced. The table itself was quite aesthetic, even though it was 3D-printed and sold unassembled for $500 at IKEA. It was fitting decor for Cordray, who believed that America governed not for the rich and powerful, but for all of its people, and especially for the poor and vulnerable.

“Hmm,” the Realigner, as he was often called, said, furrowing his eyebrows while he was scrolling on his phone. “Tim Ryan dropped out. I’m sorry.”

“Yes, I heard,” Cordray said, taking the first bite of his meatloaf.

“I’m sure you’ve got to be really disappointed that he had to drop out so early,” he said. “He was a decent guy with decent policy who would’ve made Ohio proud.” It was true; Senator Ryan was pretty progressive these days. Ryan’s flaws weren't with policy, but with charisma; he was a bit boring and was viewed as a poor man’s version of Pete Buttigieg.

He remembered when Ryan first tried to topple Nancy Pelosi to become the next House Minority Leader, all those many years ago. In that sense, both he and Ryan were insurgents, taking on the establishment and ushering a new era of progressivism.

“Yeah, I have to say, I am disappointed,” Cordray said. He took a sip of the sparkling pear juice he bought; normally he would serve wine, but this guest didn’t drink. He chuckled. “I guess it is a good decision not to endorse him right away. But hey, what do they say? Hindsight is 20/20.”

“Just curious,” the former president said, “Who did you want to win the nomination? Do you have a favorite?”

“Oh, don’t ask me that. Please.” Cordray said, wiping his mouth with a bamboo napkin. “Ever since I left Washington, I checked out of politics. Like, when I left Washington the first time, when I left the CFPB, I thought I was done, but then you brought me back. But then I left, and I left for good! Now I’m just staying in Ohio, helping out my community as a private citizen.”

“But if you want an answer,” Cordray continued, “I don’t really have a favorite per se. I liked Ryan, I guess, I guess there is that home state factor. But I like Glass and Buttigieg too.”

“And let’s pretend the two others don’t exist,” Cordray’s wife, Peggy, said.

“I mean, I’m actually kind of the same as you are,” the former president said, as he carefully scooped up another clod of meatloaf with his fork. “I like Glass and Buttigieg, not so much Ossoff, and Gabbard’s Gabbard.”

“Gabbard’s Gabbard,” Cordray repeated. “Nice way of putting it shortly.”

“I mean, I see myself in both of them,” the Realigner said. “You got these young passionate people who worked their way up the system so they can change the rules. I mean, look at Ms. Glass. She started out the same way I did, as an activist. She was an activist, you know that?”

“Yes, I am aware of that,” Cordray said.

“And then like me, she worked up her way to becoming Governor, and now she’s running for President. And Buttigieg, now Buttigieg was never an activist, but he’s someone who started small and worked his way up in Congress. And he’s from the Midwest.”

“Heh,” Cordray said.

“You gotta start somewhere,” the Realigner said. “That’s what I like about the two. They don’t forget their roots. These kids are passionate for a reason. They don’t forget the people they serve, and they won’t if they become President. I can feel it.”

The two elderly Midwesterners, over Cordray’s delicious meatloaf, exchanged a few more words on various topics. They talked about President Sun’s global trip that will, not coincidentally, start on the first day of the Chinese New Year. They talked about Barron Trump’s recent success, compared the younger Trump with his late father, and lamented the laxity of Indian financial and anti-monopoly regulations.

While talking and eating, the 46th President thought deeply. He thought about his own life, how all those years simply flew by. It seemed like yesterday when he was just another activist protesting injustice, with the aim of bringing the heat onto the politicians so they could see the light. Then he became a politician himself, first a lowly state representative, then a Congressman. He thought about his victories in Congress, but more importantly, he thought about his losses.

He thought about his run for Governor, and he thought about his run for President. He remembered the Republicans who feared he would destroy America with the twin evils of socialism and Sharia. He remembered the Third Way Democrats who viewed him with suspicion at best and hostility at worst. He remembered the pundits who said he was unelectable, or that if he was elected, he would be a one-term President. Oh, and there were those two guys who tried to kill him.

And yet he defied them all, won big, and transformed America.

He thought about how he transformed America. He had graduated college when the Reagan Revolution was getting started. Supply-side economics was ascendant, and the gains of the New Deal, the Great Society, and the Civil Rights Movement were under threat. People, including himself, fought back, but the conservative hegemony of those times was simply too strong.

Then the Crisis came, people suffered, and they wanted change. Ironically, many originally saw change in then-President Trump, whether he wanted to restore American jobs or, more darkly, the racism and white supremacy of decades past. But Trump failed. The people still wanted change, and so they chose him.

And now, in 2040? Millions of people, some of whom had viewed him as the Antichrist when he was president, love him today. (Then again, millions more still think he’s the Antichrist today. Some things never change.) He had been lionized and placed with the likes of Lincoln, FDR, and Reagan. Songs have been written about him; statues have been made in his image.

He took a sip of sparkling juice and flipped to another story on his phone, this time one about the president. He smiled, for he thought about his most enduring legacy, the America he created, a progressive nation where every citizen is guaranteed health care and a living wage, a nation that led the fight for human rights and against climate change.

Another thought appeared in his head as he took a sip. “You thought about running for Governor of Ohio, like a long, long time ago, right?” the former president asked as Cordray came back with the desert. Pineapple upside-down cake, to be precise. It wasn’t one big cake, but rather twenty smaller cakes the size of your palm, all made with love.

“Eh, I don’t really know what you’re talking about,” Cordray said as he set the tray down on the dinner table.” Are you talking about 2020...no...2018! Okay, yeah, I thought about it, and I actually said I would announce on Labor Day the year before at this event in Cincinnati.”

“But you didn’t,” the Realigner said.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, but I kind of went back from my promise. But I had more important things to do at that time. I had the CFPB to run, and I didn’t want to appear too political.”

The Realigner gave a hearty laugh. “Yeah, as if you were anything but too political.”

“I know,” Cordray said, finally taking his first bite into a cake.

“So I have been thinking,” the Realigner said, “what would happen, in some alternate universe, where you became Governor of Ohio and then President, like how I did in my state, while I just sit in Congress for the rest of my life?”

"Me, President? Don’t be nuts.” Cordray said. “You know that I don’t have nearly the level of ambition that you do. I don’t have the bold progressive vision that you brought to this country, and I don’t have your awesome charisma. No way I would have won West Virginia or Kentucky twice.”

“Dude, you’re a white man,” the Realigner said. “You’re the one who would’ve been a shoo-in for those two states!”

“Race isn’t everything,” Cordray said. “Religion isn’t everything. Or maybe it is. Maybe God destined you to become the Realigner and save America.”

“He he he,” the Realigner chuckled, taking a bite out of his own upside-down cake. “I’m no prophet. I was never destined for anything. It was the people who wanted me as President. It was the people who wanted change and voted accordingly.”

“I mean, sure, that’s like how every president was elected,” Cordray said. “The people want something, change, prosperity, whatever, and that’s why every President got the votes they did.” A pause. “Except Trump.” He referenced the fact that both times, Trump lost the popular vote while winning the Electoral College.

“Or Bush,” the Realigner said, chuckling, referencing the other modern president who won without at least a popular vote plurality.

“But yeah, who knows, maybe I could’ve been governor, then president, just like you,” Cordray continued. “But I didn’t. I was done with the rough-and-tumble of electoral politics, especially of a time like twenty years ago. Who knows, if I threw my hat in back in 2018 things would’ve been different.”

“Who knows indeed.” The radical governor who became the leader of the free world, the 46th President of the United States, took a sip and reached across the table for another upside-down cake.

End of Chapter 2

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

Chapter 3: Four Walls

“This is an interesting question [Martha Raddatz], but ultimately I don’t think that we’ll have an Asian president in my lifetime. Maybe not ever. People still think of us as foreigners who aren’t suited for leadership in what’s basically still a white nation. White people like to point to Asian politicians like Kamala Harris and say that Asians have it fine, but either they whitewash themselves, face a sh*t-ton of racist abuse, and/or flat-out lose.”

 - Chef and activist Eddie Huang, December 12, 2020

September 8, 2016 - Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland

Today is exciting. Thousands of people from all walks of life, gathering to explore and share their different interests during the Student Activities Fair. Whether its fraternities and sororities recruiting new members for rushing, journalism clubs looking for fresh perspectives for their writings, or small interest groups looking for like-minded folks, everything and anything imaginable was happening under the bright fluorescent lights of the Rec Center.

And here I was, as president of the JHU College Democrats club, standing at our booth, holding donkey stickers with both of my two hands. I strained my neck to take in the vast expanse of concrete, cardboard, and paper that the four walls of the Rec Center managed to contain. My eyes then scanned our aisle, from left to right and back again. To my left was my right-hand man, err, woman, Communications Director Melissa Michova. Right in front of me were students young and old, squeezing through the crowds eyeing the booths like tent caterpillars looking for food. And to my right was, of all things, the College Republicans booth, manned by its president, Isaac Mohammed Hassan, who at this time was checking his phone instead of looking for new recruits.

In theory, hands being full aside, I could do just the same. Just go on my phone, check Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or the Atlas Forums, and not pay attention to my surroundings. But I wasn’t gonna do that. Who can, besides someone as cynical as Isaac? Today we are going to recruit a new year’s worth of freshman babies into our club!

I looked over Melissa’s shoulders at the clipboard listing our newest club members, or at least the people who signed our email list. Eighteen, no, nineteen people. Eh, not that many, but also not bad. It had only been twenty minutes since the Fair started. We should have at least twenty or so new people showing up at our first meeting, I guess.

I pored over the names and emails when I felt someone walk up to us. The irony of not getting distracted. But I leaned back to my regular position and turned towards that new person.

“Hi,” said new person said, “this is the College Democrats club, right?” half looking at me and half looking at the words “Hopkins College Democrats” plastered on the cardboard behind us.

For a split second, I examined this person, who I could tell was a freshman baby, my eyes nodding down and up as my head kept still. She had a denim jacket on top of a black-and-white striped shirt, black pants, and blue-and-white Converses. She was Asian, though I couldn’t tell what ethnicity she was. The most unusual thing about her was her hair, which was fashioned into some sort of pixie cut, even though by college student standards that wasn’t unusual in the slightest. My Algebraic Topology professor, Dr. Emily Riehl, had a similar sort of pixie cut. Interestingly enough, even though the girl in front of me was Asian, her hair color was dyed to be similar to Dr. Riehl’s straw blond.

Melissa got back to her. “Yes, this is the club that you’re looking for! We are the Hopkins College Democrats. Want a sticker?”

“Sticker?” said the girl as she looked at the blue and red donkey stickers in our hands. “Sure.”

“We got cookies too!” Melissa added as the girl proceeded to grab a sticker from out of my hand.

“Nah,” pixie cut girl said as I was reaching for the pan of donkey-shaped sugar cookies in the back.

“If you’re interested in our club,” I said, putting down the cookies and and the stickers and using my elbow to point to my laptop, which for some reason had the Java API open in another tab, “you can sign up for the email list here.” I held out the clipboard with my right hand, with a black pen in my left.

“Thanks,” she said, slightly pushing us to the sides. I discreetly eyed our list as she was typing on it, doing my best to read with my head tilted sideways.

“Amber Moon,” she wrote under the name column. “2020” for year. “amoon3@jhu.edu” for email. Standard stuff.

“Here,” Amber said as she finished typing.

“Thanks,” I said. “Remember, if you’re interesting in joining, our first meeting will be on Thursday, September 15.”

“Okay,” Amber said. “I’ll put that in my calendar. By the way, can I get your names?”

“I’m Crystal Sun, fall president of the club, and this is my friend and Communications Director Melissa Michova.”

“Cool,” Amber said. “So when does this club meet, and what does it do? Do they go out and volunteer for the national Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton, like that?”

“Yes we do,” I said. “So about meetings, we have meetings every Wednesday, starting a week from now on September 15. During our meetings, we talk about what’s in the news, what the Democratic Party is doing, and we debate about issues. We do canvassing and phone banking for Democratic candidates, and we sometimes hold debates with the College Republicans and Libertarians.” I gestured to my right, towards Isaac’s booth.

“That’s nice and all,” she said. “But what exactly is...um...the ideological balance of the club? I don’t mean to be rude, but personally I’m very much to the left of the Democrats, like I’m borderline socialist. Don’t get me wrong, I still really want to join the club to help with the Clinton campaign, but I’m just curious.”

I smiled at the question. “Oh our club covers a wide range of ideological opinions. Like I’m more of a centrist, but there are also very left people in the club as well.”

“Personally I’m in the middle,” Melissa interjected. “Like I support Planned Parenthood and Black Lives Matter, but I think that the free market and free trade have important roles in our economy.”

“Yes Melissa, thanks for telling us how much of a Moderate Hero you are,” I grumbled. Not that her political beliefs were that different from mine's. Back on topic: “So yeah, we have a wide variety of views in our club. Our goal is to basically be an umbrella for anyone who has liberal views, from left-of-center to pretty super left, and so when we do debates in the club we have a wide range of views being expressed. It's pretty exciting.”

‘Uh huh,” pixie cut girl said, nodding skeptically.

“Are you sure you don’t want a cookie?” Melissa said, grabbing the cookie tray out from the back again.”

“Nope,” Amber said, more quickly and confidently this time.

“Aww, me and Crystal worked so hard to make these cookies,” Melissa said, making puppy eyes and conveniently ignoring the fact that I did most of the baking while she kept getting lost in my tiny apartment.

“I mean, thanks, but I’m kind of a health nut, and sugar’s really bad for you. It’s actually worse than fat in terms of making you fat. Trust me, I watched a documentary on this in high school.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “Melissa always wants to flatter people.”

“That’s because you’re the quiet one,” Melissa said.

“I’m not particularly quiet,” I countered.

Melissa ignored me, turned to Amber, and put a huge grin on her face. “You know that Crystal is really smart, right? She took a graduate-level course in topology last year - as a junior! And she had internships at both Facebook and Google!”

“Shut up!” I said.

“Wow, I didn’t know that,” Amber said, with an expression that betrayed a lack of knowledge of what topology is. “Congrats Crystal.”

“Thanks,” I said, trying to mentally brush off the unneeded flattery.

But Amber still looked confused, tapping her left foot on the concrete floor. “So you’re math-”

“CS and Math double major,” I said. “That’s another awesome aspect of our club actually. It’s not just all IS or poli-sci people. We have people from all majors, like I’m CS and Math, Melissa is Econ, and so on.”

“Yeah, I’m poli-sci myself, so I guess I fit in better with the stereotype of the type of person who goes into politics. Plus if you talk about math or CS stuff, it’s all gonna be some second language. And I say that as a person who speaks three languages, kind of.”

“I wish I can say that,” I said, “I can understand Mandarin and speak a bit of it, but that and English is about it as far as human languages go.”

“I mean, I know some Korean and I learned Spanish in high school, and I know no computer languages, so I’m not exactly a language expert either,” Amber said.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Different people have different strengths.” I leaned backwards, accidentally hitting the cardboard display and nearly toppling it. Fortunately, Melissa was there to stabilize the situation.

“I have to go now,” Amber said. “There’s a lot more clubs I want to see. It’s been nice meeting you!”

“You too,” I said. “See you on Thursday!”

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

October 21, 2016 - Interstate 95, en route to Philadelphia

On my left was the window, out of which I could see the beautiful Maryland countryside. On my right was pixie cut girl, Amber Moon, who right now was texting to whomever.

Today was exciting. Me, Amber, and three other fellow College Democrats were going to DemCon, one of the largest convention of College Democrat clubs in the country, hosted by the University of Pennsylvania’s College Democrats. There, after we do the requisite parties and whatnot, we will campaign for Hillary Clinton and downballot tickets in what they said was a crucial swing state.

I looked behind me and scanned the rest of the bus. Besides Amber, we had Melissa and two other freshman babies, Jake Bhattacharya and Emily Hazelton. It was only half an hour since we got on the bus, yet all of them except for Amber and Jake, who was staring out the window as if the countryside was outer space, were asleep. Melissa and Emily in particular looked really cute, the two girls sleeping, with Emily’s head resting on Melissa’s shoulder, as if Emily the freshman saw Melissa the junior as a second mom.

I smiled. All five of us convention goers spanned the entire left half of the political spectrum. You have your socialists like Amber and Jake, then the social justice warrior named Emily (and I mean warrior; nary a meeting goes by without her mentioning some obscure LGBTQ event she attended), then the “moderate hero” Melissa (who’s conservative by our standards and a raving leftist to most Americans), then me, the resident establishment hack. Okay, the club has plenty, but somehow Melissa and I were the only ones on the Greyhound going to DemCon.

No, Bernie won’t get anything done with Congress with these kinds of nutball ideas, I told my classmates who bragged about voting for Bernie in the primaries. No, single payer health care is not gonna happen in America, and neither is free public college or universal basic income. No, a $15 per hour minimum wage will not help the poor; it will hurt them. No, nobody’s going to raise taxes on the middle class. Why would you even want to raise taxes on the middle class?

But unlike the Republicans, at least the socialists and progressives had love in their hearts. They were just naive. They wanted a better world, and no obstacle was going to stop them.

“Hey Crystal,” Amber said. “So I have a friend from high school who’s also coming to DemCon, so I’ll probably be leaving the group at some point to hang out with her. Just letting you know.”

“Sure,” I said, “I don’t really care, so long as you go to all the important events.” And there were many not-important events. Like the midnight party, for instance. Yeah, parties are fun when you’re a freshman, especially if they’re as intense as the one that UPenn holds, but when you look at it, they’re pretty stupid ways to have fun. One-on-one interactions with good friends is a lot more wholesome than drinking and dancing for six hours, followed by sticking your head in the toilet for the next six.

“I’m pretty excited for this,” Amber said. “Besides meeting Deneb - my friend, that is - it’s pretty exciting to visit Philly, even if it weren't about politics. It get kind of stifling studying in Brody every day.”

“I know,” reflecting on the years I spent studying and programming in the Brody Learning Commons, a wing of the Milton S. Eisenhower library. (Fun fact: Milton Eisenhower was the younger brother of Dwight D. Eisenhower). “I’m curious, what college does your friend go to?”

“Georgetown,” she said.

“Really?” I said. “I thought Georgetown canceled on us.”

“They did, but they switched back at the very last minute,” Amber said. “Yeah, it’s confusing. But she’s coming, don’t worry.”

Out of curiosity, I went on Amber’s Instagram account. Yep, there they were, the many photos of Amber and Deneb. Like this one:

“Hey,” Amber said, scaring the sh**t out of me. Instinctively, I switched to viewing my own photos, fearing the wrath of an angry Amber. Even freshman babies can be brutal at times.

“Were you Instagram stalking me right in front of my face?” she asked.

“I was just curious,” I said, shrugging nervously. “I wanted to know what your friend Deneb looked like.”

“Nah, it’s okay,” Amber said. “I don’t mind if people I know look at my Instagram or whatever. If it were total strangers, it would be a different story, but I trust you enough.”

“Thanks, I guess,” I said. Not knowing what to do next, I mindlessly scrolled over the photos I took over the years.

“Hey, what’s that,” a curious Amber asked. I looked down at my Instagram. Turns out I happened to have paused at this year’s Great Wall photo. There I was, standing carefree, wearing a pink shirt and red pants, my right arm resting on the structure with my left hand resting against the small of my back, my left leg in front of right. Wispy clouds drifted in the background, partially the obscuring the green of the forest and the gray of the Wall.

“That’s me,” I said, “at the Great Wall. Specifically the Badaling section of the Wall, which is the most famous.”

“You went there last summer?”

“Yes, I did after I finished a summer internship at Google,” I said. “I often go ‘back’ to China to see family. It’s always fun when I go, even though communication outside my immediate family can get dicey there.”

“Yeah, I wish I went back to Korea more often,” Amber said. “Last time I went back was, let me think, the summer of 2015, when I visited my dad.”

“Your dad works in Korea?” I asked.

“Yeah, he went back after he couldn’t find work here in America, after he was laid off in 2011.”

“Interesting,” I said. Then I noticed that Amber was looking at my Instagram account. “Hey,” I said, “whatya doing?”

“Oh, heh,” Amber said. “I probably should’ve asked for permission.”

“No it’s okay,” I said. “I just hope you like my pictures.”

“Literally?” Amber asked.

“Either way,” I said. “There are some pics I’m personally really proud of.”

“Like the Great Wall one? Or...what’s this one?”

“Oh, that’s me working with this group Syrian refugees who were resettled here in Baltimore,” I said. “This was with a volunteer program called the Refugee Action Program - I think you may have saw them during the club fair. We basically tutor them at Moravia Park Elementary, which helps them succeed in academics and, more broadly, in integrating into American society.”

“Wow, you must be really busy, doing all these clubs and internships and volunteer work,” Amber said.

“Well, I only did this for one semester,” I said, “you know, because refugees have become such a big issue in the news and have been unfairly demonized by racists and xenophobes, I felt I had to help them out. And last fall, it just so happened I had a little bit more extra time in my schedule, but then when spring arrived I didn’t have any time anymore. But it was a fun experience. I highly suggest you try it.”

“I might,” Amber said, looking closely at the three Syrians sitting next to me in that picture. “You know, it’s really despicable that there are millions of people, here and in Europe, that think that these refugees should be expelled because there might be terrorists among them. Or something.”

“I know,” I said. “I mean, there are legitimate fears-”

“Yeah,” Amber interrupted, “‘legitimate fears’ that serve as an excuse for Islamophobes to display their bigotry.”

“I mean, it’s possible that ISIS sympathizers can sneak themselves in the refugee flow,” I said, “so some level of vetting is necessary. But yeah, I agree with you. For Pete’s sake, these people should remember that they’re more likely to die from falling out of bed from being the victim of a terrorist attack.”

“Exactly,” Amber said. “And now idiots like Trump see what European countries like Hungary have done - put up barbed wire fences to keep away refugees - and wants to do this and more. He wants a wall! Just like the Chinese Great Wall! Except that it’s twice as high, and golden! Or...something.”

“Heh,” I said. “I bet he doesn’t know that the Great Wall has failed multiple times at keeping out the nomads. Like the Mongols.”

“He probably thinks the Mongols were the exception,” Amber said, making a reference to John Green’s Crash Course World History series.

“Then tell him about the Xiongnu,” I said.

“I should add,” Amber said, “for me, it’s personal. My grandparents were refugees who fled the North Koreans in order to find safety and a better life in the South. My parents grew up in the South, they immigrated to America, and then they had me. I am the children of immigrants, so I am a target of Trump.”

“So am I, since I am also the daughter of immigrants,” I said.

“Then again,” Amber said, “we won’t be the ones who are worst affected. We have money, and we have privilege. Not white privilege, but definitely class privilege and privilege that comes with going to a top-10 school like Hopkins.”

Amber readjusted herself on her seat as we crossed the Susquehanna River. “If Trump somehow, somehow wins, life might be surprisingly normal. For us. For a Dreamer or a refugee awaiting resettlement, or even for a poor black resident of Baltimore, life will get very ugly.”

Silence as I nodded in implicit agreement. Then, wanting to break the silence, I asked a question. “Your grandparents were North Korean refugees, right?”

“Yeah,” Amber said, nodding.

“What do they and your parents think about your leftism? Like you said you like socialism. Do they distinguish it from Communism or the ideologies or North Korea or no?”

Amber suddenly blanked out. “Umm…”

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

October 21, 2016 - University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

“Deneb!” Amber said, happy as a puppy.

“Amby!” Deneb said, opening her arms for a hug.

“Oh my goodness I haven’t seen you in so long!” Amber said as she embraced Deneb in a giant bear hug. Or at least, as giant a hug as two five-foot-five girls can make. They looked pretty small in the central room of UPenn’s College Hall, whose four white walls soared above our heads as if they were the walls of a cathedral or a limestone cavern. Throngs of young aspiring Democrats in fresh-looking suits and dresses milled around by those walls, trying to find where to put their luggage and who they will be staying with for the night.

“What do you mean ‘haven’t seen you?’” Deneb said, her voice muffled by Amber’s shoulder. “I see your Facebook profile pic every day when I message you!”

“That doesn’t count,” Amber said.

They released themselves from each other after hugging for the greater part of a minute. “How’s John Hopkins?”

That’s when the rest of the Hopkins delegation perked our ears. Especially Amber. “Hey, it’s Johns Hopkins, with the S.”

“Sorry,” Deneb said, “Johnsss Hopkins,” ridiculously elongating the S. “But yeah, how’s college.”

“Good,” Amber said, “it’s hard, but it’s really exciting to be around so many smart and motivated people. I also really like my professors and my classes, since we get to talk about so many current events that affect us.”

“Yeah, same here at Georgetown,” Deneb said. “It’s a lot of work, but at the same time it’s really fun.”

“Great to hear that,” Amber said. Then she turned to me, as I was sorting out all of our luggage on the woolen floor, trying to get it all in one place. “Hey Crystal, can you take a photo of us?”

“Sure,” I said as Amber rummaged through her left pocket to get her phone. She pulled it out and gave it to me; once that was settled, she and Deneb stood in front of the great white wall.

“Say cheese,” I said. They smiled, and I took two, three, four pictures of them, standing in the exact same pose of Amber’s arm around Deneb’s neck. It’s something I always do, as a mini-prank, when I take pictures of other people.

“Thanks,” Amber said as she pocketed away her phone.

“You’re welcome,” I said. “Oh, by the way,” I added, turning to Deneb, “I’m Crystal Sun, president of the JHU College Democrats.”

“Oh, hi!” Deneb said, shaking my hand. “Very nice to meet you, President Sun.”

President Sun. I like the sound of that. It never gets old.

“I’m Deneb Luna,” Deneb continued, beaming a giant smile. “I’m Amber’s friend from high school. We’re both from Johns Creek, Georgia and we both went to Johns Creek High School. As you can probably guess, I’m part of the Georgetown College Democrats, and just like you I’m here for DemCon! Aren’t you excited?”

“Yeah, I am,” I said, slightly backing off from this girl who seems to be permanently caffeinated, almost like a super-Melissa. I wish I could be like her; it would be very helpful for 3 AM coding sessions. “And the best part about DemCon is meeting other enthusiastic Democrats like you!”

“Yep,” she said. “Though I heard the parties at Penn are also something of note.”

“They...they are,” I said, resting my right hand on my suitcase. Hopefully Deneb isn’t the kind of person to get carried away at frat parties, even though most signs worryingly point in that direction.

Trying to change the subject, I remembered my secret weapons. “Now that you’re here, do you want one of our famous donkey stickers?” I took one out of my purse, out of several that I carry at all times. “They’re free.”

“Oh, thanks,” Deneb said, examining the sticker. “I’ll put this on my Mac I guess.” She looked back at Amber. “How much time do we have left?”

Amber pulled out her phone again. “Actually quite a lot before we have to get back to our rooms,” she said.

“Okay, good.” Deneb turned back to me. “Okay, nothing to do with politics or even college, just curious, are you familiar with K-pop?”

Wow, a question I can answer for hours upon end. Take BTS, for example, my own bias group, the group whose posters I have taped across my apartment walls. I usually code by having one of their albums in one tab while coding in Eclipse or vim in another tab. Simply put, the energy and emotion that their songs have is unlike what any other band has. Also, the members are hot.

I wasn’t sure how much detail I would give about my love for K-pop, though. “Yes,” I said, leaving it simple.

“Are you familiar with f(x)?” she continued.

Uh oh, I see where this is going. But I went along with it. “Yes,” I said again.

“Okay, so you know what the members look like, right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Let me guess, you’re going to say that I look like Krystal Jung, the maknae of f(x).”

“Wow, you can read my mind,” Deneb said, almost laughing. “Yeah, I was going to say exactly that. Sorry if I offended you.”

“That’s okay, you didn’t offend me.” That was a slight lie, since hearing it for the five hundredth time is pretty annoying. (Not to mention that it plays into the racist insinuation that all Asians look the same.) But I digress. “It’s just that people say this all the time. Especially since my sister’s named Jessica and kind of looks like Jessica Jung, so people call us ‘the Jung sisters’ all the time.”

“I get you,” Deneb said. “People say that I look like Luna, and that Amber looks like - guess what - Amber J. Liu. Though in Amber’s case, it’s kind of on purpose, since she cut her hair short to purposely look like Amber.”

“So Amber is Amber’s bias,” I said.

“Yeah,” Deneb said, “though it’s weird since she actually hates K-pop usually. She just likes f(x) as an exception. She thinks that K-pop is shallow commercial music and hates how the industry exploits the artists to make money.”

“Such as how companies force trainees into debt and pay them pittance salaries, forcing them to train and tour without rest, force them into extreme diets to fulfill impossible beauty standards, and even force them to undergo plastic surgery,” Amber interjected as she overheard our conversation.

“Sorry, she sometimes does that,” Deneb said. “She’s very socialistic, so don’t be afraid if she says something that makes you uncomfortable.”

“She’s a fellow College Dem, and she’s very vocal during our debates,” I said. “So I know how socialistic she can get.”

“By the way,” Amber continued, “if you want to know what’s good music, check out The Knife. They’re a Swedish EDM brother-sister duo who are very big on gender equality.”

“Yeah, she likes f(x) for the European EDM style, not for the K-pop,” Deneb added.

“The songwriters for many SM songs are actually Swedish,” Amber said, referring to the K-pop label SM Entertainment.

“Wow, for someone who hates K-pop,” I said, “she certainly knows a lot about it.”

“Probably because I like K-pop a lot,” Deneb said. “Like, for example, I like BTS. Are you familiar with it?”

And so goes the rest of our time left in College Hall.

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

***

Our host, a Penn student from Illinois named Inez Kapoor, was a very nice host, having already set up not one, but two air mattress for us to sleep on for the night. But sleep was for the weak. Frat parties were for the strong. And so they went to tonight’s party, while I contented myself with lying in bed, laptop in hand, checking Facebook, Github, and Politico at the same time. Multitasking, it turns out, was also for the strong.

I managed to fall asleep while watching Orphan Black, one of my favorite shows, on Netflix. But it was a short nap. I was woken up to the sounds of footsteps and banging against the walls.

“Who is this?” I asked.

“It’s us, it’s...it’s us,” said Melissa, who was holding Inez for support while stumbling into the dormitory.

“Are you okay?” I said, getting out of bed. “Here, let me help you.”

“I’m okay,” Melissa said before making vomiting sounds. Her face looked very red, her cheeks swollen from apparently trying to hold the vomit back.

“You are not okay,” I said. “I’ll open the bathroom and you vomit in there.”

“Thank you,” Inez said as she guided Melissa to the bathroom, where the throwing up, as planned, took place.

“Geez, what happened?” I asked once Melissa was done with Inez’s toilet.

“Eeh, too much beer pong,” she said. “Must’ve gone over my limit.”

“Yeah, you definitely have,” I said. “Good thing it’s not so bad that you’re unconscious or nearly dying and we have to call 911 on you.”

“I’m sorry,” Melissa said. “I’ll do better next time.”

“Welp, now the only thing left to do is to let you rest and sober up by morning,” I said, gesturing towards the other air mattress. I guided Melissa onto said air mattress, which was when I noticed that alcohol wasn’t the only substance that Melissa consumed at the party.

“Thanks,” Melissa said, staring at the ceiling.

“You’re welcome,” Inez and I said in unison. Pleasantly surprised by the coincidence, we smiled and gave each other a mental high-five.

I climbed back onto my air mattress when Melissa started mumbling things to me.

“Have you noticed,” Melissa said, checking that Inez was indeed asleep, “that Inez Kapoor looks like the Bollywood star Shraddha Kapoor?”

That thought never occurred to me, but now that I thought about it, I had to agree. Inez did look like the Bollywood star, down to the surname.

“And you know how people say you and your sisters look like the Jung sisters from K-pop?” she added.

“Uh huh,” I said.

“And how Deneb looks like Luna and how Amber looks like...like Amber?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“What if,” Melissa said, “what if this is all not a coincidence? What if we’re part of some story written by some sort of God-author, who created us to look like famous celebrities so they could use these celebrities’ pictures from the Internet for their story?”

“Melissa,” I said, “you’re not sober. Go to bed.”

“No, I can’t!” she said, “I’ve been thinking about this all night! Like what could such a story even be about?”

“Our lives,” I said. “Now go to sleep.”

“No, no, it has to be about something more. Like what’s that obscure politics forum that you’re part of?”

“Atlas Forums?” I said, not knowing what other social media platform I used could fit that description.

“Yeah, don’t you write stories on there?” she asked.

“Yeah, I guess.” It’s not something I like to talk about, since all my stories on Atlas end up dead after five posts. It’s not really something you can do when you’re a Math-CS double major who has twenty hours of homework and who knows how many hours of research and extracurriculars each week.

“Yeah, like what if some guy, in some other universe, or even in the multiverse, was writing a story about us, on that forum for other forum members, and how we become these really famous and awesome politicians and that right now we’re just in the backstory stage-”

“What do you mean ‘famous politicians?’ Look at me. I’m going to Google. I’m not going to become a politician. I mean it would be nice to be called ‘Senator Sun’ or even ‘President Sun’ by everyone but you and me know that that’s just not going to happen.”

“But think about it! Senator Kapoor! Governor Moon! President Sun!” Melissa said while gesturing furiously with her arms.

“Yeah, a small Asian girl with no intention of ever going into politics becomes President of the United States. Do you realize what a ridiculous vision this is?” I pulled up my blanket to hide my face from Melissa’s weird thoughts. “Now go to bed.”

“But think about the possibilities,” Melissa said, “it’s almost like if the Universe is determining our very actions-”

“Quantum mechanics says that’s impossible,” I corrected.

“-or that we’re in some sort of multiverse, or that we’re just a simulation. Wait, don’t people say that we’re infinitely more likely to live in a simulated universe than a real one?”

“Listen, you can go hit a blunt and talk about this with the physics majors. I don’t want to hear anything more about this.”

“You’re a math major. Close enough.”

I stood up in bed. “You think math majors and physics majors are the same? Do I look like someone who uses the small angle approximation? Please, Melissa, if you-”

I heard noises coming from outside. Laughter. Curious to see what it is, I got up and looked out the window. More laughter. I looked down. And there they were, Amber and Deneb, childhood friends, laughing and probably crying together as they stumbled back to the Penn dorms.

Somehow, unlike Melissa, the two freshman babies actually looked adorable. Maybe it’s because they are freshmen babies and not depressed upperclassmen like Melissa and me. It was too cute, actually. Grabbing my iPhone from my desk, I took a picture of them as they stumbled onto the wet grass below.

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

Hi, sorry for the lack of updates (see above disclaimer), but before I post the next "official" update I have a proposition: You can be in the story!

Just PM me to be included in the next Atlas update, which will be about the 2016 elections. Don't worry if you registered after that time period; I can just have you join Atlas earlier in TTL than in OTL. (And this universe is indeed different from our own, as you will see during Election Night 2016.)

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

Atlas Forum
- Presidential Elections - Analysis and Discussion
-- 2016 U.S. Presidential Election (Moderators: AndrewTX, Likely Voter, Justice TJ)
--- Trump will win

Not_Madigan Sr. Member ★★★★ Posts: 321

Trump will win « on: October 22, 2016, 01:01:24 am »Heres my prediction

Crystal Clear Clintonite nj_dem YaBB God ★★★★★ Posts: 1354

Trump will win « Reply #1 on: October 22, 2016, 01:02:51 am » You must be logged in to read this quote. Okay, I'll give you my serious take on this. I doubt Trump will win Florida and North Carolina. Maybe one of them, but probably not both. Trump is not going to win Pennsylvania. He could win on the large white working class population there, but right now that's not happening, as evidenced by the fact that Clinton is up by 6 points. Trump can win Wisconsin and New Hampshire in theory, as they've been close states in the past (especially Wisconsin in 2004). But Trump is down in both of those states too, so he's not going to win them them either. He has a bad chance in Nevada because of the Reid machine and the Hispanic vote. Michigan and Minnesota? Trump's not going to win them. And...OREGON? Why?

The Govanah Jake Jake Jewvinivisk YaBB God ★★★★★ Posts: 552

Trump will win « Reply #2 on: October 22, 2016, 01:03:34 am » You must be logged in to read this quote. Okay, I'll give you my serious take on this. I doubt Trump will win Florida and North Carolina. Maybe one of them, but probably not both. Trump is not going to win Pennsylvania. He could win on the large white working class population there, but right now that's not happening, as evidenced by the fact that Clinton is up by 6 points. Trump can win Wisconsin and New Hampshire in theory, as they've been close states in the past (especially Wisconsin in 2004). But Trump is down in both of those states too, so he's not going to win them them either. He has a bad chance in Nevada because of the Reid machine and the Hispanic vote. Michigan and Minnesota? Trump's not going to win them. And...OREGON? Why?[/quote] Bro, I know you're a huge Clinton hack, and I doubt he wins Oregon, but he can definitely win some of these states in the "blue wall."

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

You do realize [the artist now known as you] is a girl, right?

You are?!

I'm not a girl. Crystal is. And I think you can tell who she is in "real life." (Or at least her version of real life. Things get interesting when you're dealing with alternate realities.)

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

October 22, 2016 - West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

“So,” I said, “we got all the houses on Oxford street, all the houses on Nassau, all the houses on West Jefferson-”

“Not all the houses on West Jefferson,” Deneb pointed out. “We only did the houses on this side of the strip mall.”

“And there’s also those houses all the way on Lebanon Avenue,” Amber added, trying to point to said houses on the list I was holding.

“That’s like, five houses total,” I pointed out, looking at Deneb and Amber sternly as we were standing at the intersection between Oxford Street, Lancaster Avenue, and North 57th Street. It was hard trying to speak over the din of the traffic, especially when you had this car blaring “Vote for Hillary Clinton!” driving up and down the neighborhood.

“So?” Deneb said. “These are still people who we should be getting to to get out the vote!”

“Really?” I said. I took a deep breath. When the Penn Dems leadership was organizing us into groups to canvass across Philly, of course the two high school buddies chose each other, and of course they convinced me to come along with them. Then again, it was also partly my fault, since after last night’s happenings I wanted to have at least one day away from Melissa. I could’ve gone with the other two freshmen, but they chose other people instead. Plus going with them might not have went any better than going with Deneb and Amber.

“Yeah! Really!” Deneb said.

“Okay, freshman babies,” I said, “here’s a life lesson. There is something called cost-benefit analysis. If the cost exceeds the benefits, you don’t do that action. Like in investing, if the expected yield is less than the money you need to put into a project, you don’t invest in it. Or with this. You need to go all the way around the strip mall to that one house on West Jefferson, then go all the way back for almost half a mile to Lebanon Avenue to get the other four. You need to expend a lot of energy to get to people who might not even be home right now.”

“And,” I added,” it’s 1:30 in the afternoon, we have to get back to Penn by three, we hadn’t had any lunch, and to be frank I am very hungry. There is a Popeyes in that strip mall we can go to and have a nice cheap lunch there. Now Amber, I know you don’t like fast food, but there’s also a supermarket there where you can get yourself all the apples and kale you want.”

“Oh don’t worry I brought my own lunch,” Amber said, patting the canvas bag she was carrying.

“Yeah,” Deneb said, “and then we lose Pennsylvania.”

“First of all,” I said, “Hillary’s not going to lose Pennsylvania. On FiveThirtyEight right now she has an 88 percent chance of winning the state. I checked it this morning. And even if the 12 percent did happen it won’t be because we decided to skip five houses and go to Popeye’s instead. So let’s just call it a day, mark those five as ‘not here,’ and go have lunch!”

“Isn’t that lying?” Deneb asked.

“They won’t know,” I answered.

“That is lying,” Deneb said. “And you’re the club president. A president should show some level of moral leadership, and right now you’re failing bigly.”

“Deneb,” I said, “it’s five houses. It’s not like we’re going full Trump in terms of immorality, scamming people and grabbing women by their pussies - or men by their dicks, since we’re girls - or whatever. Deneb, how many times have you jaywalked?”

“Um…” Deneb said.

“Exactly.”

“Thanks, Crystal,” Amber said, “thanks for putting that image in my head.”

“Sorry,” I said, “but that is what happens when I’m hungry.”

“Also that assumes that we’re all straight or bi,” Amber added. “Which we are, we’re both either bi or straight, but if that wasn’t true you would’ve been in some deep doo-doo.”

“Whatever,” I said, “just don’t grab people by their genitalia. Anyways, are you coming with me to Popeye’s or not?”

“Shouldn’t we have a vote?” Deneb asked.

“Fine,” I said, relenting. “Anyone who’s okay going to Popeye’s raise your hand.” I raised my hand. Neither Deneb or Amber did.

“Anyone who’s okay with going to these last five houses raise your hand.” As expected, Deneb raised her hand. To my surprise and disappointment, however, Amber also raised her hand halfway.

“Amber,” I said, “I know that you’re her best friend, but you have to agree that that idea is stupid, right?”

“I dunno,” she said, putting her head down. “It’s just that I have a gut feeling…”

“A gut feeling for what?” I said.

“A gut feeling that Trump will actually win Pennsylvania.”

“Really?” I said. “A state that hasn’t gone Republican since 1984 will soon be won by possibly the worst candidate in all of American history.”

“I mean, I don’t think it’s true, but it’s a strong gut feeling,” Amber said. “Just look at Clinton, and look at Trump. Trump is drawing these huge crowds and is speaking to all these people. He’s appealing to their base instincts and it’s working. Clinton is literally the ultimate elderly establishment politician who insults them. She’s boring, she’s corrupt-”

“She’s not corrupt,” I said.

“She’s corrupt,” Amber said. “Do you even know what the DNC did to clear the path for her and damage Bernie?”

“Okay, we’re not going there,” I said. “My point is that she will win. And Clinton’s clearly leading in the polls. She’s up by six points in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh will save her if all else fails.”

“I read a Michael Moore article,” Amber said, “that says that Trump will win. He’ll win the white working class voters-”

“We’re not going there either,” I said. “The polls show Clinton leading in Pennsylvania. Michael Moore’s just BSing about the white working class and how they’ll save Trump. They don’t even vote! Plus if Trump has the white working class or whatever they call them these days on his side, Clinton has the rising American electorate on her side.”

“Nah, my gut says Trump will win,” Amber said.

“Do you want me to explain what I just said? Your gut is wrong.”

“How about this. We make a bet. If Clinton wins I pay you twenty bucks, if Trump wins you pay me twenty. Deal?”

“Hmm.” Clinton was going to win, hopefully, so there didn’t seem to be a downside for me. Twenty free dollars. Good for two or three Chipotle meals. “Deal. But only if you go to Popeye’s with me.”

“Sure,” Amber said, reversing her previous reluctance. “My phone’s basically dead anyways, and Deneb’s is at five percent, so we’re basically stuck with you.” She held out her right hand, ready to seal the deal. (I wonder how awkward handshakes are for left-handed people.)

“Sure.” I shook her hand.

“Deneb,” Amber said, “I’m sorry, but you’re coming with us to Popeye’s.”

“Okay,” she said, checking her phone and recognizing the reality of the situation. “I’ll come.”

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

October 22, 2016 - University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

And there she was, standing on stage. She was to address the crowd, which stood under the harsh white lamps that wiped out the stars from the sky. She was the woman who would save the world. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“Hello Penn!” Clinton said in a courageously loud voice that reverberated through the space we called the outdoors. “Hello Philadelphia!” Predictably, the crowd went wild, waving their Clinton-Kaine signs in support of their chosen candidate.

I looked around, keeping a particularly close eye on my children. There was Amber to my left and Melissa to my right. Jake and Emily were there as well, huddling together to preserve body heat. But did we need to? I was feeling it now, not just heat of the thousands in the crowd, but also the excitement of seeing the future President with my very own eyes.

Except, except, will she even be President?

Trump will win.

Those words that Amber said this afternoon. Those three stupid words from that stupid conversation, rattling in my head.

Trump will win.

Except that he won’t. Clinton will make sure of that. Pennsylvania will make sure of that. The people here will make sure of that. With the amount of Clinton excitement here, it was hard to believe otherwise.

“...as he has never lost an election!” Wait, who? Oh, Tim Kaine, that’s who. Nice! Just another reason why Clinton will defeat Trump, a small reason, but still a reason. Seriously, I really needed to stop getting distracted by my thoughts and just enjoy the night.

“And I wanted to thank a few other people,” Clinton added. Senator Bob Casey. Attorney General candidate Josh Shapiro. State representative Dwight Evans, who happened to be here at this rally. Senate candidate Katie McGinty, the other important woman of the night.

But who didn’t she give thanks to was just as important. Like McGinty’s rival, Senator Pat Toomey, a man who saw Donald Trump and his diabolical behavior, and yet stood by him.

And Clinton went on, not only about bipartisanship but also about Trump and his claims that the election would be rigged and how she’s the sane choice. The crowd kept going wild and chants of “HILLARY! HILLARY!” kept shaking the night. But I retreated back into my thoughts.

At first, they were happy thoughts. The vision of watching CNN on Election Night, Wolf Blitzer saying “We can project that Hillary Clinton will become the next President of the United States,” the excitement of finally having a female president here in America, the satisfaction of seeing the Republicans and the Trumpets and the racists failing so hard they will never get up again…

Trump will win.

Those three words again, those three damned words, dripping out like cold water from a leaky showerhead. Cold, painful words.

Trump will win.

Should I have listened to Amber and Deneb earlier today and have gone to those last houses? part of me said to myself. Nah, another part of me said, she will win.

All summer long, I assumed Clinton will win. Partly because the evidence said she will win. She has been up in Pennsylvania by six points, and she was still up in her other core states.

I grasped for more reasons, and almost on cue, Clinton gave one. “More than 200 million Americans are registered to vote,” I heard her say. “More than 50 million young people have registered! This could truly be the election where young people make their voices heard.”

50 million. And I’m one of them. Melissa’s one of them. Amber and Jake and Emily are among them. We will be the ones who will help Hillary save the world.

So there was that, and there was the excitement of having our first female president. But there was also the fact that the alternative, a Trump victory, was completely unthinkable.

I closed my mind, and for once, my usually grounded thought processes went wild. Clinton, the 69-year-old woman standing in front of us, behind bars. Elections cancelled. Syrian refugees blocked, my mentees ostracized, possibly deported.

And me? I am a woman, a feminist, and as the child of Chinese immigrants, a child of two worlds. Trump supporters looking at me, looking at my Asian face and seeing not an American, but a foreigner. You are not welcome here, they would say.

As if on cue, Clinton seemed to answer my fears. “It really is about everything you care about, every issue that matters to you…”

I took a deep breath. I recalled the incidents that Clinton recounted mere minutes ago. Trump calling Mexican immigrants rapists. Trump pummeling the Khan family with his Islamophobia. And of course Trump’s desire to grab pussies.

As the night wore on, I grew tired, and Hillary’s words and the crowd’s chants blurred into the starless October sky. “We will also be on the side of American workers!” I managed to hear Clinton say, if only because some girl in the crowd gave a loud and piercing “Love You!” right after.

“...no matter what zip code that child lives in!” Except that Trump’s America will care about zip codes, and race, and gender, and...

“...honest be about the jobs that will be created in the next 20 years...by technology, by robotics, by artificial intelligence.” Clinton cares, I care, Trump...nah...

“...because you know I love plans and I love details.” And Trump...yeah...

“If you believe we need to raise the minimum wage,” Raise to what? Ten? Fifteen? “You need to vote!” I snapped out of my trance, though not my stream of consciousness.

“If you believe we need to treat women and girls with dignity and respect, you got to vote!” I thought about myself - a woman, obviously, a woman who deserves her dignity and respect - but also my friends.

“If you want to stand up for our rights, stand up for women's’ rights, to defend Planned Parenthood...” Myself, and every other girl I know, but especially this girl I knew from high school who had an abortion...

“...to defend marriage equality, the LGBT community..” My bisexual roommate Lisa, Emily, Amber - wait is Amber actually lesbian/bi? I don’t know and I better not assume.

“...tackle systemic racism and make criminal justice reform a reality…” Myself again, for I’m Chinese, but also all my non-white friends. Especially Tanya. Damn Tanya, I love you, but you go to Brown and how do you have the time to share all these social justice posts?

“...defend voting rights, and take on the gun lobby, to defeat ISIS, to take on the threat of nuclear weapons, you need to vote!”

I felt a crumpled piece of paper hit my back. I turned around and picked it up. It was a campaign flyer: “Why Vote Clinton?” it said, the same ones we handed out while canvassing.

“This is a crossroads election,” Clinton continued as my thoughts raced. “There could not be two more different visions and agendas than between me and Donald Trump. And look, it’s easy to get cynical about politics, but these issues are deeply personal to families, our communities, our country, and the world.”

I put the crumpled paper in my purse, not sure where I would throw it out, or even if I wanted to.

“And I hope, when people look back on this election, when everything really is on the line, I hope you and everyone you know can say that you voted for a better America! And that’s what I’m asking tonight!”

Look back on this election? What will that future look like? Will there even be a future?

“If you care about climate change, you better vote! If you care about ending mass incarceration, you better vote!” Once again, Clinton’s words blurred as my thoughts consumed my attention. But not for long.

“...the future we want, the future that we can create, and remember: Love. Trumps. Hate.” And with that, Clinton concluded her speech to thunderous applause.

She stepped off, and the crowd started to disperse. It was now time to go, but for a second I didn’t realize that.

I felt a hand grab my arm. It was pixie cut girl. I woke up from my trance again. Amber wasn’t looking at me; she was looking at her phone instead, seemingly trying to distract herself from Clinton’s speech. Yet she was more attentive than I was. Holding my arm, she started walking me towards the exit. As the president of the College Dems club, I felt stupid being led around by a freshman, but I was too tired to care.

And the words came back, those three words.

Trump will win.

I sighed. I kept my eyes to the ground as Amber and Melissa guided me through the crowd, hearing everyone but seeing no one. I grabbed the crumpled flyer with my left hand and, as soon as I found a trash can, threw it out.

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

October 22, 2016 - Interstate 95, en route to Baltimore

The cold of steel and glass melted into nothingness before reforming into warm, humid air. Above me, the sky was blue. Below me, I stood on a two-lane road that stretched until the horizon in both directions. In all directions, the landscape was dead; the ground was cracked, and what was left of the grass was now brown and undergoing the slow transcendence into dust. To my left was an abandoned power plant, whose walls were overgrown with dead vines and painted with the graffiti of artists long unknown. Coal, probably, it probably burned coal. To my right was a bridge that led to nowhere; if you got on it, you would fall off the end and crash into the dusty ground below.

I checked my smartphone. Eight o’clock. I had to go to work now. Without thinking, I ran inside the abandoned coal plant, past the rusted chain link fencing and the dying Joshua trees. I did trip on one thing, a Trump-Pence sign that was caked in dust. Except that Pence’s name wasn’t on it. “Pristin,” it said in place of Pence’s name.

Unlike the outside, the inside of the building was still alive. There was a hallway that led to several wooden doors, not unlike in a university hall or office building. The floor was patterned with blue and white tiles and the walls were painted a flat eggshell. I could hear a soft hum from the fluorescent lamps above.

I went in the first door on my right, which led to a room labeled “102.” The room locked a lot like the hallway - blue and white tiles with eggshell walls. A single fluorescent light fixture was mounted on the ceiling. Right below it, in the exact center, there was a single computer with a brown chair, just for me.

I sat down on it and started coding. I didn’t know what I was coding, nor even what language I was coding in, though I did know that I was coding in Eclipse. Without conscious thought, I typed and coded something. What was I doing? Where am I? Who am I? Unable to answer any of those three questions, I continued to numbly type. Text and code appeared on the screen, designed for some unknown purpose that was to be beyond my understanding.

I heard someone walk in. It was a balding white man who looked like Mike Pence, except that he was bald. He wore a suit and tie for his top, but for his bottom wore a pair of dusty jeans and dusty sneakers. “Good morning Crystal, what’ya doin’?” he said, smiling.

I look at him and noticed that the door that used to be there had disappeared. In its place was more wall. “Hey Peyton,” I said. Somehow I knew his name and was on good terms with him, even though I knew nobody like him in real life. He did sound like Bryan Sanfiel though, this one guy from my Machine Learning class, even though Bryan was Hispanic and spoke with a soft Cuban accent.

“How’s your program going along?”

“Great!” Except I really had no idea. Hard to get an idea if you had no idea what you were even creating.

“Good, good,” he said. He grabbed a chair from nowhere and sat on it. He had a resigned expression on his face. “I’m just coming for your performance evaluation.”

“Okay,” I said. I tensed up. Performance evaluations, tests, grades, for me they were all the stuff of nightmares. I hope this wasn’t going to go bad.

“So far you’ve been doing excellent. You’re one of our best workers.”

“Thanks,” I said, relieved that I didn’t fail. I wondered if there were other workers here.

“You’re welcome,” Peyton said, chuckling. It gave me a smile on my face. Far from threatening, Peyton seemed super cool, someone who gets along with young people like me despite his age. “Now, there is one thing that I need you to do.”

“What?” I asked.

“Watch this.”

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Good question. Look outside.”

I did what he asked and I looked outside. The sky was still blue, but the ground was now lush with grass and dandelions. Around the window there was a tall wooden fence. Two platforms stood in the middle of the lawn.

From the left came three people. Two were girls, both wearing orange jumpsuits. One of them had pink hair and for some reason pink wings. The other had light brunette hair and no wings. I recognized them. Amber and Deneb.

The third person was male. He altered between very short and very tall, but otherwise kept the same face. He was a young man with pale skin and blue hair. He wore a pantsuit like Hillary Clinton despite being male, and had a blue scarf wrapped around his neck.

“What are they doing here?” I asked.

“Oh, they’re our prisoners. They’re going to be executed right now.”

I looked at the three. Pantsuit Guy now had something that looked like a flamethrower. As a test, he fired it in the sky. Yep, flamethrower, one that fired high-energy blue fire. Behind Pantsuit Guy, Amber wrinkled her nose and flapped her wings. Deneb didn’t flinch at all.

Then Pantsuit Guy came into the room - the window must not have any glass, it seems. - and walked up to me. “Open your arms,” he said in a high-pitched voice. Not fully understanding what was going on, I complied to Pantsuit Guy’s request and he plopped the flamethrower into my arms.

“What am I supposed to do with these?” I asked.

“What do you mean ‘what am I supposed to do?’” Peyton said. He was no longer smiling, but he wasn’t mad either, just slightly annoyed. “You’re supposed to execute them!”

“Execute them? Me?”

“Yeah of course!” Peyton said. “That was your job!” He started laughing; I couldn’t tell if it was genuine or not. “Don’t tell me you forgot your job!”

“I didn’t,” I said, not knowing what my job was beyond coding and executing my friends.

“Listen,” Peyton said, standing up and walking towards me. “I know it’s hard, but once you execute them I’ll take you out for ice cream.”

Once he said that, without much notice I started moving. Not walking, not running, just sliding frictionlessly on the floor. I went faster and faster, pulled by a mysterious force towards Deneb and Amber. I knew I had to load and aim the flamethrower at them, or something bad would happen.

Ten feet, then five feet, I pointed the barrel and put my finger on the trigger. Then four feet, then three...

I opened my eyes. I took a deep breath and looked outside. Complete darkness, with only the yellow of the headlights and streetlights being able to puncture it. These few and tiny embers entered into your field of view and fled shortly after. Occasionally, a leaf or insect would make a small twick before continuing on its doomed journey. It was a reminder that only a few centimeters of metal and glass separated me from certain death on the Interstate.

I slowly lifted my head up. It was painful; my neck and shoulder muscles were sore, and some of my hair got trapped in the crevices of the glass-metal interface. I looked around. Nobody except the rest of the College Dems and a few senior citizens in somber coats were on the Greyhound, looking ghoulish under the dead white of the fluorescent lamps. All the other seats were empty. The four grey walls of the Greyhound rattled with every bump and pothole on the Interstate, rocking us left and right, hither and thither.

I turned back around. In front of me was the driver’s seat; the driver himself was fixated on the road, in complete ignorance of the souls he was carrying. Above me, I saw the remains of a dead fly trapped inside the fluorescent lamp. The decaying corpse was big enough to cast a shadow on my leg.

I leaned back against the window and closed my eyes again. The images were back again, this time as still images, but no less frightening. The factory. The Trump-Pristin sign. Peyton. Amber the Angel and Deneb the Doomed. Pantsuit Guy. The flamethrower.

And now, something new. I don’t have synesthesia, but these words were red with Republican blood. They burned into my head like Pantsuit Guy’s blue fire.

Trump will win.

And then the images were gone. There was just darkness. No light, just darkness. I shivered.

I felt something warm on my shoulder, something heavy. I opened my eyes and tried to turn my head around. It was Amber, her head resting against my body. I felt the strands of her short blond hair gently tickling me, the warmth of her skin against my own, the sound of her breathing as she slept. It was a totally different Amber than the sharp and sardonic Amber who likes to argue with me. Nor was it the Angel Amber of my dream, the Amber I was about to kill in a burst of fire. It was her true self, one who helps others whenever they need it the most.

It felt comforting. No matter what happens, even if Trump wins, even if he took away our rights, our identities, or our voices, there was one thing he could never take away from us. Our friendship.

Trump will win.

But.

But what?

It will be okay.

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

Atlas Forum
- Presidential Elections - Analysis and Discussion
-- 2016 U.S. Presidential Election (Moderators: AndrewTX, Likely Voter, Justice TJ)
--- Anyone went to Hillary's UPenn rally?

razze Sr. Member ★★★★ Posts: 304

Anyone went to Hillary's UPenn rally? « on: October 23, 2016, 11:05:57 am »Did anyone go to Hillary Clinton's rally yesterday evening? It was so cool seeing her there!

Crystal Clear Clintonite nj_dem YaBB God ★★★★★ Posts: 1359

Anyone went to Hillary's UPenn rally? « Reply #1 on: October 23, 2016, 11:08:17 am »I was there too! Yeah it was very exciting, though I was really tired by then.

Peebs YaBB God ★★★★★ Posts: 4112

Anyone went to Hillary's UPenn rally? « Reply #2 on: October 23, 2016, 11:10:44 am »Dang why do you college students get to do everything fun?

Zombie Spenstar Spenstar3D YaBB God ★★★★★ Posts: 1301

Anyone went to Hillary's UPenn rally? « Reply #3 on: October 23, 2016, 11:12:31 am »I mean, I would've loved to go, but I'm several thousand miles and an ocean way, so yeah. You must be logged in to read this quote. Not all college students, alas.

the_walrus Newbie ★ Posts: 5

Anyone went to Hillary's UPenn rally? « Reply #4 on: October 23, 2016, 11:22:44 am »If only Illinois had Clinton rallies. TBH I wish she would campaign more in the Midwest. Like Michigan and Wisconsin? Bernie won both states so it would be good if Clinton could connect with their voters more.

razze Sr. Member ★★★★ Posts: 304

Anyone went to Hillary's UPenn rally? « Reply #5 on: October 23, 2016, 12:04:11 am » You must be logged in to read this quote. Why? Michigan is Titanium D and she's winning comfortably in Wisconsin. Plus PA has more electoral votes.

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

I'm touched

Although I was wearing a G-NC at the time.

Sorry. You do change your avatar a lot, so it's kind of hard to keep track.

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

***

Deneb Luna sat in her Georgetown dorm with a pen in her right hand and an absentee ballot in her left. She breathed heavily with excitement. Now was the time when, for the second time in her life, she will participate in the greatest democratic process on the face of the Earth.

She had been anxiously waiting for this moment. A week passed between the moment she sent her absentee ballot application and when she got it in the mail. Good thing she checked her mail every other day. Hopefully Amber got her ballot too.

She looked at the choices. “Republican: Donald J. Trump/Michael R. Pence” was the first choice. She mocked that decision by air-circling their names on the ballot with the back end of the pen before moving on to the next one.

“Democrat: Hillary R. Clinton/Tim M. Kaine.” Ah, this was the choice she shall be making shortly. But Deneb wasn’t ready to fill in the bubble yet; like good food, it takes time to take in a moment of unprecedented gravity.

Hillary Clinton, the first woman president of the United States, a woman of unprecedented experience and caliber, and the only one who would save America from a monstrosity like Donald Trump. She’ll need every bit of help she could get to defeat the Donald, and Deneb was happy to participate.

Would I really help her? Deneb thought. She’s voting absentee in Georgia, a state that was Republican for as long as she could remember. But in recent years, Georgia had been close. Clinton probably won’t win Georgia, if current polls were any indication, but there was the outside chance that she could. And if that happens, Deneb and Amber would have played a small part in changing the course of world history. More than if I voted in DC.

And with her trusty Bic pen, Deneb voted for Hillary Rodham Clinton and Timothy Michael Kaine.

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

***

“How could you do this?” everybody around him kept saying. “You’re a Muslim! Trump said he would ban Muslims! How could you dare support him!”

Isaac Hassan laughed silently as he examined his Michigan absentee ballot. Of course he’s a Muslim, and a proud one at that! And he’s also a Trump supporter, and also a proud one at that. As the president of the JHU College Republicans, he was the one who convinced the rest of the club to endorse Trump, when every other College Republican group jumped on the Never-Trump train like a bunch of scared rats. He snorted. RINOs, that’s what they were.

In his mind, he cycled through the dumb statements everyone made over the past year and a half. Particularly bemusing were people who insisted that Trump would not allow him back into the country if he ever left, or more brazenly, that Trump would outright deport him. Foolish liberals, always trying to exaggerate to make their case and using Muslims as political props. What Trump really meant was he would do everything to stop ISIS and other terrorist groups from coming to American shores. Less terrorists, less terrorist incidents, and less Islamophobia.

If anything Trump would be the best President for Muslims America has had in a long time! Unlike the warmonger known as Hillary Clinton, he would stop American drones and American imperialism from destroying the lives of innocent civilians there. He would also be tough on Iran, the great enemy of Sunni Muslims like him. And then there were the more standard Republican reasons he had. Lower taxes. Obamacare repeal. The good stuff.

He looked down on his ballot again and placed his pen tip next to the Republican ticket before eying the words “Michigan Absentee Ballot” that were printed on it. He sighed. Michigan hadn’t gone for a Republican since...since....he sighed again, peeved that he couldn’t remember the exact date. It had been Democratic longer than he had been alive, that’s for sure. But Trump was popular among the white blue-collar class in his state. Could he be the one?

Again, the liberals had always said “Of course not! Trump is so disgusting and racist he couldn’t even win his own gilded tower!” But Isaac had hope. When had those liberals ever been right before?

And with that hope, he voted for Donald John Trump and Michael Richard Pence.

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

***

Better him than Hillary, Morgan Kingsley thought as he stood in the voting booth. He looked at the different options he had in front of him. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. And there was machinery to input write-ins, for the trolls and disgruntled folks who wanted to vote for Harambe.

He put his finger next to Trump’s name, ready to pull the lever for the former businessman, but he hesitated. Could he really vote for someone like Trump?

“He’s a racist, he’s a rapist and a pussygrabber!” his liberal friends always said. They have said these same words for the past one and a half years, and it would only get worse. He was going to go to Johns Hopkins on Election Night to see his cousin (the reason why he was voting early in the first place), and he shuddered at the thought of encountering actual social justice warriors in their natural habitat.

But...what if they were right? Morgan agonized over his choices. He didn’t vote based on personality or charisma or any of that kind of superficial detail. He voted based on policy. Hillary Clinton had really bad policy, but it was still policy, and detailed ones at that. In other words, she had an ethos. What did Trump had? His promises, his bombast...his racism, his misogyny...

He moved his finger between Trump’s and Johnson’s names for a good five minutes. Do I want to vote for someone who will win? he thought. Winning was pretty good; he liked winning, and Trump liked winning too. But maybe there were some things that were bigger than winning.

And as such, in that booth, Morgan voted for Gary Earl Johnson and William Floyd Weld.

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

***

Amber Moon was tired from campaigning for Clinton for the past two months. Now, she could relax and do the relatively sedate activity of voting absentee. She grabbed a black pen from her drawer - there were many pens in that drawer, of various colors, all scrambled in disorganized harmony - and uncapped it.

She looked over her choices. Okay there was Trump, who she would never vote for. There was Johnson, who she would doubly never vote for. And then there was Clinton.

Should she vote for Clinton? That was the question. On one hand, if Clinton lost and Trump won, the result would be disastrous. Maybe not completely apocalyptic - any other Republican would implement at least half of the policies Trump supported, and was there really any democracy left in America for it to lose?

But on the other hand, Clinton was no leftist. It was clear that the establishment cleared the way for her because it was “her turn.” And in turn, they wanted to screw over Bernie during the primaries. And what kind of self-proclaimed leftist gives speeches at Goldman Sachs and supports unethical trade deals like the TPP?

And it goes way back, all the way back to her husband’s administration. The crime bill that led to the mass incarceration and police brutality crisis we see today. The destruction of welfare that destroyed a crucial part of America’s old safety net. Then there were the failures of Clinton herself. Her vote on the Iraq War that led to the rise of ISIS and the fall of America’s world standing. Her role in the 2009 coup in Honduras that brought a new reign of terror to that country. And people like Deneb and Crystal think that she’s this paragon of human rights!

Did I really just think that? Amber realized. She looked at her ballot again. I love you Deneb. I guess I love you too Crystal, you’re a good person. But Hillary Clinton is not a good person.

Of course, Trump was a worse person, and if she lived in a swing state she would obviously vote for Clinton. But Georgia, despite what some delusional pundits plus Deneb have said, was not a swing state. So it was easy for Amber to skip Clinton’s bubble. Sorry, I campaigned for you, but now you’re on your own.

So what should she do now? One option was to write in Jill Stein, but that wasn’t going to happen. Despite her Green Party label, she was anything but a left-wing paragon. What kind of candidate panders to vaccine denialists and advocates for crystal healing?

So who else? She could go for the same choice she did in the primaries. And that was what she did; with her pen, she wrote down “Bernard Sanders” in the write-in section.

And who for vice president? Maybe Elizabeth Warren, who if anything should be the first female President instead of Hillary. But Amber had another person in mind. She put down “Keith Maurice Ellison,” the name of Melissa Michova’s congressman, next to Bernie’s name before skipping all the other tickets and sealing the ballot.

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

Author's Note/Retcon Warning:

The picture for this post describing Barron Trump as the world's richest man has been taken down (a risk you'll always face when using Internet pics). In our timeline (OTL), that picture was of Daniel Snokes, an Australian model based in South Korea.

So in its place I used an actual picture of Barron Trump and hopefully that'll be more stable. But don't worry if you're a Daniel Snokes fan. He'll come back as a different person, one who's probably even more powerful than TTL's Barron.

Also, side note regarding our universe's Barron Trump: He recently joined D.C. United’s U-12 squad.

Anyways, next update: Election Night 2016

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

November 8, 2016 - Maxie’s Pizza Bar, Baltimore, Maryland

7:00 PM

I was checking my phone when Lester Holt started talking on NBC. “And here we go, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Decision Night in America here at NBC Democracy Plaza. It’s 7 PM in the east and polls have just closed in 6 states.” Without a pause he presented the first projection of the night. “NBC projects that Donald Trump will win the votes of Indiana and Kentucky. Vermont goes to Hillary Clinton.”

I put down my phone and glued my eyes on the flatscreen. It was kind of difficult; my booth was a ways away and it was hard to see the text, even with my contacts on. Lester Holt kept talking. “We’re watching Virginia, which is too close to call. Georgia, also too close to call. South Carolina, too early to call.”

Donald Trump (R-NY)/Gov. Mike Pence (R-IN) - 19 EVs
Sec. Hillary Clinton (D-NY)/Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) - 3 EVs

I looked down at my phone again. There they were on my phone too - Kentucky and Indiana blood red, Vermont sky blue. Not a good start, but it was what it was, a start. Kentucky being red was expected. And those New Hampshire counties that were going for Trump only had, I dunno, five percent of precincts reporting? Not the best news, but we can pull through. And of course we were going to pull through; Hillary was going to win or die trying.

I didn’t notice Amber when she walked in. “Oh, um, hi,” I said once I noticed I was under her shadow.

“Hi,” Amber said, “this is the place, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry I was in a bit of a rush,” Amber said as she hastily took off her black jacket, revealing a plain pink shirt underneath. She dumped it in the seat opposite of mine, next to Melissa, who didn’t notice her one bit. She was staring off into space, just like the blue-and-white Hillary Clinton face on her shirt. “I was trying to do laundry today but the dryer was broken. Had to start it twice and then use a different one. Anyways what did I miss?”

“Not much,” I said. “They called Kentucky, Indiana, and Vermont. Not close states obviously. They’re also not ready to call Virginia and Georgia.”

“Georgia, ayy, my home state,” pixie cut girl said as she looked for an empty seat. There were none; the bar was packed with aspiring politicos determined to see a historic moment, the moment when the first woman president of the United States is elected.

“That’s great,” I said, “you have state pride. But I’m not counting on it going for Clinton.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Amber said as she resigned to sitting where she put her jacket down. Melissa moved herself slightly towards the window to make room for Amber, not even making eye contact towards both of us. “I kind of accepted that.”

“But Virginia should go to Clinton,” I said. “Hopefully.” Hopefully NoVA pulls through and gives Clinton the state.

Finally Melissa lifts her head from her phone. “Are you excited Amber?” she said, gently putting her iPhone back on the off-white table. “We’re going to get our first woman president!”

“Eh, not really.”

“Why?” Melissa said, seemingly flabbergasted. “This is going to be great!”

“I’m just tired,” Amber said. I understood, given the soul-sucking nature of doing laundry in college and also the stress of six months of this ugly presidential race. “Plus do you really think Hillary’s going to win?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Really.”

“Um, yeah.” My eyes quickly darted to look at the ceiling before looking at Amber again.

“Plus,” pixie cut girl added, “we’re not going to win the House, and there’s a good chance we won’t win the Senate. What’s President Clinton gonna do then?”

“Not be Trump, I guess,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. I smiled. “You know how important that face is right?”

“I know,” Amber said. I suspected insincerity, but I didn’t comment.

I checked the New York Times’ election tracker. I smiled. Clinton was still the favorite. Most electoral maps still led to her victory. No, all of them do. How in the hell will Trump win Michigan or Pennsylvania? How? They called it the Blue Wall for a reason.

I smiled some more. There was nothing to be worried about tonight. Absolutely nothing...

I looked around. Practically the entire College Dems club was packed in this bars. Maybe a few independents or Republicans too, who knows. I counted the heads. There was Jake and Emily, the other two DemCon goers, sitting next to each other at the table in front of us. There was Brandon Steinberg, our vice president, who at usual had his heavy gaming laptop with him. Because of this, he sat all the way in the back where he wouldn’t disturb anyone with his obnoxious equipment. There was Hailey Koner, our treasurer, sitting with Brandon, along with Erin Schneiderman, our secretary. Both of them sat right under the other TV, which also had election night coverage, but by CNN.

I looked back at Melissa and Amber. I kept smiling, though now it was more of a fake grin than a genuine smile. But that didn’t mean I was sad or worried. Tonight was an exciting night, and when you’re excited time moves fast. I picked up my phone and checked the time.