As election night wore on into the early hours of the morning, hope turned to disbelief, which then turned to fear. Small pockets of students lingered in Franklin Hall well after Tuesday, Nov. 8, had turned into the first Wednesday of the next four years.
The last students who remained had stayed all night, listened to Media School panels and watched on the oversized screen as Donald Trump claimed more and more states on the results maps. Some expressed their emotions with tears. Others spoke out in anger against the results.
“I was hopefully going to see the first woman elected president of the United States,” junior Maggie Wolfe said. “Unfortunately, I am not. I am seeing an orange monster be elected. I was drawn here because I wanted to see history being made, but now I am seeing history going the opposite direction as I thought.”
Wolfe and junior Jess Magill said they originally planned to spend the evening off campus but found themselves still in Franklin Hall past 1:30 a.m. because they could not tear themselves away from the election.
[Hillary Clinton delivers concession speech hours after Trump accepts presidency | IDS]
The longer they stayed, the angrier the two, especially Magill, became.
Magill was born in Asia but was adopted and raised in an American household. Magill said she comes from a politically split household, but the arguments over Bernie Sanders and Clinton, not Trump and Clinton, still reflected her liberal upbringing.
Vocal about her dislike of Trump, she said she couldn’t support anyone who made the decision to vote for a third party candidate or, even worse, not vote at all.
“This does not come down to parties, it does not come down to economics,” Magill said. “This comes down to what you believe in, and if you believe that a monster deserves to take away women’s rights, minorities’ rights, then it’s disgusting. Our country has honestly failed.”
Wolfe said she was especially appalled by the actions of Republican leaders, like Paul Ryan, who favored party lines enough to choose Trump instead of their own beliefs.
“If anybody who was outwardly racist, misogynistic, xenophobic as Donald Trump was running as a Democrat, I would not vote for them,” Wolfe said.
Even after Barack Obama became president, graduate student Jacques Rozier said he knew how the U.S. felt about him, as a black man. In a country led by Trump, he said he believes people will feel even more empowered to make hateful comments.
“I’m scared for myself. I’m scared for my friends,” Rozier said. “You know, not just other blacks, but my gay friends, my lesbian friends, my Hispanic friends, my Muslim friends, my Hindu friends. I’m scared for us all.”
Indian-American sophomore Sheila Raghavendran said she feels unsafe as a racial minority under a Trump presidency.
She is also worried about what this might mean for the LGBT community and the freedoms, like equal marriage, it has gained under the Obama administration.
“I think in the past eight years our country has seen a lot of progress, and to rewind that would be a mistake and would be scary for a lot of people, so I fear that,” Raghavendran said.
Despite the implications this election could have for the country, senior Amanda Marino said she isn’t scared of Trump. She said she is holding strong to the freedom of expression she can now use to speak out against the country’s decision.
She said she knows the other half of voters chose not to elect the businessman. It gives her hope to rise above the electoral decision.
“That’s not my America. That’s not something I can get behind, but I will continue to support America because that’s not all of us,” Marino said. “If it’s this close, there are enough people that can agree with me that this is not who we are.”
It may be a while until they know what comes next, but for now, the crowd that was gathered in Franklin Hall has nothing left to do but wait and see what happens after Trump takes his oath of office.
“He may end up being one of the best presidents we have, we don’t know,” Rozier said. “But I do know that he empowers hate and fear in this country, and that alone should make anyone scared.”
