When Donald Trump started to win a majority of the electoral votes only two hours into the night of the election, I was nervous. As the wins began to pile in, it became apparent that Hillary Clinton needed to win all of the five or six remaining states to pull off a tight victory. But it was not meant to be. By 9:00 PM, my French class had ended for the night and everyone was shell shocked. Within 24 hours, the world had responded. Social media was a firestorm where nasty political discussions degenerated into people publicly denouncing their own friends online. News piled in about attacks on minorities and anti-Trump protests mobilized a mere hours after he'd officially won. This only further solidified right wing skeptics, with many using the liberal outcry as an excuse to further distance themselves. In other words, all of the differences people had on a political level suddenly ballooned into borderline hateful arguments.
It's easy for one to dismiss his followers as gullible hate-mongers, but there's more to it than that. Many of the people he reached are well-meaning, good citizens who simply feel marginalized by a mainstream culture that alienated them with the cultural changes that came with Obama's presidency. When Obama won in 2008, there was much rejoicing but also a significant amount of backlash. The far-right didn't take it to the streets as the left is doing now. They let it brew, voicing their frustrations at political correctness at every turn and doing everything in their power to oppose the president out of sheer resentment. Their intentions and ideals may be misguided, but their feelings are as real as the rest of us.
Trump did not create this, he merely took advantage and exploited it. He gave fuel to this disenfranchised portion of Americans and made them feel passionate about reclaiming what is rightfully theirs. He gave the simplest solutions to the most complicated issues facing the world today, regardless of whether or not his solutions were even logical. It didn't matter in the end, because he set fire to the underdogs. While the specific messages and overall tone of the campaign is the diametric opposite of Obama's more unified theme of change after eight years of George W. Bush, the dynamic between the two campaigns feels extremely similar. They both worked because they successfully capitalized on the voice of the most passionate, and generally the underdog's voice rings more passionate than that of the establishment.
Why would any of this make a mostly liberal independent optimistic? I'm not at all optimistic about the policies Trump has detailed or the normalization of negativity he will instill from his position. They're irrelevant, as he's begun to renege on many of his more outlandish campaign promises, as I'd expected. I'm optimistic because a more positive message of unity now has a chance to prevail in response to the establishment, similar to the way negative concepts propelled him to win.
When I first started seeing footage of protests, my first reaction was one of apathy. I've seen a similar (though not as impressive) outcry directed at George W. Bush and we endured eight years of him. The movements to Occupy Wall Street similarly resulted in very little policy change, and Wall Street remains just as corrupt today as it did then. I thought protestors were simply wasting their energy and were going to feel disappointed when absolutely nothing happened as a result of their demonstration.
I was completely missing the point. What have we learned from Trump's rise to prominence in the first place? While I completely disagree with his messages, I think we can all agree that he was right about corruption in Washington. He beat the odds, a broken political system and won not due to his political connections, but the support of everyday citizens, even if he earned their trust with nefarious methods. If anything, Trump showed us that power does indeed lie within the people.
Ultimately, I don't view the battle as liberal vs. conservative or right vs. left. The fact that the strife between the two schools of thought has reached such a peak is the real issue. No positive changes can be made when our national identity is so fractured. The idea of having political parties is not to contest which will reign supreme. Parties are formed to offer multiple perspectives, all of which should contribute ideas in a healthy debate. They exist to work together. Unfortunately, we've reached a peak in American history where political debates are merely a facade, an excuse for people to lash out at each other for no good reason. Indeed, I've noticed when my friends engage in "debates" on social media, discussions degenerate into petty insults very quickly.
How can we even pretend to be a liberal or conservative with the country's ideals in mind when we're all equally contributing to this poisonous division? I'm constantly surprised at how people from all ends of the spectrum from common citizens to the politicians themselves seem to forget a very important yet fundamental fact about this country. We're all in this together; liberal, conservative, moderate, etc. We're spending all of our time blaming the other team for what's wrong with this country, but we need each other, whether we like it or not.
I believe this division has only so far left to go before the trend starts to buckle and reverse itself. Despite what the more radical thinkers say, we are not going to engage in a secession or a civil war. It's a fun idea, but this isn't the nineteenth century. As upset as people are, we're more ingrained within each other than we'd like to admit. There will certainly be shocking unrest and violence, but no one has the resources or power to organize half the country against the other half. It's a logistical impossibility.
Social trends come and go in this volatile time. We wear out ideals as quickly as memes these days. Although I'm perplexed at how stubborn people can be in the political arena, I'm confident that we will eventually stop questioning each other and turn that inquisition inward. Eventually, we'll be forced to question ourselves; what are we doing and why? Mulling over the same tired arguments with people of the staunchly opposing view will not prevail and make our lives better. Eventually, we're going to have to try something new.
While I do fear the changes Donald Trump brings with him through policy and cultural influence, I know that it's simply an Empire Strikes Back dynamic at play. The tide will turn again in due time, thanks to the people. Unless he miraculously changes the country and our lives for the better, he will become the target of our collective frustration, not unlike Obama. People will be ready to try something new. Let's just hope we don't lose too much before then.
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