Personal reactions to the Presidential election results

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m interested in how people are doing today… mentally, emotionally… what, so far, do you feel has been the impact of the election results on your state of mind in the very short term (for good or ill)? I’m not asking for the kind of stuff that would normally go in one of the many threads devoted to the election’s content, political impact, etc., but more how are you feeling about it?

I left my neighbor’s house where we were watching the returns around midnight when it was not looking good for us Democrats. I went to bed and then woke up about 4 am and looked at my kindle. When I saw the fact of it, right there on the front page of the Washington Post, I almost threw up. Couldn’t fall back to sleep. Read a little on this board, and then finally managed to doze off.

Now, in the aftermath, looking back over this interminably long campaign with its thrills, chills, and spills, the scenes, the talk-talk-talk, and my all but living on this board…today I have no interest in reading any news at all. I don’t get regular TV any more anyway, so I got all of my campaign coverage from here, and from online publications and sites. But today: I’m exhausted, suffering from battle fatigue, worn out. No fight left, and precious little caring. That’s today. May change. But I put on classical music in the background at home and just don’t want to hear one more word of punditry, analysis, speculation, looking backwards or anything like that. Today.

I had a class this morning that I cut. Couldn’t make myself get dressed and go. Meeting a friend later for lunch at our favorite comfort spot.

The feeling I have reminds me of the years I worked for the Red Cross. You went to bed at night knowing that a hurricane was headed for the coast-- some coast, any coast. You didn’t know how bad it would be, or if at the last minute, it might change course. You went to bed not knowing if you would sleep in the next morning or get up and go to work for the next few days without a break.

Then you woke up, looked at the news, and you knew. Or else a phone call from work woke you up. You got dressed, put some coffee in a to-go cup, and drove under overcast skies to the Chapter office, not knowing exactly what you were going to find or where you would wind up. I remember that feeling so well, the grimness of it, the uncertainty. And today it feels like this to me.

What’s your day like so far?

2

Numb, mostly. It’s hard to face the fact that half your country supports racism, sexism and xenophobia.

I will get through work, have dinner and then murderize the shit out of some bandits in Borderlands tonight.

3

There was a woman in the elevator at my office who was crying (while mentioning the election), consoled by another woman. She’s taking it hard.

This article was published yesterday morning, before the election: “Half of America Is About to Get Gut-Punched.”

4

Still numb. Not concentrating much on work. Disturbed by the fact that this is the kind of country I live in. Frightened for the future. Worried about the world my kids are going to have to live in.

Just kind of in a fog.

5

Sort of relieved, now that I’m facing political realities and not just suspense.

Not how I wanted it to turn out, but at least now there’s something specific to consider.

6

Gutted.

7

Gobsmacked. How could the polls be so wrong?

I’ve had simultaneous domestic issues and a huge complex shitstorm at work to deal with. I’m not doing well, not well at all.

8

Devastated and shell-shocked. No appetite, which is very unusual for me. I just want hugs.

9

Well, I went to get what is probably my last free mammogram today. As I left the building, having been charged nothing, I reflected on the breast cancer scare I had about six years ago and how that puts me at very high risk for BC. And how the contract that provides my job will run out in four years and who knows what the hell this is going to do to the industry I work in, but it ain’t looking good. So I could find myself with no job, no way to pay for my house; therefore, no home, no insurance, no way to pay for cancer screenings or treatment. WHEN I get laid off, lose my home, and get breast cancer, so long. It’s been nice knowing all y’all.

TL;DR: People are going to start dying WHEN they get rid of ACA. Nevermind the planet. It’s going to die too.

I’m worried and terrified and really concerned about people who aren’t in as good a position as I’m in right now, but even more worried and terrified that I will not be in this position for long. I’m scared for my GLBT friends, I’m scared for my non-white friends, I’m scared for other women, I’m scared for Muslims. I hope the Trump campaign people were kidding about repealing the 19th Amendment, but I’m starting to worry that they weren’t and before I fucking know it, I won’t even have the right to vote anymore.

10

Very happy. I’m hoping this starts the series of corrective actions that reduces the size of government, and its intrusions into my life. I’m also hopeful that my personal finances will stabilize if the ACA is repealed or redone.

11

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.

12

From what I’ve read the polls sampled women and democrats at higher rates and towards the end Trump was within the margin of error. I said in earlier threads that I think there was a lot of silent Trump supporters who maybe were embarrassed to admit that they were going to vote for him. But another part of me also thinks news organizations were reporting what they wanted, instead of the actual facts. Whether you like it or not, there were some people who predicted this result and that the polls were bogus.

Me personally, I’m just relieved the election is over more than anything else so I don’t have to hear about it anymore. I don’t really get this reaction of people acting like the world is actually going to end over Trump’s election, it isn’t, in four years there will be another election, he isn’t going to start a nuclear war, these reactions are so over-the-top, the sun is going to keep rising, enjoy your lives, do something fun, turn the TV off.

13

I’m Canadian (thank bloody goodness) but I feel sick for you guys. I’m hoping that all the things that get said by the losing side every election (basically this is the end of the world as we know it) is just talk and nothing bad is actually going to happen.

I’m completely stunned at the results though. How on earth did every poll/betting site, get it so horribly wrong?

Trump was right, though. When he said he could walk down 5th ave and shoot people and he wouldn’t lose any votes, he was right. It’s very confusing. Your new president hasn’t paid taxes in 20 years and has an upcoming fraud lawsuit, your first lady worked illegally in your country. Yet the majority of your countrymen think that’s hunky dory. It’s weird.

14

Mad as hell, disgusted with at least half the country, and worried about our future under the Obergropingfuehrer. My wife is in the other room crying over Obama’s speech.

15

As a Canadian I continue to be amazed by the American inability to elect presidents that can string a coherent sentence together.

Personally, I’m always afraid of a “Fuck It!” attitude, especially when there’s next to no thinking behind it.

16

I have 4 daughters and 2 nieces. This result makes me feel like my entire country has abandoned them - not because so many voted against the female candidates, but because so many accepted a man who seems to view women as sexual objects. I feel like my daughters went to sleep in the 21st century, and woke up in the nineteenth.

I’m terrified of the health insurance implications. I’m even more afraid that science - from climate change to vaccine development - will lag even further, and my grandchildren will be faced with the fallout. I’m weary at the prospect of starting over on major civil rights issues.

I’ll be good and mad soon, but today I am sad and emotionally spent.

17

The majority of people don’t think he’s hunky dory; a thin margin of voters saw fit to elect him for their own reasons.

Last night after it was over I ventured into the Politics forum to try to understand a bit better and I stumbled on a thread where Snowboarder Bo said Trump would be elected back in March and gave his observations why.

It’s a good read (the first post), it explains a lot. It helps me understand it. (Tough to link a post in Tapatalk)

It’s not want I wanted but even Hillary wasn’t what I really wanted either.

A president isn’t a dictator and even with congressional help it’s very hard to upend an entire society. This country has endured significant changes in leadership before and I suspect we’ll make it through this too.

The focus of THIS MOMENT is usually so sharp it’s hard to imagine that there have ever been more difficult times, or that we have prospered because of or in spite of those events.

So my personal reaction is that it’s nice that it’s over, I know the result, and now I can move on. My ability to shape the course of national policies has always been effectively nil, so correspondingly my desire to react to the results are subdued.

18

The only positive is that my upset stomach may help me lose weight

Brian

19

It’s a good thing I had today off of work, or I would have called in. If I described my thoughts and feelings and subsequent mood about the election results, it would sound like I was exaggerating.

20

Depressed for a number of different reasons:

  • This is the first time I can recall feeling “embarrassed” to be an American. I felt “ashamed” when we invaded Iraq. But to acknowledge that I live in a country where SO MANY allowed themselves to be conned into voting for him is just painfully embarrassing.

  • Confusion. Republicans voting for Trump I can understand. What truly boggles me is what motivated democrats to vote for him - because there had to be “enough” out there to sway the election.

  • Anxious. I fear for when Trump is “himself” for the first time with some other world leader, and makes an ass of himself and pisses off the other leader/country.

  • Anxious for his promised repeal of Obamacare, AND his replacement plan.

  • Anxious for the changes in policy with respect to the environment and climate change.

  • Extremely sad that the ONLY hope I can hold onto is that the “partisan politics” in congress is the one thing that can delay or prevent the idiotic promises he made from becoming realities. I can’t feel bad about those promises, but I can feel sad that it is only because we have a congress that can lock proposals up in gridlock to stave off those promises.