How Did We Feel About the Election Cycle?
Scary. Tumultuous. Embarrassing.
When random students and Facebook friends were polled about their feelings about this election (pre-results) condensed into one word , these are a fraction of the words that came up.
Joke. Lie. Angry.
Words like disappointing, stressful, f**ked, and nightmare were repeated over and over.
When asked for one sentence to describe this election, responses were varied.
“The nation’s dignity is at stake;” “It shows how split people are in their thinking;” “It’s revealed a lot about the current state of America;” “It’s going to affect a lot of people regardless of who wins;” “This election is just terrifying;” “It’s my first time voting in a Presidential Election and instead of voting for the candidate I wanted, I’m forced to pick the lesser of two evils;” “It doesn’t matter who wins, we’re probably not even gonna notice a difference in the country with either candidate.”
Polarizing. Important. Confusing.
But there was a central theme to these responses: this election has caused people to feel.
What they feel is a matter of its own debate, but common feelings include anger, disgust, fear, anxiety, and joy. It’s not difficult to discern which camps feel which emotions.
Nightmare. Terrifying. Angry.
It seems that some of these feelings have boiled over, evidenced in the dozens of protests occurring in many major cities throughout the country -Los Angeles, Oakland, New York City, Washington D.C., Austin, etc. People are evidently not pleased with this election’s results.
And why should they be? Regardless of the president-elect, one side was to be left feeling slighted; one side was not going to win.
The feelings people were feeling up to the election itself were strong no matter which side you asked.
It seemed that each side had a lot riding on this election, and now we are left wondering what comes next.
So that’s the question that must be asked now, despite all the feelings, all the joy, anger, disgust, dispassion, we must ask:
What comes next?