Pain and fear, but maybe hope

I want to say some very crude, very harsh words right now, but I'll refrain.

Watching Hillary Clinton lose two days ago now was dumbfounding and painful in a way that I don't think any other election has ever been. The polls said she had a high chance of winning. Everyone thought she was going to win, even conservatives. I thought that democrats would turn out in droves to vote against Trump.

And then they didn't.

In moments of bitterness I blame people being misogynist, for hating Hillary Clinton, whose biggest flaw looks to me like ambition. The people who buy the arguments about Benghazi and emails are looking for a reason to disqualify her. There's this visceral hatred of Hillary Clinton that I simply can't explain (though I remember thinking long ago that was a good reason to steer clear of her). I hope that hatred of her doesn't extend to all ambitious women. I'm not sure we'll get another chance to see for many decades, though.

In less bitter moments I can admit that Hillary, for all her experience, didn't offer much of a vision to the American people. She stood for the status quo, and while I thought preserving things like Obamacare and climate change accords would at least inspire people a little bit, it apparently didn't. She didn't actually stand for greater equality for POC (perhaps trying to not alienate the white people who didn't trust her anyway), so while they voted for her, their turnout wasn't as high as it was four years ago for Barak Obama. Republicans take some blame/credit for that as well as they did everything in their power to restrict voting for minorities and young people.

They know how to play to win.

Trump is at least being gracious in his win, which I didn't expect. I hope that he will actually govern the country for everyone in it and not just republicans. I hope the Real Donald Trump is more pragmatic and less bigoted than the one I've listened to for the last year. I hope my nation survives.