I hate to be yet another person adding to the noisy rhetoric about Donald Trump winning the election, but I feel like I would be shirking my duties as a journalist if I let this opportunity go.
On the night that Donald Trump announced that he was running for President of the United States, we all laughed. There was no way an inexperienced businessman that was most famous for calling women ugly (just one of his many offenses against people) would get the Republican nomination.
But he managed to defeat 16 contenders and earned that nomination. We all still laughed it off, giggling at the idea that a reality star could become president of the most powerful country in the world.
Election night came, and we all still scoffed at the idea that Trump could win. He was going to lose, badly, and history was going to be made with a woman at the helm of the United States of America. Just imagine my disappointment as the night wore on and we all gaped at our television screens as Trump’s electoral votes rose and hearts broke across the nation.
Right before I drifted off to sleep, I heard the cries of young men raucously screaming in the Southwest Residential Area, “Trump 2016! He won, and there’s nothing you can do about it!” I felt chills running through my body. Something in the air had changed. I suddenly felt unsafe in my own bed, as if these young men were going to burst into my room and scream in my ear.
The next day, I woke up and opened my curtains to the gloomiest day of the year. Walking around campus, I heard snippets of conversation about the election, some of them disheartening:
“He can’t reverse marriage equality…he just can’t…”
“I just can’t believe this. What woman would actually vote for him?”
“Riots are going to break out. We can’t just accept this.”
I kept my head down and raised the volume on my music, trying not to think too much. Protestors marched in front of Goodell Hall, chanting obscenities about Trump. Two girls stood in front of the Integrative Learning Center, silently and stoically holding a poster that simply stated, “Love Trumps Hate.” I felt chills run through me again. It began to rain and I thought, “How fitting.”
I finally managed to pinpoint the source of my anxiety and the chills as I heard more people express their fears about a Trumpian America. I realized that we were all so unsure of ourselves and of where we stood.
I pondered my own situation. I am an American citizen, but being half-Lebanese and half-Ethiopian and the daughter of immigrants, I am particularly offended by the Trump ideology. One of my friends living abroad called me and said, “How does it feel that your president has been hateful towards both halves of your identity?” He laughed, but I felt my stomach drop.
Would I be screened every time I wished to return to the States from Lebanon? Was I now officially labeled a threat to the American people? I, a person who loves the United States as a second home, couldn’t fathom the idea that I was now an outsider looking in on a place that, according to my future president, I technically don’t deserve to call home.
In one day with Trump as president-elect, I felt more unsafe than I had when I was living in war-torn Lebanon in 2006, as the Israeli army ravaged my country. And still people wonder, “Why is everyone freaking out so bad? It’s not a big deal.”
Ruwan Teodros is a Collegian columnist and can be reached at [email protected].
David Hunt 1990 • Nov 18, 2016 at 3:46 pm
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton walk in to a bar. Donald leans over, and with a smile on his face, says;
“The media is really tearing you apart for that Scandal.”
Hillary: “You mean my lying about Benghazi?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “You mean the massive voter fraud?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “You mean the military not getting their votes counted?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “Using my secret private server with classified material to Hide my Activities?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “The NSA monitoring our phone calls, emails and everything Else?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “Using the Clinton Foundation as a cover for tax evasion, Hiring Cronies, And taking bribes from foreign countries?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “You mean the drones being operated in our own country without The Benefit of the law?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “Giving 123 Technologies $300 Million, and right afterward it Declared Bankruptcy and was sold to the Chinese?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “You mean arming the Muslim Brotherhood and hiring them in the White House?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “Whitewater, Watergate committee, Vince Foster, commodity Deals?”
Trump: “No the other one:”
Hillary: “Turning Libya into chaos?”
Trump: “No the other one:”
Hillary: “Being the mastermind of the so-called “Arab Spring” that only brought chaos, death and destruction to the Middle East and North Africa?”
Trump: “No the other one:”
Hillary: “Leaving four Americans to die in Benghazi?”
Trump: “No the other one:”
Hillary: “Trashing Mubarak, one of our few Muslim friends?”
Trump: “No the other one:”
Hillary: “The funding and arming of terrorists in Syria, the destruction and destabilization of that nation, giving the order to our lapdogs in Turkey and Saudi Arabia to give sarin gas to the “moderate” terrorists in Syria that they eventually used on civilians, and framed Assad, and had it not been for the Russians and Putin, we would have used that as a pretext to invade Syria, put a puppet in power, steal their natural resources, and leave that country in total chaos, just like we did with Libya?
Trump: “No the other one:”
Hillary: “The creation of the biggest refugees crisis since WWII?”
Trump: “No the other one:”
Hillary: “Leaving Iraq in chaos? ”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “The DOJ spying on the press?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “You mean HHS Secretary Sibelius shaking down health insurance Executives?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “Giving our cronies in SOLYNDRA $500 MILLION DOLLARS and 3 Months Later they declared bankruptcy and then the Chinese bought it?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “The NSA monitoring citizens’ ?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “The State Department interfering with an Inspector General Investigation on departmental sexual misconduct?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “Me, The IRS, Clapper and Holder all lying to Congress?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “Threats to all of Bill’s former mistresses to keep them quiet?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “You mean the INSIDER TRADING of the Tyson chicken deal I did where I invested $1,000 and the next year I got $100,000?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “You mean when Bill met with Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, just before my hearing with the FBI to cut a deal?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “ You mean the one where my IT guy at Platte River Networks asked Reddit for help to alter emails?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “You mean where the former Haitian Senate President accused me and my foundation of asking him for bribes?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “You mean that old video of me laughing as I explain how I got the charges against that child rapist dropped by blaming the young girl for liking older men and fantasizing about them. Even though I knew the guy was guilty?
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “You mean that video of me coughing up a giant green lunger into my drinking glass then drinking it back down?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “You mean that video of me passing out on the curb and losing my shoe?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “You mean when I robbed Bernie Sanders of the Democratic Party Nomination by having the DNC rig the nomination process so that I would win?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “You mean how so many people that oppose me have died in mysterious was?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “Travel Gate? When seven employees of the White House Travel Office were fired so that friends of Bill and mine could take over the travel business? And when I lied under oath during the investigation by the FBI, the Department of Justice, the White House itself, the General Accounting Office, the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, and the Whitewater Independent Counsel?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “The scandal where, (while I was Secretary if State), the State Department signed off on a deal to sell 20% of the USA’s uranium to a Canadian corporation that the Russians bought, netting a $145 million donation from Russia to the Clinton Foundation and a $500,000 speaking gig for Bill from the Russian Investment Bank that set up the corporate buyout?. That scandal?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “That time I lied when I said I was under sniper fire when I got off the plane in Bosnia?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “That time when after I became the First Lady, I improperly requested a bunch of FBI files so I could look for blackmail material on government insiders?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “That time when Bill nominated Zoe Baird as Attorney General, even though we knew she hired illegal immigrants and didn’t pay payroll taxes on them?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “When I got Nigeria exempted from foreign aid transparency guidelines despite evidence of corruption because they gave Bill a $700,000 in speaking fees?”
Trump” “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “That time in 2009 when Honduran military forces allied with rightist lawmakers ousted democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya, and I as then-Secretary of State sided with the armed forces and fought global pressure to reinstate him?”
Trump: “No, the other one.”
Hillary: “I give up! … Oh wait, I think I’ve got it! When I stole the White House furniture, silverware, when Bill left Office?”
Trump: “THAT’S IT! I almost forgot about that one”.
David Hunt 1990 • Nov 18, 2016 at 3:13 pm
Oh yes, May, one other thing…. “Corrupt”? Look that word up in the dictionary… odds are the Clintons are there as the quintessential example. You think a woman who went from dead broke to over $200 million in the bank make that kind of coin by producing something valuable? So… what is it?
Here’s a black man’s video capturing, exactly, my feelings about you anti-Trump people:
BLACK Donald Trump supporter apology for WIN!!!! SOOO SORRY! From Henry Davis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNbF9PI9Gjo
David Hunt 1990 • Nov 18, 2016 at 11:32 am
Ah yes, May… what a way to convince someone you are correct – call names.
As to education, I suspect you really mean “re-education”, eh, Comrade?
May • Nov 17, 2016 at 3:43 pm
Kimberly, Jason, Tom, Rod, you are all a very sad lot, in need of much education. We will see in four years where you will be with your enlightened choice of an idiotic, bigoted, corrupt, rich businessman, who really couldn’t care less about you and your sad lives. If you think you are going better off, dream on. You are all delusional, and I pity you.
In any case, see you in four years!
b • Nov 17, 2016 at 3:05 pm
“war-torn Lebanon in 2006, as the Israeli army ravaged my country”
You know everyone reading this can go on to Wikipedia and read about Hezbollah, right? What a poor victim you and your country were. Those dang Jews.
David Hunt 1990 • Nov 17, 2016 at 2:58 pm
So…. Trump is going to recreate slavery, execute gays, and relegate women to second-class citizens?
When did he convert to Islam?
annewisan • Nov 17, 2016 at 2:36 pm
Well what if the author is a threat? Why should he not be screened for security risks? Just because he is Lebanese and travels alot, he deserves a special exemption?
All americans regardless for risks for example at airports are screened for security concerns. I don’t think being a foreigner gives you a special exemption from being treated the way all other americans are.
Rod Patrick • Nov 17, 2016 at 9:55 am
One thing for you: Pentagon and CIA people were the same, yesterday … today … and most likely in the near future.
Establishment politicians like Bushes, Clintons, Kennedys, etc. are just taking cues from the intelligence info given by the said Fed agencies.
The safest President elected for America is Donald Trump. He’s a businessman: He means business and growth … rather than dispute and war.
Multinational businessmen are more informed than the bunch of politicians from both sides.
So stop your whining and study. And stop your bigoted take of history in favor of the globalists..
Tom • Nov 17, 2016 at 9:31 am
Time to buck up, Snowflake. Stop worrying about your feelings and start concentrating on the STEM classes you’re going to need in the real world. College is supposed to be a place to learn and it’s important to learn that things don’t always go your way.
jason w • Nov 17, 2016 at 9:21 am
“I hate to be yet another person adding to the noisy rhetoric about Donald Trump winning the election …. “but I’m still going to bore you with my worthless socialist opinion nonetheless.
I didn’t need to read any farther than this.
Kimberly • Nov 17, 2016 at 9:13 am
My gosh, you need a great deal more work and education on writing skills. It is very sad to see what drivel college students produce today. You are blowing in the wind. If you feel unsafe because others exercised the right of voting, than find somewhere else you will feel safe. Check out Venezuela. I am really tired of the immigrant community (my husband is an immigrant and I have lived in the Middle East), that thinks they are the “chosen ones” and those whose families built this country with hard work, sacrifices and blood should bow down to your demands. You are the exact reason there is a new direction coming! Thanks.
Dr. p.r. raghavan • Nov 17, 2016 at 9:13 am
I am colored and a US citizen and the writer has to understand that the same thing was said about Reagan
and everybody was ok then . Why should it be different now. The writer was brain washed by the media to expect Hillary to win. He should use his head after all he is paying a lot. Buddha said ” if you want to be a wise person question the answers”. This si something he never did and assumed the result was set in stone. It is his fault to have not used his brain It is time to own up and accept the result and learn from his mistake.