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| (ABC Screenshot Source: Jeff Dodge) |
That's the only way I can describe how I felt the night of November 8, 2016, because I literally didn't feel any emotion on Election Night, only a deep emptiness. I wasn't angry or sad or disappointed. Just empty.
It wasn't until the next day that a sadness started creeping in and a heavy heart got heavier. And it wasn't until sometime during Hillary's concession speech Wednesday morning that I started getting a little emotional.
I woke up the day after the election realizing that, yes, this had really just happened. Hillary Clinton, the most qualified candidate and someone who has gone farther than any other woman in presidential politics, had lost. And Donald Trump, the least qualified candidate with no previous political or military experience--not to mention a racist, sexist, xenophobic bigot--had won. We knew it was going to be hard to keep the same party in the White House for a third term; that doesn't make the results any easier to swallow, though.
Over the next couple days, I didn't have a lot of energy. I wasn't able to genuinely smile or laugh, except for something my great-aunt said to me over the phone. I even said to someone on Wednesday, "The past 12 hours have felt like living in an alternate universe."
It wasn't until Friday that things started to improve and some of my energy returned, but just barely. Aside from watching This Week with George Stephanopoulos (which I watch every Sunday without fail), I decided to have a politics-free weekend, where I stayed off social media and stayed away from the news. That heaviness I was feeling did dissipate a lot, and I finally felt like I was getting back to normal--or as normal as I can be under the circumstances.
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People process these things differently. Some were furious over the results. Understandable. Some felt a deep sadness. I can relate. And others were immediately ready to put this behind us and start looking to 2020. As a political news junkie, I'm very intrigued to see which Democrats run next time, but on that last point, I can't bring myself to get over this election yet--and I don't think I will for a long time.
It's not just that Donald Trump won. There's of course a lot of fear and uncertainty involved in that. But it's that Hillary Clinton lost. I am one of her diehard supporters. To me and millions around the country and the world, she wasn't just another politician. She was a truly remarkable leader who has spent her whole life fighting for us (breaking down barriers and making history along the way), and she would have been our first female president.
Some people went, well, we'll see that happen in our lifetime, most likely soon, just not right now. Sure, that's true. I will see that "highest, hardest glass ceiling" shattered in my lifetime--and I'll be excited and proud when that day comes. But, again, to me and millions of others, there was only one person who should have been the first female president--and that's Hillary Clinton.
All of this adds up to a disappointment that, like I said, will take a while to get over, if ever.
I waited a week to write this because of the way I was feeling in those first few days. I wanted to wait until I could properly express my thoughts with a level head. So before I end this, I want to also mention a couple other related topics.
Was Hillary Clinton the right person for the Democrats to nominate? She surely was. I will never budge from that position. I've heard some Bernie Sanders supporters go, you know, Bernie would have won this. To that, I say--no! When you look at why Trump won and why Hillary lost, it's clear that Bernie would have lost as well. The polls were wrong because a lot of Trump supporters didn't want to publicly reveal their support. Then you have lower turnout from African American voters, to bring up just one example. Considering Bernie's demographic is white people (he comes from a very white state and minority voters rejected him in the primaries), his non-white turnout if he was the nominee would have been much worse than Hillary's.
Let's face it: Bernie got easy treatment during the primaries. The media never vetted him, so he didn't have to face any sort of scrutiny over things that he should have been criticized for. And you can bet Hillary's campaign had a lot of opposition research on him, but they didn't use it. Something else you can bet? That Trump's campaign would most definitely have used that oppo. Skeletons would have come out. Us Hillary supporters already knew about some of them.
[More: Why I Proudly Support Hillary Clinton for President]
Then there's the very real possibility of Michael Bloomberg getting in the race as an independent candidate. Bloomberg said that if Bernie was the nominee, he would seriously consider running. That would have pulled a lot of Democratic votes away from Bernie.
But the primaries are behind us. In fact, this whole election is behind us, and now we have to live with the consequences. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, which means she's the people's president, the candidate who a majority of voters chose. Donald Trump won the Electoral College. So he did not win outright. Most people are not happy with this outcome.
Despite that split, Republicans now control the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Elections come and go. But that control that the GOP has right now, and what they do with it, will reverberate for years, even generations, to come--especially when it comes to the Supreme Court.
I'm not someone who's saying, "He's not my president," because that's a lie. (#NotMyPresident was trending on Twitter on Election Night.) I may not have voted for him, but he won and he will be my president. That doesn't mean I have to go along with everything he does, and we should certainly not forget the racist and sexist remarks he made throughout the election. Trust and respect have to be earned.
Like I said, it will take a while for me to fully process the results and to be able to move on from the fact that the political figure who has inspired me more than anyone else, Hillary Clinton, will not be president. As Hillary said in her concession speech, "This is painful, and it will be for a long time." But I'll leave with this: we've been knocked down, but we haven't been knocked out.
Follow Me on Twitter: @HillaryIn2016 & @TheJeffDodge
Follow Me on Instagram: @HillaryIn2016 & @TheJeffDodge
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