Nov

11

Final Thoughts on the Election

category icon Posted in General

 

Over the past week, I had put together a post on Election Day that was supposed to chronicle the before, during, and after of an election on campus. However, the after was not what I expected. I thought that there would be violence and hatred surrounding me on the morning after the election, but I also thought there would be a lot of celebration. Instead I got silence. I stayed up until two in the morning with my friends watching the election coverage, and by the end of the night we were all drained. It somehow felt insensitive to bring up the whole process. My floor was eerily quiet on the morning after, and when my rhetoric professor asked us how we were all doing this morning, there was a long pause before someone muttered that she was fine. This was kind of how the rest of the day went. A lot of hugging, a lot of “you are still loved” signs, but virtually no celebrating.
It’s pretty obvious that the University of Iowa is a liberal campus. Sure, it’s Iowa, so there are still a fair amount of conservatives, but just about every big public university in this country leans Democrat, which is why you’ll see random spots of blue on the electoral map in predominantly red states. If Clinton had won, there probably would have been a much different reaction on campus. A lot of volunteers gave everything they had into getting her elected, and right now they may feel like it was all for nothing. But this school has solidarity for those who need it. There was a gathering at the Pentacrest yesterday where people came together to remind each other that they have allies among one another. It might just be that I live in a bubble, but somehow I feel that things haven’t turned to ugliness so far. While my Facebook page has been littered with angry rants on both sides, what I see on campus is far removed from it.

I want to get on with my life. I want everyone to get on with their lives. And eventually, we will. I just hope that we don’t confuse moving forward with forgetting. When I started looking at colleges a couple years ago, I really wanted to go to a school with a mix of opinions, but not a school that was apathetic. The problem is that I can’t say if my school is either because this election was so unprecedented. All I can hope is that we use this as a chance to learn more about the political process, the issues, and the rhetoric that is used when we talk about
those issues. As I finish this post, it’s been three days since election night, and things have already gone back to normal. And, in time, maybe I’ll be able to tell you what it really looks like when Iowa participates in the political process, not just every four years but every day as well.

-Mina

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