I was told this election was a coin toss. So much for that idea.
Donald Trump won in a landslide, capping off the most iconic presidential candidacy I have ever seen and likely will ever see.
We experienced three near assassinations, a garbageman and fryer appearance, a Kennedy endorsing a Republican for the first time ever, and Trump taking every insult hurled at him and turning it on its head.
I couldn’t imagine a better way to cap this thing off.
Trump made an appearance as soon as he knew that he would win the presidency. His speech was one of unity and joy.
“I am asking every citizen across our land to join me,” Trump said. “It’s time to put the divisions of the past four years behind us. Success is going to bring us together. We have to put our country first.”
And where was Kamala? She was at home, instead of going to greet the voters stationed at her headquarters, an extremely confusing and questionable move, a move that was made very early into the night. I can’t blame her though. I have no idea what I would say to my supporters if the polls were so sharply in favor of my political adversary. However, her supporters deserved better. They deserved an appearance last night, not this morning when the race was officially over. The time for her speech is still unknown.
Her entire candidacy has been called into question at this point, namely her decision to choose Tim Walz as her vice president, and namely the Democrats’ decision to choose Kamala as their chosen one. The Democrats were able to hand pick the candidate they wanted to run against Trump, and instead of creating the opportunity to compete for the nomination, they simply chose to hand it to Harris. As the polls show, that backfired immensely.
Minnesota was still not declared to be a Harris win long after Midnight. How was she supposed to have success if her vice president had trouble securing her a victory in his own state?
And that’s not even the craziest part of this whole thing.
Trump will win the popular vote. I have been told that the Electoral College needs to be abolished because it presents an unfair advantage to Republicans. I guess that doesn’t matter if Trump secures a popular vote victory, which he failed to do in 2016.
How does all of this affect Millikin? Taking one quick look on Yik Yak has provided an extremely clear view of what students are thinking.
“What will we wear tomorrow? This will be my first civil war,” one post said.
“Supporting Donald Trump in the year 2024 is flat out embarrassing,” another post read. “I’m sick of pretending people have valid viewpoints for the sake of civility. If you listen to the words coming out of his mouth and still vote for him to run our country, you’re hopeless.”
Yikes. Not very tolerant. Not very joyful.
It doesn’t seem as if these voters will be in fact hopeless, seeing as Trump has seemingly secured the presidency.
We will see how it all unfolds. The American people have spoken, and they chose Donald Trump to be the 47th President of the United States.
