Americans gathered at a function to view the results last night in Samoa.
It’s a sad day in our household this morning, and I am not even American. My husband, who is from California, had no doubt in his mind that Clinton would win this, that his country knew better, that what is right would prevail.
We were at an event hosted by the U.S. Embassy in Apia to watch the elections live on CNN when we started seeing the impossible happening. At first my husband was in a cheerful mood, still remaining positive that America would vote in their first woman president. As the hours wore on and Trump numbers kept climbing, it slowly dawned on him that this was it: Trump was going to be president.
This morning as our household awoke in a country far away from the polling stations in the U.S., we could not help but feel saddened by the realization that the candidate who won was not the one we hoped for, but more importantly that his decisions will have such a profound impact on the lives of our two children, that it was hard not to worry.
As we prepared the children for the day we both started listing off the things that will affect them. “Planned Parenthood, he wants to make abortion illegal. Our daughter will not be given the right to make decisions about her own body,” my husband said about our 3-year-old.
I was concerned about climate change denial and possible decrease in U.S. assistance to the Pacific.
I was concerned because next week we are training the media on how to better report on human rights violations as part of a grant by the U.S. Embassy ― we don’t know if programs like these and many more would be affected because of the change in leadership.
My husband was conscientious about his vote, and so as many of his peers. He voted for a woman. He voted for the best candidate and for the policies she would implement. But he, like millions who voted for Clinton, were not successful and will for years suffer the repercussions of this election.
Is this the degree of America’s obsession with fame, money and wealth? That they would pick the candidate who flaunts it in more ways than none?
Social media is littered with people calling Americans stupid, ignorant, racist, sexist and many other unsightly names, yet many fail to see that millions of other Americans are not, that people like my husband, most of his family and friends did not want the result that came out last night and worked actively to prevent it.