Overwhelming News

Remembering the election of Barack Obama in 2008 that I watched enfold from Europe, it was an exceptionally interesting experience to have both the perspective “from the outside“ – facilitated by the media (view that anyone outside of the US could experience) and the “insider’s view” of a person actually living in the country. Furthermore, it was interesting to be in New Hampshire during this time, a state with a unique role in the elections by the virtue of being the first one in the primaries and a swing state at the same time.

I will abstain from commenting on the reasons for or desirability of the outcome itself, though I will note a few of my personal observations: this election was surprising in many respects. It showed, above all, a large ideological divide between different social strata, be it with respect to gender, age, ethnicity, or place of origin (urban vs. rural, North vs. South, immigrants vs. naturally born citizens). Most of my friends and classmates were supporting Secretary Clinton, and that also seemed to be the consensus in the media. Moreover, absolute majority of all predictions more or less favored Mrs. Clinton to be elected. All the more surprising was the actual outcome of the election for everyone, regardless of whom they’d supported.

The next day at school and elsewhere looked like exactly what I understand as a meaning of the word “aftermath.” People were hardly talking about anything else. Some of my classmates cried throughout the day. Everyone was trying to figure out what had just happened and what it meant. Most of my friends do not personally know any supporters of now President-elect Trump, and so based on the portrayals in the media, the ideas discussed and the policies proposed, they imagine these people to be mostly terrible racists, xenophobes, and whatnot. Although I do not personally count myself as a part of that group, I do personally know a few Trump supporters myself and in fact, they are perfectly nice people who, instead, rather value national security, importance of infrastructure, and most of all, are tired of corruptness (if not corruption) of the current political establishment in the US, which includes both reigning parties.

Regardless of whether these concerns are more, or less valid than some others, the unexpectedness of the election outcome despite the tendencies in the popular culture seems to underscore the fact that this part of the population had not been attended to as much as they maybe should have been: Donald Trump’s message for the “silent majority” seems to have found fertile ground, after all. In other words, many people seem to have felt “left out” and so in order to understand their values and motivations, I think that more than anything else, we now need to learn to communicate with each other again, in order to let everyone participate in the American democracy.

Such is my personal insight on this issue. I will write a more usual piece about my own experiences in the second year of medical school next time.