Alessandro van den Brink | The next step

Small Talk | Trump won, but life goes on

By Alessandro van den Brink 11/09/16 2:46am

America is not doomed. But man, should we be embarrassed.

Donald Trump has run a campaign fueled by hatred, bluster, ignorance and a complete lack of morality. He has no grasp of policy, no restraint when people argue against him and has alienated almost every reasonable voice in politics at the moment. There is no reason that this man should be anywhere near the White House.

When describing the election, Bill Maher phrased it perfectly: This is a referendum on decency. And guess what? Decency lost.

Hillary Clinton was inherently a flawed candidate and ultimately, it looks as though she did not do enough to convince America that she was the right choice for president. At the time of writing this, I do not know whether Clinton has won the popular vote, but it increasingly looks as though the majority of American voters selected Trump.

Either way, democracy will survive. The stock market will take a dip at first, but then likely quickly stabilize. We will not get a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis, and we almost certainly won’t enter an inexplicable war.

However, Republicans now have a majority in the House and Senate and have quite probably won the presidency. There won’t be checks on the legislation they enact, meaning that millions of citizens will most likely lose their access to healthcare as provided through the Affordable Care Act, the national debt could rise by 5 trillion dollars over Trump’s presidency and there will almost certainly not be a single piece of legislation addressing climate change and the environment.

While Trump won’t be a legislator — since this is not a part of the president’s job description — he could be able to pass most of what he wants. This won’t destroy the country, and it’s quite possible that America actually improves economically in the very near future, but the direction of this country does not appear to be paved in optimism.

It’s easy to give up on America and just throw in the towel. I don’t feel proud to be an American right now, but this is the direction that America has chosen and we must live with it. Life goes on and the only thing we can do at this point is try to bring about positive change in America.

At the end of the day, this country is defined by its people, not its president. Don’t let anyone tell you that this is Trump’s America. I still have faith that the majority of the people in this country are good-hearted people who reject bigotry and care for each other.

But I’d be lying if I said my confidence hasn’t been shaken.

Maybe I’m wrong about America; maybe I don’t know the country I live in. It’s entirely possible. I — and probably most Penn students — have only lived in liberal hubs in the northeast, practically isolated from America’s heartland.

To everyone who voted for Clinton or another candidate: your voice was still heard. Don’t give up rejecting hatred in favor of positive change and don’t feel as though this is the end of the world. We don’t know what the next four years will bring, but if we really try, we can do more for America than Donald Trump ever will.

ALESSANDRO VAN DEN BRINK is a College junior studying economics, from New York. His email address is alevan@sas.upenn.edu. “Small Talk” usually appears every other Wednesday.