And so we stumble dazed and confused into the light, brushing off the dirt and detritus, the dust from the fallout, as we stare into the uncertain and even frightening future of an America that has become part and parcel of the Trump brand.
At times like these you are fortunate, if, like me, you’re a public school teacher who gets to parse national tragedies with a roomful of students. I was teaching in Los Angeles after 9/11 and spent a week working through that disaster with my high school students.
Thursday I prepared a brief lesson for my middle school students in Springfield. I put the Electoral College map on the board and explained the red states were those won by Trump, the blue by Clinton. “What do you see?”
There was silence for a moment as they calculated all that scarlet framed by sapphire on the coasts or in the corners. Slowly there were a few “Wow!s”, and “Uh-ohs” and one “Holy ….” which I had to cut off with a “Don’t say that.”
Then I scrolled down to where I had pulled the popular vote totals and asked them to get out a pencil or their phone calculators and “do the math.” I let them work it for a little while and asked, “Who won?’
I got a lot of confused looks because the math showed them Clinton had won the popular vote but the Electoral College map showed the opposite.
So I changed up the question to “Who got the most votes?” Clinton was their answer, but the math only caused them further confusion.
“Welcome to America, everybody!”
And maybe I am grabbing at any straw to keep away despair, but this election was a squeaker. At least as of this writing on Veterans Day, out of more than 120 million votes cast, Clinton won by nearly 400,000. In the swing states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Florida (that decided the election) out of very roughly 22 million votes cast, Clinton lost all four by 1 percent or even a fraction of 1 percent.
The pundits – who spent the last year assuring us Trump could not win – now tell us that the popular vote does not matter because our president is selected by the Electoral College.
Ah yes! The Electoral College – that damnable legacy of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison who wanted to assure themselves that the great unwashed mass of citizens could not directly elect a president, and that slave states would have more sway in the election because while slaves could not vote, they would be (partially) counted when apportioning Electoral College votes that are based on population.
But so what? The Electoral College rules, and the popular vote drools, as some of my seventh graders might say.
And is it even right to look for a silver lining? Is there even one, or do we just hunker down while this dark cloud blots out the sun of hope? My teenager says I should let people mourn, come to grips with what this will mean not just for us here in the Happy Valley but for those who not only feel most vulnerable, but are most vulnerable to the beasts of bigotry Trump’s election could unleash. Has unleashed.
Now the pundocracy tries to assure us that the Trump who won the election will moderate into the Trump who must lead the country. But while listening to those babbling heads, the tone and tenor of their speech was the same that assured us he would not win, could not win.
Fool me once, shame on me …
I will take Trump at his bigoted word. The day after the election I booked a room in Washington, D.C., for Jan. 19 and 20. It’s only a few blocks from the White House and I wanted to get one before they were all gone.
I’ll be there, sign in hand, silently or shouting. Alone or in a multitude. In accordance with the laws of the land, or in defiance of them.
I suggest, if you can, do the same. And do it fast before the Trumpistas take them all.
Joe Gannon, a novelist and teacher who lives in Northampton, writes a column which is published the second Saturday of the month. He can be reached at jgannonoped@gmail.com.