We share a last name, but I haven’t called you since last Christmas. You should know that I love you, but you should also know that I’m pissed.
I avoided this conversation because I didn’t think it would be relevant, and that’s my fault. Only six percent of my classmates at Duke voted with you, and I didn’t expect sixty million people to do the same. Mostly, I was surprised by how easy it was to fall out of touch. I suppose that Duke has that effect.
I will not rehash why I did not vote for Donald Trump, but before we move on, you should understand why my friends are upset—upset in a way that’s unusual for politics. If you see protests on the evening news tonight and don’t understand why, or if you think we’re being melodramatic, then I owe you an explanation.
These people you see in the streets—these friends I watch sob in their dorm rooms—they are not merely disappointed. They are afraid.
They are Muslim Americans who fear that their families will be categorically banned from entering the United States, that their hijabs will be ripped off in public, that their national service will be mocked, that their privacy will be revoked and that their names will appear in a national database.
They are black Americans who fear a candidate who refused to rebuke the KKK and inspired Klan marches miles from campus, and remember “Law and Order” under President Reagan as the beginning of the new Jim Crow.
They are Latinx Americans who fear that their families will be torn apart, and that their children will be stereotyped as criminals, drug dealers and killers.
They are survivors—like some people in our family—who are fearful that their boys will learn that bragging about sexual assault isn’t a big enough deal to prevent them from winning the presidency.
They are disabled Americans who wonder whether they are actually deserving of mockery.
They are LGBTQ+ Americans—like me—who fear more than losing the right to marry or protection from discrimination, but fear a Vice President-elect who believes in funding conversion therapy to cure me of my homosexuality.
This is not about the repeal of the ACA, a conservative court, or even about the inexperience of a Commander-in-Chief who doesn’t understand the nuclear triad, threatens the freedom of the press, advocates for war crimes, misunderstands basic constitutional protections, and failed to earn the vote of any living Republican president. This is personal. That is why, on Wednesday, I awoke to a friend proclaiming in The Chronicle that “a majority of my country told me that I am less than human.”
Yes, your vote felt personal.
But I know you. And I don’t think his statement was fair.
Before you explain yourself, you should know that your “I love you’s” are insufficient to explain away sixty million votes. I believe my friend was wrong, but not because of your reassurance. Like Obama said: "Trust, but verify."
Trump won because independents agreed with you—the same argument that got non college-educated white voters to show up at the polls worked for swing voters, too. Independents supported Trump by a six-point margin, and late-deciding voters broke his way by five.
And they—you—wanted change. Forty percent of the electorate said “can bring change” is the most important quality in a candidate, far exceeding “right experience” (21 percent) or “good judgment” (20 percent).
More than change, you wanted a better outcome, and you didn’t think another Clinton presidency would help. Three-fouths of voters believe the economy is either “poor” or “not good.” And while I’ve been in economics courses at Duke looking at charts and spreadsheets, you’ve been at home, thinking about that factory we drove by on the way to the old family farm, upset that your friends can’t find work ever since they installed those automated robots on the assembly line. Sometimes it’s hard to see past the textbook. I’m learning that now.
Besides, Clinton wasn’t perfect—the emails did muddy the water. The news tends to draw false equivalencies between candidates—especially between their shortcomings—so maybe you believed they were similarly problematic. That equivocation was wrong, but it wasn’t unreasonable.
I believe you when you say that you didn’t vote for his bigotry—you probably voted in spite of it. I do not think your vote was an endorsement of Trump’s dark vision. I think you’re just tired, and I know you’re not alone.
The single mother in North Carolina who doesn’t understand why health insurance is still expensive did not go to the polls to vote against decency. The unemployed coal miner in Pennsylvania without rent money did not go the polls to vote against decency. The small business owner in Ohio who believes in a conservative court did not go to the polls to vote against decency.
Even so, they voted against decency. I have come to believe that intentions do not matter when actions hurt real people, and although you didn’t mean it, your vote hurt.
At a place like Duke, it’s easy to hyperbolize others’ intentions, and it’s easy to condescend. It’s especially easy when we haven’t spoken since last Christmas. But now that we’re talking again, I promise to stop.
There is a lot of work still to do—work confronting hate and bigotry, work confronting misunderstanding and self-righteousness. I think we’re up to it.
And next time, let’s talk before Election Day.
Tanner Lockhead is a Trinity senior. His column, “not straight talk,” runs on alternate Mondays.
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