Is there a moment from the past four years that particularly stands out? I’m not necessarily talking about the big events that made national headlines, but the acute, personal experiences that made his reign real for you.
Yeah like Ellen, for me it was election night 2016. I had like.... I don't even feel comfortable saying how many drinks, then went home with a Tinder boyfriend and sobbed and screamed that we had elected a sexual harasser while Tinder BF failed to console me or really understand life at all. I kind of just blacked it all out after that and got to work figuring out how to adjust
So sorry, Melissa. Glad you didn't stick with Tinder bf (unless that's who you're married to now??).
Pretty sure election night 2016 will go down as one of those "where were you when___" moments in history. I was at a bar, and can still feel the atmosphere change that occurred. I got out of there pretty quickly and went home and passed out watching nature shows. I think I woke up around 2 am and jessica was watching the news and said, "Trump won." It felt like a nightmare, so I turned around and buried my face in the cushion and passed out again.
Oof, yeah totally. It was a rough night for all. No worries I def dumped tinder bf before Xmas that year. My current marriage is FOR SURE a response to the 2016 election 😂😂
I was in Hawaii too during the false missel alert. I had arrived the night before. I was slowly getting ready to go to the beach. Like you, I was questioning if I should call my loved ones. I didn’t want to worry them though. How insane is that! And I blamed Trump in that moment.
I have never liked Trump, even before he ran for president I saw him as a bully and sleezeball.
I have been horrified ever since he was elected. There hasn’t been any one incident. The moment would be the moment he was elected.
It's so funny ("funny")—most people I asked had trouble pinpointing one moment as well. A common response was, "there are just too many to name." It's so horrible, and I can only laugh to keep from wanting to sob. I'm really looking forward to having at least a week where we don't have these moments.
It’s Sharpiegate for me. To be such a narcissist that you pick a fight with the weather service, and then draw on a map with a sharpie to provide evidence you were the absolute expert in weather patterns and everyone is a hater, I mean, that is the kind of soggy, pointless, tired idiocy he dragged us all through literally hour by hour over the past five years. It just wears you down. And that of course is the point.
Oh my god, I completely forgot about the Sharpie, and now I'm just retroactively tired. I think during his administration there was so much stupidity that I kind of glossed over the parts where he wasn't actively hurting people, but I'm sure there will be plenty of retrospectives once he's gone, and I'll just watch them like Jack Nicholson's 1000-yard stare in The Shining.
I worked for a youth serving, feminist organization in 2016. Operating in a small agricultural town, we serve mostly Latinx families. Every two years we run a civic engagement program called She Votes in which girls learn about the democratic process and local, state and national candidates. The girls run campaigns for the youth board and participate in a mock election. Obviously, we were all excited to have Hillary on the ballot but the Trump campaign rhetoric around immigration and the pussy grabbing tapes made it a heavy time. Girls had very real fears about what a Trump presidency would mean for their families.
The girls’ mock election takes place a week before the national election and includes thousands of girls from across the country. Hillary won in a landslide. The girls’ knew their votes were not included in presidential election, but they were hopeful. And like many of the adults in their lives, understandably shocked by the result.
When we all returned to work on Wednesday we mourned together as a team and made a game plan on how to discuss the results with the girls. It was hard. Lots of tears all day. Fear. Disgust. Ice cream. When I left the office that evening a girl and her dad were sitting on the curb in the parking lot. Dad waved me over and I saw that his daughter (Naomi, 7 years old) had been crying. She told me through her tears that she was afraid that Trump would shut us down because we served mostly Mexican girls and “he hates girls and Mexicans.” I gave an age appropriate explanation of the nonprofit sector, letting her know that we had been around a long time and we weren’t going anywhere.
The nonprofit sector sits at the intersection of public and private sector failures. Donald Trump personifies decades of compounding failures. Naomi forced me to suck it up and get to work in the sector that would need to do a lot of heavy lifting in the coming four years.
God, I can only imagine having to young girls after that night, especially after Hilary's win in the mock election. But I also have no doubt that that you used opportunity to stoke passion, community engagement and activism, and I think that's very important.
This is unrelated but since you brought up mock elections, it made me remember one time in second grade when we had one at our school. Of course, I voted for Bush because I was 7 and knew he was the president, and I think that's what every kid did. At the end of the day the principal came on the announcements to proclaim Bush as the winner, and we all cheered, except for this kid named Jonathan, who was crying because Ross Perot didn't win.
I am an ICU RN in a local hospital. Like many, on the day after the election in 2016, when I arrived at work, there were lots of tears and hugs and emptiness. Little did we know, that 4 years later we would be drowning in patients dying from his incompetence and our nation's selfishness and racism. After the 2020 election there were again tears, (dripping into our N95 masks) and brief, head turned hugs, but this time with a tiny glimmer of hope. Then we suited up and headed back to do whatever we could to care for those patients, mostly BIPOC, who were suffering and dying because 45 had convinced the masses that they should not be inconvenienced for one moment and masks are for pussies.
Yeah like Ellen, for me it was election night 2016. I had like.... I don't even feel comfortable saying how many drinks, then went home with a Tinder boyfriend and sobbed and screamed that we had elected a sexual harasser while Tinder BF failed to console me or really understand life at all. I kind of just blacked it all out after that and got to work figuring out how to adjust
Also: seems relevant to mention I had just come from therapy before the watch party lolol
So sorry, Melissa. Glad you didn't stick with Tinder bf (unless that's who you're married to now??).
Pretty sure election night 2016 will go down as one of those "where were you when___" moments in history. I was at a bar, and can still feel the atmosphere change that occurred. I got out of there pretty quickly and went home and passed out watching nature shows. I think I woke up around 2 am and jessica was watching the news and said, "Trump won." It felt like a nightmare, so I turned around and buried my face in the cushion and passed out again.
Oof, yeah totally. It was a rough night for all. No worries I def dumped tinder bf before Xmas that year. My current marriage is FOR SURE a response to the 2016 election 😂😂
I was in Hawaii too during the false missel alert. I had arrived the night before. I was slowly getting ready to go to the beach. Like you, I was questioning if I should call my loved ones. I didn’t want to worry them though. How insane is that! And I blamed Trump in that moment.
I have never liked Trump, even before he ran for president I saw him as a bully and sleezeball.
I have been horrified ever since he was elected. There hasn’t been any one incident. The moment would be the moment he was elected.
It's so funny ("funny")—most people I asked had trouble pinpointing one moment as well. A common response was, "there are just too many to name." It's so horrible, and I can only laugh to keep from wanting to sob. I'm really looking forward to having at least a week where we don't have these moments.
It’s Sharpiegate for me. To be such a narcissist that you pick a fight with the weather service, and then draw on a map with a sharpie to provide evidence you were the absolute expert in weather patterns and everyone is a hater, I mean, that is the kind of soggy, pointless, tired idiocy he dragged us all through literally hour by hour over the past five years. It just wears you down. And that of course is the point.
Oh my god, I completely forgot about the Sharpie, and now I'm just retroactively tired. I think during his administration there was so much stupidity that I kind of glossed over the parts where he wasn't actively hurting people, but I'm sure there will be plenty of retrospectives once he's gone, and I'll just watch them like Jack Nicholson's 1000-yard stare in The Shining.
I worked for a youth serving, feminist organization in 2016. Operating in a small agricultural town, we serve mostly Latinx families. Every two years we run a civic engagement program called She Votes in which girls learn about the democratic process and local, state and national candidates. The girls run campaigns for the youth board and participate in a mock election. Obviously, we were all excited to have Hillary on the ballot but the Trump campaign rhetoric around immigration and the pussy grabbing tapes made it a heavy time. Girls had very real fears about what a Trump presidency would mean for their families.
The girls’ mock election takes place a week before the national election and includes thousands of girls from across the country. Hillary won in a landslide. The girls’ knew their votes were not included in presidential election, but they were hopeful. And like many of the adults in their lives, understandably shocked by the result.
When we all returned to work on Wednesday we mourned together as a team and made a game plan on how to discuss the results with the girls. It was hard. Lots of tears all day. Fear. Disgust. Ice cream. When I left the office that evening a girl and her dad were sitting on the curb in the parking lot. Dad waved me over and I saw that his daughter (Naomi, 7 years old) had been crying. She told me through her tears that she was afraid that Trump would shut us down because we served mostly Mexican girls and “he hates girls and Mexicans.” I gave an age appropriate explanation of the nonprofit sector, letting her know that we had been around a long time and we weren’t going anywhere.
The nonprofit sector sits at the intersection of public and private sector failures. Donald Trump personifies decades of compounding failures. Naomi forced me to suck it up and get to work in the sector that would need to do a lot of heavy lifting in the coming four years.
God, I can only imagine having to young girls after that night, especially after Hilary's win in the mock election. But I also have no doubt that that you used opportunity to stoke passion, community engagement and activism, and I think that's very important.
This is unrelated but since you brought up mock elections, it made me remember one time in second grade when we had one at our school. Of course, I voted for Bush because I was 7 and knew he was the president, and I think that's what every kid did. At the end of the day the principal came on the announcements to proclaim Bush as the winner, and we all cheered, except for this kid named Jonathan, who was crying because Ross Perot didn't win.
I am an ICU RN in a local hospital. Like many, on the day after the election in 2016, when I arrived at work, there were lots of tears and hugs and emptiness. Little did we know, that 4 years later we would be drowning in patients dying from his incompetence and our nation's selfishness and racism. After the 2020 election there were again tears, (dripping into our N95 masks) and brief, head turned hugs, but this time with a tiny glimmer of hope. Then we suited up and headed back to do whatever we could to care for those patients, mostly BIPOC, who were suffering and dying because 45 had convinced the masses that they should not be inconvenienced for one moment and masks are for pussies.
Ugh yeah, the way he juts his chin out after everyone looks at him horrified. Just a walking lizard brain.