Chris Jepson: How this election makes me feel

I started getting despondent, stunned calls early Wednesday morning. I attended a hopeful celebratory party the night before only to leave at 9:15 p.m. when Florida and North Carolina were too close to call. I knew then it was over. I went home and retired upstairs to watch episodes of “Twin Peaks.” I awoke Wednesday knowing in the pit of my stomach that my fellow Americans had elected Donald Trump president.

My first Facebook post at 8 a.m. was, “Remember this my Little Langoliers, the stock market closed on Nov. 8th at 18,332 and the American unemployment rate was 4.9%.”

My daughter’s first communication went, “I wake feeling ill and scared. I am scared for the future. I have never felt this way before. Everything about people that I believed was good and kind has been rejected. A majority of Americans do not want women to have rights. A majority of Americans do not care for minority rights. A majority of Americans do not care about LGBTQ rights. A majority of Americans do not support addressing climate change. A majority of Americans only support one main race and religion. A majority of Americans want to take away healthcare and help for people. We are a cruel, cruel country that is anti-intellectual. I weep for the future.”

There’s a good chance that Donald Trump won the White House but Hillary Clinton won more votes nationally. It is shades of 2000 with George Bush; reflect for just a second on how well his presidency turned out for America. With such electoral outcomes (Bush 43 & Trump), please disabuse yourself that we live in a democracy where all votes are equal.

I've been thinking about this election and how it makes me feel. What comes to mind is watching the Twin Towers (9/11) come down and that pit in your stomach that turns and turns and turns. And you know little good is ever going to come of any of this. There is no silver lining, just the developing car wreck of our American democracy. From bad to worse. Our nation’s unfolding future.

We’ve elected a man who publicly ridicules handicapped Americans. Unbelievable. He mocks and mimics their stuttering speech and shaky body movements. So shameful. He is a man — now our president — who tweets at three in the morning disparaging comments about the body weight of women. Incredible. Our new First Lady has posed in porn shots, naked, entangled in female bedmates. Are you kidding me? Our new Vice President doesn’t believe in evolution or climate change. How can this be?

An Oregon friend communicated her despair to me, “my main heartbreak is realizing that the people around me, who I thought I knew, are more base than I could have imagined. Were they just ‘passing’ as thoughtful and fair minded? I've often wondered what would have happened if Wallace had been elected...I think this will be even worse.”

I mourn for America’s environment. I mourn for our Mother Earth as America backs away from addressing climate change. I mourn for America’s daughters because we’ve elected an unapologetic misogynist. I mourn for America because of the hate and intolerance unleashed by Trump’s candidacy and election. I could go on and on and on.

H.L. Mencken said, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” I fear that is America’s future.

As for me, I will as Voltaire’s Candide counseled, “cultivate [my] own garden.”