And while I’m disgusted by the outcome of what’s been a grotesque spectacle of an election, I’m not in shock. On June 23 this year I went to sleep in the little village in the North of England where I live, pretty certain that the country would rally together and vote to stay in Europe. That’s what the polls showed and that’s what the pundits were saying – a small lead, but a lead. Psych! Waking up very early the next morning was like waking up to the news that a close friend had died. I cried and felt sick. I denied. I looked into buying a house in Scotland and whether the fact that my grandmother was born in the Netherlands gave me a right to a Dutch passport (unfortunately, no). I grieved along with my fellow remainers. But then my denial turned to anger as is the natural way of grief. However, I’m not going to let the natural transition from anger to acceptance happen. I’m going to hold onto my anger because the vitriol and lies that were used to get people to vote leave and the resulting chaotic outcome will never be acceptable. No way. Not as long as I’ve got breath in my body.
Fast forward to this morning. This time I was going to be strong and not peek at the election outcome until a reasonable time – at least until the sun was coming up. But my phone was on vibrate and in the darkness I heard a quiet buzz. My Minnesota friend promised that she’d only send me a message in the night if there was going to be a clear Hillary win. I lay in bed trying to go back to sleep to no avail. In the dark I fumbled around for my phone. A short message from my daughter at university “I’m so sorry”.
And then the messages started pouring in. From my oldest friend in California was a bewildered apology and a question – “what must the world think of us?”. Well, yesterday morning the most read news report on the BBC website was an item on the changing shape of the Toblerone bar. In a post-Brexit vote world, imported goods have got more expensive. Rather than increase the price of this beloved confectionary, they have made the troughs between the triangular peaks bigger, resulting in less chocolate. This was an outrage in a chocolate-addicted country. The US election story had run is course. There was no way the American people were going to vote in that uncouth bozo when the opposition was so experienced. It wasn’t even worth thinking about.
But seriously, these are just a few of the things that the rest of the world are thinking:
- That Americans have it so good but are too arrogant to know it, which is why we're throwing it all away.
- That China and Russia are laughing their heads off and taking over the world as America heads for a train wreck of their own making.
- That the end of the Western world is being played out on the American stage.
- That for every intelligent liberal-minded American person that they’ve met in person there must be ten gun-toting nut jobs.
I’ve just finished listening to the episodes spanning George Washington to Barack Obama on the Washington Post's Presidential podcast, which is brilliant (except the bizarrely sycophantic episode on Reagan). Binging on this over several weeks, I have been reminded of what a tumultuous history our country has endured. We have had some truly great presidents who have seen us through some troubling times. Others have been mediocre or ineffective. However, we’ve not had one as dangerous as Trump.
The number of hate crimes has increased in Britain post-Brexit vote, and there’s no reason to expect that the same won’t happen in the US now that Trump has been given a mandate based on hate. We must keep our nerves steady, our integrity unswerving and be willing to put ourselves in harm’s way so that we can protect the vulnerable and all the rights that we hold dear. We cannot expect anyone else to do it for us.
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