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Image / Editorial

Donald Trump Is the 45th President Of The United States: How Did This Happen?!


By Jennifer McShane
09th Nov 2016
Donald Trump Is the 45th President Of The United States: How Did This Happen?!

When we wrote this piece on preparing for the end of days yesterday, no one from our team thought we’d be thinking about implementing it. None of us thought we’d have to even contemplate the words “President Donald Trump” and the frightening implications this would have – and now will have – for the world. We are heartbroken; stunned, shocked, fearful and many of us in tears – we should have been celebrating a ceiling’smashed, a world?united and a new era of hope. Instead, we listened to a smug, victorious Trump talk aggressively of his new “movement,” his desire to “take America back to what it once was” – all sounding very much like a dictatorship waiting to happen. We are frightened, the world is divided as we face the darkest of days, and at the helm will be a “leader” who is a racist and selfish, woman-hating narcissist – and that’s not even the tip of the iceberg. He was a joke; a bully of a reality-star-turned businessman who had never really entered the political world before announcing his candidacy for president, so how did it come to this?

We’ll be asking ourselves that all day and for the next few months, but he basically swept the numbers in terms of votes. It all looked good for Hillary very early on; she was comfortable, she outperformed Barack Obama in some precincts in Georgia and Florida. It was as the polls had predicted and seemed that she was on her way to being the first woman to become US President.

But as the night wore on, Trump built up leads in Florida and Ohio (major swing states that Clinton hoped to get), and the mood shifted to signal Trump?was a very real contender to win. Stock?Markets went down the world over as the odds worked in his favour – he went from being the least likely candidate to win to a New York Times poll calling it as early as 2.30AM that he would clinch the presidency. Her victory was in doubt as the night wore on, thanks to an unprecedented Trump surge where he took state after state:?Ohio, North Carolina, Florida. Even Michigan and Wisconsin?(“safe zones” for Clinton) went to him – it was close but he frequently emerged the victor. It was?Pennsylvania who put him on the road to the White House?and sealed the world’s fate and in the end, when Trump reached 279 to Clinton’s 218, there was no longer a contest.

He is the 45th President of the United States and we face a time of grave uncertainty, but we’re proud of Clinton and her brave, strong and eloquent fight. We didn’t quite do it, but the time for resistance can start now.