Before last Tuesday night’s results, I was planning to write something humorous but still reflective like, “10 Things We Learned from the 2016 Presidential Election” or “The 2016 Presidential Election, as told by Hamilton.” However, the results turned out to be something many of us didn’t expect. They have left a lot of us in fear, anger, and depression. It is unacceptable and downright disgusting when I log into facebook and see my friends who are people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and from other ethnic groups whom Donald Trump’s rhetoric has consistently attacked. Some of you may say that I am talking about mere anecdotes, but in fact, statistics show that hate crimes have increased in 24 hours after Trump had been elected.

So, who is to blame for all of this? Well, first of all, we need to stop blaming the people who have voted for a third party candidate. We need to see that Hillary Clinton had won by popular vote (48% of total votes), Trump came in second (47% of total votes), while Libertarian Gary Johnson had 3% and Green Party nominee Jill Stein gained 1% of the total votes. Hence, as we can see, the third party candidates did not receive enough votes to affect the outcome of the election and obviously, their voters could not have done anything to change the votes of the electoral college. The majority of the people who voted for a third party nominee knew that their candidate would not win. Instead, most third party voters live in a Blue or Red state and wanted to use that to their advantage to change the corrupt two-party system; if a third party gains at least 5% of votes in a certain election, the party would receive more funding in future elections which will in turn give it more media coverage.

The Democratic party must be criticized because partly, members of this party caused the results of this election. During the primaries, the mainstream media had repeatedly attempted to convince us that Clinton was more electable than Bernie Sanders in the general election. Nevertheless, we saw that polls showed Sanders would beat Trump by at least 15% on average while Clinton would beat Trump by a much smaller margin. This is because Hillary Clinton is an establishment candidate. She is controlled by her corporate donors and the DNC which, with the help of its chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz, rigged the election against Sanders. This shows that the establishment was willing to do anything they could in order to stop Sanders from being the Democratic nominee because they knew that if Sanders had clinched the nomination, he would go on to beat Trump and as president, he would dismantle the big banks and corporations which would put the people of the establishment out of jobs. The reason why Sanders would likely beat Trump is because people are tired of the top 1% of the population with all the wealth. People are tired of working hours after hours and still living in poverty. People are tired of losing their jobs because companies decide to move jobs overseas. Trump tapped into these ideas by making false promises but yet, people believed him. The scandals of the Democratic party caused many voters not to trust an establishment candidate.

Lastly, I want to convey a message to all those, including my friends, who voted for Trump. I get it. You may not be a racist, a sexist or a xenophobe. I understand you when you say that you have voted for Trump because of Clinton’s disastrous foreign policies in the past. I believed you when you had condemned his hateful rhetorics of anti-immigration, misogyny and Islamophobia. However, I ask that you must understand that hate crimes have increased since Trump has been elected. You must understand that there are people who are actually afraid to go out in their very own town or city because they are afraid of being targeted due to their skin color or clothing or sexual orientation. I, personally, am terrified for the condition of our planet due to climate change because Trump wants to appoint someone who denies global warming as the chair of the EPA. It is actually alarming when the head of the EPA denies the biggest threat mankind has arguably ever faced. So, Trump voters, please understand and acknowledge that many people are now living in fear. They are living in fear for themselves, their loved ones, their communities and for the planet.

I do want to end on a positive note. So, if anything positive came out of this election, it is that it sparked a desire for change, especially from people of our generation. Even though I am fearing a lot of things right now, I am hopeful for the future because politicians like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Jill Stein prompted young people to make their voices heard. So, we have to realize that although it will be difficult, we have the power to make positive changes.