Posted on 12/07/2016 11:44:42 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
On Nov. 9, 2016 at 11:41 P.M. Stanford time, the Associated Press declared Donald Trump the winner of the presidential election. On campus, it was just over 45 degrees Fahrenheit, an unusually warm temperature for the time of year. Inside dorms, tears flowed, students continued checking Twitter and PHEs told their freshmen that their doors would be open all night.
I know this not because I was on campus, but because I watched it unfold later on Snapchat. In fact, at the same moment, it was 8:41 a.m. in Berlin, and I was comfortably asleep in my bed. Like over 250 students currently enrolled at Stanford, I learned about Trump’s election while studying abroad.
I, like most, had assumed that Hillary Clinton would win the presidency in a landslide. After months of telling every German I met that a Republican victory was impossible, I was excited to be proven right. Instead, I woke up the next day to dozens of Facebook posts from members of my community, primarily women and minorities, expressing grief and outrage.
Immediately on campus, walkouts, grieving sessions and petitions were organized. People hugged strangers, unprovoked, in Tresidder. In contrast, I only saw one other Stanford student in Berlin the two days following election night, but it would be misleading to say that loneliness was the hardest part about being abroad.
“It felt like there was little I could do to protect my friends and family from thousands of miles away,” explained Sasha Perigo ’17, another student in Germany.
Like many others abroad, Perigo saw the sharp increase in hate crimes occurring in the U.S. post-election and felt a mixture of terror and helplessness, believing she could do nothing to protect her loved ones. Frustrated, Perigo attended a demonstration outside Brandenburg Gate and the American embassy against both Trump and right-wing fascist sentiments growing in Europe.
Madeleine Lippey ’18 had a different perspective at Oxford. “It was probably better for me to hear the news in a small community,” she explained. Lippey attended two protests following the election. The first was a “Love Rally” designed to help students heal and support one another. The second was to protest Corey Lewandowski, one of Trump’s campaign managers, speaking at the Oxford Union.
“I think being abroad […] has given me a broader sense of global politics, which has actually distanced me a little from American politics in a way that I really needed, [sic] I think we all needed,” she continued. Lippey observed that both rallies, while organized in response to the U.S. election, did not focus exclusively on American politics. Students also spoke out against Brexit and racism.
It is hard to ignore the similarities between the rise of populism in the U.S., at times associated with white supremacy, and the resurgence of fascism in Europe. In conversation, Perigo often fielded questions from locals concerning the similarities between Trump and the rise of Germany’s own right-wing AFD party.
In Paris, Carrie Monahan ’18 saw the conversation move on from Brexit and Trump to France’s own upcoming presidential election. “Before no one imagined a conservative like Marine Le Pen could become president,” Monahan explained, “Now people are even wondering if the EU will remain intact.”
“Our local friends here compared Trump to Silvio Berlusconi, a former prime minister of Italy, who was deeply disliked,” explained Allison Harman ’18, who is currently studying abroad in Florence. What shocked Harman most, however, was that Italians seemed more convinced that President-elect Trump would do more damage on a global scale than their former prime minister.
“Berlusconi only really could impact Italians, but Trump, while having the platform of the U.S., obviously will impact the entire world,” explained Harman, “and our Italian friends were fearful of his potential.”
Her observations are backed by the media outside of America. It is impossible to escape the gravity of this election, even in Europe. Der Spiegel, Germany’s largest news magazine, put out an image of Trump’s face engulfed in flame above the caption “Das Ende der Welt,” which translates to “The End of the World.” Almost every person in my program has grimly brought up this magazine cover in conversation.
Protesting has also put students in contact with other Americans. At Oxford’s “Love Rally,” Lippey witnessed that most attendees were Americans “sharing stories of survival and fear, assaults and jeers.” For many abroad, these rallies have put them in contact with other Americans who share their personal grief.
However, Stanford students’ actions have not just been limited to organized protests. While social media certainly played a role in the Mr. Trump’s rise to power, it is now being used to undermine him. Perigo donated to progressive causes and then wrote a post on Medium explaining other forms of online resistance. Monahan and Lippey both individually published poetry in response to the election on Facebook.
Yet for many abroad the loneliness is still present. For a transgender woman like myself, it was frustrating not being able to attend Stanford’s Trans Day of Remembrance the Wednesday after the election. For Perigo, she admits, “Even among my American friends in the Stanford program, I don’t have any close friends who share my [queer femme] identity.”
Perhaps this is why those of us away from campus feel so compelled to continually take action. We channel our frustrations into action while unable to hold those we care about.
Regardless, one would be hard-pressed to find a Stanford student abroad who is not ready to return to their communities at home. “I do think I have learned a lot about European politics and perspectives on the U.S. election from being abroad during this time,” Perigo said, “but overall, I am ready to go home and start organizing.”
???
This is the modern Democratic Party. For me the question isn't, how did they lose, but how did they come so close to winning?
LOL! I live in Russia, and was telling everyone who asked that Trump would win. I was even interviewed by a local newspaper before the election - and I predicted a Trump victory. After the election, a local television program came and interviewed me on my thoughts of future US/Russian relations.
FU Stanford.
Their toxic leftism knows no bounds.
Ah, if only I were a college professor. I would have these little snowflakes produce some sort of intellectual support for their bland pronouncements that Trump is a fascist. For example, I would have the author of this piece, the guy who calls himself “Phoebe,” do some in-depth research on what fascism actually is, perhaps including historical perspective on Hitler, his platform, and his policies, and then explain why he believes that Trump is a fascist, providing concrete examples (pulled from Trump’s Twitter or one of his websites; nothing cherry-picked through the MSM) of how Trump’s platform and stated policies (including actions taken so far) align with the fascist philosophy. I think about a 30 page term paper with verifiable references would be adequate. For extra credit, I would have them discuss the supposed rise in hate crimes, and do the investigations to confirm that there was, indeed, a rise in bona-fide hate crimes (and not in false, mostly self-inflicted “hate crimes”) and who is really responsible for them.
All I see here is an emotional screed by some mentally ill kid who probably has no clue as to what the issues actually are, and why people voted for Trump. If only the universities would teach the students to think. They used to do that.
It’s awful living in a fantasy world of your own making... then finding out that it WAS just in your own head.
I am so old I remember world wide media support for the then new president elect Barrack Hussein Obama. So much so he was given the Nobel Prace Prize before he actually defined his platform.
No we I see the exact opposite reaction.
Too based the highly acclaimed ivy league history classes don’t go as far back as I do.
Gives me hope...
On the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor these students in Germany are still boo-hooing?
Stanford had a good run, but it’s time to shut it down.
As one who lives in berlin part time...
These snowflakes will not learn a single thing about world politics in their little isolated enclaves on college campus. They are every bit as insulated from reality as they are here. Not a single challenge is permitted to the progressive ideology.
If one of these snowflakes makes a disparaging remark about the African and Muslim invasion they can be CRIMINALLY prosecuted as a nazi. There is no free speech UNLESS you want to burn and riot for a leftist cause.
None of these snowflakes will ever interact with a middle age tax paying German who is sickened watching their country treated like the world’s landfill. And you WON’T be hearing from them. As I said it is criminal to speak out against this.
The snowflakes only see the good parts of Germany. They are not walking down the streets of Kreuzburg and Neukoln surrounded by newly arrived Eritreans. They do not pay the 70% taxes the German workers pay. They see “free” education and “free” medical care and they ABSOLUTELY LOVE the public transportation (I am guilty of that as well because it is great but I know the reality).
I know. I spend about an hour a day watching “election porn” — YouTube videos of retards having meltdowns. Laughing is good for your soul.
Not funny; pathetic.
Those students have been brainwashed.
The author, a guy that has delusions that he is a woman is what we voted against.
LOL! Thanks for the laughs.
I keep this on my about page, but drew this out several times to illustrate the Left/Right business in a graphic way:(hope it comes out right)
MORE<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<GOVERNMENT CONTROL<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<LESS
Communist->Fascist->Liberal->Democrat->Moderate->Republican->Conservative->Libertarian->Anarchist
LEFT---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------RIGHT
Please! Hitler was a National Socialist, not a Fascist. Benito Mussolini was a Fascist. Despite the two countries being allied during World War II, the two ideologies are quite distinct.
To mollify the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, our propaganda labeled Hitler as a Fascist, since otherwise it might raise questions about why we were aiding one socialist country against another socialist country.
Back then, even Japan was labeled as Fascist, even though Mussolini would never have recognized the Japs system as Fascist.
"Fascist" has become a cussword for "something I don't like." Which is a shame, because it deprives us of a word to describe the kind of political and economic system that Benito Mussolini advocated.
LOL. Same for me in France and Belgium last summer. When asked, I said I was solidly behind Trump and explained why. there were some objections, but I found those persons had generally been force fed by the left wing media. I succeeded in opening their eyes. It is amusing that Berlusconi was very popular in the US when Italy stood beside us in the M.E. wars. I liked him very much, but then the media started slamming him with sex stories just like they tried to destroy Trump. The recent resignation of the left wing Renzi( sp. ?) in Italy after the NO vote on the referendum is setting the stage for an upheaval in France. Fillon (center right) or Le Pen (extreme right) will win France next May. No question. The left is hugely out of favor.
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