In the early hours of Nov. 7, students watched in common rooms, lecture halls and community centers across campus as Donald Trump was declared our nation’s next president. At Yale, where most students and faculty vote Democrat, the mood was somber. For weeks, campus had been vibrant with pre-election activity, largely led by groups such as Yalies4Harris and Yale College Democrats. The overall sentiment was one of energy and hope — hope, specifically, for a Harris victory. Yet on Tuesday night, Vice President Kamala Harris suffered a clear defeat. Unlike in 2016, Trump won both the Electoral College and the popular vote. This time, his victory cannot be blamed on a glitch in the electoral system, a failure of an anachronistic mechanism implemented centuries ago by our nation’s founders. His popularity, now almost a decade strong, cannot be written off as a fluke. Donald Trump has won America, albeit far short of the popular mandate he will claim to have. The question becomes, how did this happen? And how have Yalies become so grossly out of touch with the nation as a whole?
Of course, it should be expected that Yale is not representative of the country; it prides itself as an elite institution, inherently premised on distinction from the majority. Educational institutions have tended to lean left, at least in recent history. The concern is not necessarily that Yalies do not represent America, but that they are often fundamentally out of touch with it, as evidenced by reactions to the election’s outcome.
The fact is, a Trump victory was always reasonably likely, given pre-election polling and discontent with the Biden administration. Simply speaking to Trump supporters also reveals fairly quickly that many people continue to remain not only tolerant of, but extremely enthusiastic about the man — despite a litany of charges, convictions and sordid accusations. In this context, disappointment may be warranted, but shock seems misguided or naive. Furthermore, the kind of horror, despair and antagonism that I have witnessed since the election strikes me as at best disproportionate and at worst extremely unproductive, both to our campus community and the national political discourse.
It is not productive, for example, to post on social media that anyone who voted for Trump should unfollow you — something I have seen some of my peers do in the past week. It is not productive to accuse all Trump voters of being racist, sexist or homophobic. After all, Trump looks to have won the highest share of the non-white vote of any Republican candidate in decades. In essence, it is not productive to apply moral judgment to more than half the country, failing to reflect on the legitimate discontent that led them to vote for Trump in the first place.
When institutions like Yale tend towards such elitism, they only engender the sort of alienation that fuels a movement like MAGA. If the Democrats are going to win the next election, we cannot pretend Trumpism is an aberrant. We must listen to his supporters, not necessarily to find agreement, but at least understanding. We can’t live in a bubble where what he represents is so obviously abhorrent because, for over 70 million Americans, it clearly is not. Perhaps the question to ask is not how Trump won, but why so many people voted for him. And to answer that question, I think many of us must begin by having more conversations with people who support policies and candidates that we may instinctually find despicable.
Because at the end of the day, it is also not productive to conclude that it is all hopeless. Like many of my peers, I cast my first vote in a presidential election for Harris. I am just as disappointed in the results as anyone else, even if I am not as surprised. The truth is, Trump’s victory isn’t proof that democracy is failing, but that it is continuing to function — the candidate who won more votes will be entering office in January and we will go on living alongside the people who voted for him, even if we did not.
This is not to say we should all just accept the way things are or normalize the flaws of today’s politics. But if you despise our president-elect, you need to be ready to do what he will not: combat rage, division and radicalism with dialogue, empathy and the kind of moderation that can eventually bring Americans together, despite the things that set us apart.
ARIANE DE GENNARO is a senior in Branford College. Her column “For Country, For Yale” provides “pragmatic and sometimes provocative perspectives on relevant issues in Yale and American life.” Contact her at ariane.degennaro@yale.edu.