Madam Jenny's

I had such a disturbing conversation with someone the other evening. I am a Ph.D. student at a major University in Texas. I was on campus on the evening of November 9th. This was the same day that they announced Trump as our upcoming President-Elect earlier that morning. I had to go to a student organization meeting I am a part of. I ran into a few people I know in the hall. I stopped to talk to them a little bit and they immediately began talking about the election…go figure! The election results had shocked the nation a bit, so naturally people will talk about it! The conversation that follows was very disturbing and utterly shocking. (I wish to express a large and important disclaimer! I would have been just as shocked if someone had said this about the Trump party if Hillary had won!)

Me: Hey, how has your night been?

Friend: Good…really bummed about the election though!

Me: I am on the fence about this. I am going to try to stay as optimistic as I can regardless of who is president.

Friend: Yea, that is probably the best way to look at it.

[Small Pause]

Friend: Did you hear? So-and-so decided to run an analysis of the demographic data that has been recorded so far. If you were to have taken all of the voters to have voted in the 18-25 demographic, Hillary would have won with the electoral college by over 500 votes.

Me: Wow, no, I did not hear that statistic.

Friend: Yea! Crazy right! I mean, we are the voice of the future; we are the ones that should have a louder voice than everyone else right now. Our voice, our vote, it should count more towards an election. We are living in and with all of the problems that this country has more so than any other demographic and we will be here longer…so our voice, our vote, or ideas should be heard a bit louder than everyone else’s. Right?

Me: [Silence]…..*thinking to myself: thank god I am leaning against a wall…I might have just fallen over…how do I respond to this…what do I say that won’t make me sound mean? This poor creature…this poor poor thing…bless their heart?”

Friend: Right?

Me: Yea, I guess I, yea, I mean, yea…*no idea how to respond in a nice way…*

Friend: I know; this election has torn me to shreds.

The other person that was with my “friend” had been nodding their head in agreement the entire time this conversation was taking place.

After I got over the initial shock, I had to depart to get to my meeting (thankfully!). I said my quick goodbyes and walked down the hall to my meeting in a bit of a daze. I am still in shock that this conversation took place. I am in shock that this is the ideologies, the thought processes, the notions, the “lightbulb” moments that are taking place in the “18-25 demographic”. HOW is this possible? I am not too far away from their age group…but I surely realize how completely asinine and foolish this individual sounded! I know this person has no idea what they just said!

I can hope that this person will look back at this specific conversation when they are no longer in their 18-25 demographic bracket and realize how unbelievably ignorant and naïve they sounded and acted! They definitely acted their age! This says a lot about the protests that are currently happening on Universities and colleges around the country with this election. They are happening on the campus I am trying to get my Ph.D. from. They are happening because of the 18-25 demographic! It is scary!! AND! This has nothing to do with Hillary supporters! The Trump supporters are in the same category! They are spitting out hate speech, telling LEGAL immigrants to go home…seriously?! The entire demographic needs a big bite of what is known as R-E-A-L-I-T-Y! Once they get it, they need to look back at their insignificant life they were leading before that bite came along. Maybe then they will realize they were acting ignorant!

I want to stress something very important. I am not saying the 18-25 demographic in its entirety has the same ideologies as these people do. No! I am saying that a very large, outspoken, and destructive portion of this demographic has these beliefs. That in itself is where the fear sets in. That fear has been boiling under the surface within the older demographics for some time now. That fear is finally coming through because that large portion of the 18-25 demographic is acting on what we have feared…acting more violently, more naively, more ignorantly, and more frequently.

This election has proven one thing…whether you are a Trump fan or a Hillary fan. There is no “right” president. There is not a “perfect” president. Let us be honest here…a lot of people voted for Hillary or for Trump because, in their minds, they were voting for the “lesser of two evils”…whichever way the cookie crumbled for them. However, the one thing that we must all agree on in order to come out of this election much stronger is…

…We must agree that we can evolve. We can adapt. We can accept. From this day forward for at least the next 4 years, regardless of if we voted for Trump or Clinton…Trump is going to be our new President of the United States of America. There is nothing we can do to change that! A lot of people did not want the Obama administration to take on a second term! A lot of people were furious when he managed to capture the spot for another 4 years. BUT, we accepted that…we had to. We must do that this time around…we must unite or we will rip our country apart. That is unacceptable!

Written By: T. Anon