Reflecting on the USA Election
We have to face the reality that Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States of America. But this is not just a vote that has affected the USA, rather the entire world. As a result, people are freaking out and channeling their views through social media. BREXIT, Trump, what’s next? No one knows.
As the election votes rolled in on Wednesday, we saw two important events occur. Firstly, we saw the stock markets fall sharply - the Japanese market down 6 per cent and the Australian market down 2 per cent at close of business. Secondly, we saw the Canadian immigration website crash as a Trump presidency looked increasingly more imminent. This is not a hopeful start to Trump’s four-year term. I think what makes this whole situation worse is that we expected people to choose Hillary.
Bob Carr, Australia’s former foreign minister, told reporters on Wednesday that, "Trump has worsened the divisions in American society”, and he is right. Trump said he would, “strongly reconsider” LGBTQ+ equality and same-sex marriage. He is opposed to abortion. He thinks all people should have the right to bear arms, telling press in October that, “If you had more guns, you'd have more protection because the right people would have the guns”. I hope that sounds as illogical to you as it does to me. He wants to ban Muslims from entering the USA. He wants to build a wall. He also doesn’t acknowledge climate change. I mean, no wonder I’m getting messages like, “get ready for doomsday”. What is this man capable of?
What scares me most is that the Kremlin released a statement, "Putin expressed hope for joint work to restore Russian-American relations from their state of crisis, and also to address pressing international issues and search for effective responses to challenges concerning global security". Now I don’t know about you, but I’m not really looking forward to Putin and Trump controlling all of those nuclear weapons.
There is a positive outcome to this election and that’s the reactions of millennials. Popping up on my feeds all day have been an array of posts, some more positive than others. Many have been realistic and pointed out the fact that Donald Trump is an ass and some things that occur in the next four years (if he lasts that long) may be really bad. Some however have been focused on what we, the human race, can do to make the world better. Some deny the power of Trump and his spiteful words and some simply focus on the power of love. Now, this is why I love being a millennial. Yes, sometimes we sound like pot smoking hippies. But really, is this not a good thing? The youth of today have global citizenship. They understand the importance of diversity, interdependence, sustainable development and empathy and this is a good thing.
While searching the web, I found a website that discusses what the outcome of the election could have been had millennials voted – it’s worth a read!
Source: SurveyMonkey
Source: AP
From the above illustrations, you can see that there is a clear difference in opinion and also in viewpoints between our generation and our parents and grandparent’s generations. But that is simply the reality of the situation and we cannot do anything about it. This will continue to be the case no matter what country events occur, BREXIT and Trump may just be the beginning. So instead of getting too emotional about the circumstance the world now finds itself, please remember one thing. We will live longer than them. We will change more than them. We will make a better world than they did.
Source: coryrichards instagram
