As Trump takes the oath, many voters still can’t believe it
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Flags with the image of President-elect Donald Trump are displayed for sale on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington on Thursday.
NEW YORK >> On the morning 19 months ago when Donald Trump descended the escalator in his glitzy Manhattan tower, waving to onlookers who lined the rails, many Americans knew little about him beyond that he was very rich and had a thing for firing people on a reality television show.
No one can plausibly say they knew that the man who launched his candidacy that day would be elected the nation’s 45th president. As Trump prepares to take the oath of office Friday, many Americans still can’t quite believe that a presidency that still seems almost bizarrely improbable becomes a reality on Friday.
“I thought it was a joke. He’d run, he’d lose early and he’d be out,” said Christopher Thoms-Bauer, 20, a bookkeeper and college student from Bayonne, New Jersey, who originally backed Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s Republican candidacy.
Then, Thoms-Bauer recalled, came the night in November when he joined friends in a diner after a New Jersey Devils hockey game and watched, stunned, as Trump eked out wins in key states.
“Having this realization that he was really going to become president was really just a surreal moment,” said Thoms-Bauer, who gave his write-in vote to Evan McMullin, a former CIA agent who ran as a conservative alternative to Trump. “It still doesn’t make sense.”
For all the country’s political divisions, plenty of people on both sides of the aisle share that disbelief.
“I thought there was no way he could win,” said Crissy Bayless, a Rhode Island photographer who on Thursday tweeted a picture of the Statue of Liberty holding her face in her hands, despairing over Trump’s imminent inauguration.
“How am I feeling? Wow.. disgusted. nauseous and honestly like I’m in a nightmare,” Bayless, 38, wrote in a conversation via email.
When Barack Obama won the White House in 2008, the election of the nation’s first black president felt to many like one of the most improbable moments in the nation’s political history. The idea of the election of a white billionaire born of privilege feels implausible to many in very different ways — and that may say as much about the country as it does about Trump.
When Trump announced his candidacy, Kayla Coursey recognized him as the developer who had tried and failed to build a golf course she’d opposed in her hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia. She recalled him as stubborn and resistant to pressure from local residents and officials. That, she said made his candidacy for president feel like a joke. Trump’s election felt downright surreal, she said.
In the weeks since, “there was always the hope that things will somehow magically become better. However, now we know (Friday) at noon we’re going to be welcoming President Trump, which is surreal in and of itself,” said Coursey, a college student in Roanoke, Virginia.
David Sawyers, a 42-year-old truck unloader from Grindstone, Pennsylvania, who backed Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary before voting for Trump, said the big crowds that turned out for the candidate’s rallies convinced him the billionaire could win. But he never felt certain, not when he recalled how Al Gore had won the popular vote in 2000, but lost the presidency to George W. Bush.
“You follow history,” said Sawyers, who’s happy with the outcome, “and there are some points where you definitely know history is being made and tomorrow is one of those times.”
Sawyers will be working during Friday’s inauguration, so he plans to record it and watch it later. But others said they remain so stunned by Trump’s election it will be best if they turn away.
Tyler Wilcox, a 23-year-old musician in Riverton, Utah, has been dreading inauguration day. He lists his location on Twitter as “Not My President” and is planning to avoid all coverage of the ceremonies.
“I just feel like it’s, I guess you can say, the beginning of the end,” he said.
And Coursey, who identifies as “queer” and is deeply worried by the threat she believes Trump’s administration poses to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans, said she would avoid joining other students in the dorm television lounge to watch the inauguration.
“I’m concerned that I’d be just a crying mess in the corner, or that somebody would say something and I wouldn’t hold my tongue or I’d end up getting in some kind of a physical argument,” she said.
Instead, Coursey said, she plans to search for a recording of Trump’s speech once its over, when she can watch it in private That way, she figures, she can pause it in uncomfortable moments when the presidency she never imagined becomes a little too real.
26 responses to “As Trump takes the oath, many voters still can’t believe it”
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Like anyone cares about what a 23 year old musician from Utah has to say about life.
Folks normally can move on but the media won’t let them. They just love to gossip and trash Trump which isn’t making things better.
Yeah, it’s done so lets move on and give the guy a chance. Why is Hillary’s people dividing the nation. The ball is in his court and congress won’t let him do anything to bring the country down. Republicans are in charge of all the current issues so let them figure it out like they promised and no democrats to blame.
Trump has already done an excellent job of divIding the nstion, and continues to do so. Hideous horrible Trump in cahoots with Putin to undermine the election and our nation
submit your ideas to make America better at http://www.greatagain.gov
IRT Vector: You got your facts all wrong. Trump is doing an excellent job bringing the country together and fixing the mess that Obama has created. Obama was the only person who divided this country. So go climb back in your crying room and play with your leggo, coloring books and stuffed animals and don’t come out till you have grown up.
Yes, and let’s not forget the hideous horrible “neutral” DNC in cahoots with the Clinton Campaign to undermine the election by helping Hillary defeat Sanders in the primary election, and let us not forget the hideous horrible media in cahoots with the Clinton Campaign to undermine the election by helping Hillary defeat Sanders in the primary election and Trump in the general election. And let us not forget the hideous horrible Hillary using an unsecured server to conduct sensitive and classified government business which helped undermine her own campaign.
Please pick up your unsuccessful Presidential candidate participation trophy next to the box of Kleenex. But hurry, the Kleenex will be going fast tomorrow!
Vector – an organism, typically a biting insect or tick, that transmits a disease or parasite from one animal or plant to another.
@ vector
Maybe if you expand your info base..include FOX because it’s obvious you get your info from MSM FAKEnews…get both sides then we can talk story.
TODAY #MAGA HAPPENS!
Quote:”In Luke 12:51 Jesus says “Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division; for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three.” It is time the nation wakes up and division is better than running like sheep all in one direction.
Allaha, you soooooo miss-quoted the scripture that I can not even begin to explain to you what the message in that passage really is…..
Whenever the Chump opens his mouth he energizes and motivates those who despise him. He is his worst enemy. With his approval rating at 43% his supporters are clearly the minority and eventually they will be overwhelmed.
My vote for Trump was a protest against the stifling political “correctness.”
America is already great, and not because of Trump and the Republicans
Vector – an organism, typically a biting insect or tick, that transmits a disease or parasite from one animal or plant to another.
“God Bless America”
God save us all!
FYI mainstream media (MSM):
POTUS Barack Obama was not the nation’s first black president. There have been six (6) sitting POTUS before him; Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Why do the media always emphasize that Obama is black, when he is half white? Reverse racism, that’s why!
I see that newspapers no longer employ editors lol…this story should never have found its way onto the Advertiser’s website….this is the epitome of slanted!
Madonna says we have gone as low as we can go? The stock market begs to differ. Some of us are laughing all the way to the bank.
Oh yeah it’s happening , sweetheart !!!! LOL
Today I’ll refrain from talking about BHO since his term is done and no longer in play.
BUT if he injects himself, negatively, in America’s business then I rescind my pledge to refrain.
#MakeAmericaGreatAgain
All these sore losers just can’t move on. You all LOST. Trump is our President so accept it. If you all want to know Clinton was no angel herself and her d$%$ husband.
Drink some Russian vodka; it will help to ease the pain.