The 2024 presidential election results are officially in, and the response has been polarizing. Many Republicans are overjoyed, celebrating by drinking and donning MAGA merch while the Democrats are mourning and plotting their move to Canada. 

Here at the Advance-Titan, we have some thoughts of our own. We were all together in the A-T newsroom producing next week’s newspaper when we found out the results, which is perhaps one of the worst places to find out election results.

Production night is already stressful enough without a presidential election going on, so trying to focus on what needed to get done was incredibly difficult. One of the editors remembers thinking, “who cares about AP style when human rights are at stake?” 

When the results dropped, pretty much everyone in the room was silent. It felt like an inescapable nightmare. 

“You could especially see the light leaving the eyes of the women in the room,” one editor recalled. “They just wanted to go home and mourn, but there was still work to do. They still had homework and exams and classes they had to go to when it felt like the rug was pulled out from underneath them.” 

For weeks we had been devouring political content, eating polls like candy. By the time Election Day rolled around, we were incredibly burnt out, and the results just seemed like a final blow to our mental state. 

Our initial reaction was confusion, which then turned into sadness and fear, which then quickly matured to anger. We practically went through the five stages of grief in the course of 15 minutes. 

Sobered up, our opinions are still the same, just diluted. We’re still just as confused as to how this man secured both the popular and electoral vote, especially after his many embarrassing campaign mistakes this year, and the last election’s not-so-peaceful transfer of power.

If anything, the results just show that people in this country care more about making money than they do about helping other people. In a lot of the exit polls from Election Day, people said that the number one reason they voted for Donald Trump was because of the state of the economy. 

“Apparently to most voters, the economy weighed more on them than women’s rights, extending protections to minority groups and expanding healthcare,” an editor said. “If that is the way that most people feel, then so be it, but if you voted for [Donald] Trump, there should be no complaints about the economy for the next four years and you can’t blame the Democrats on the economy for this next term now that Republicans lead in the House and Senate.”

We agreed that Kamala Harris’ campaign was flawed. 

Not only did she get a fraction of the time to campaign, but her campaign had some fundamental problems as well. 

In order to win some of the swing states, especially in the Midwest, she should have made more efforts to speak with farmers and more rural communities. 

She was more focused on urban areas in her campaign because she knew she would most likely win those areas, rather than taking a chance to personally go out to rural communities. Instead, she sent people to rural areas on behalf of her campaign, which didn’t feel genuine to many. 

Her campaign also depended too much on defaming Trump and the fact that she isn’t him, which is not only an ad hominem fallacy but also disappointing for voters who were looking for a solid plan.

In this way, the results weren’t too surprising. We had a feeling going into Election Day that we were going to see another Trump presidency. 

We were more surprised by the fact that Trump won by so many votes. We could not believe that he saw gains with Latino voters with his threats to close the border and to deport as many people as he can. 

“I have a lot of Latino friends who know people who came here illegally and who voted for Harris to protect their friends and family,” said one editor. “I was surprised that more Latino voters around the country didn’t vote for Harris.”

Others on the A-T team had a different experience. 

“I was trying so hard to be optimistic that I managed to back myself into a corner,” another editor said. “I was convinced Harris would win and I spent all of Election Day skipping around with a huge smile on my face. After the initial shock and horror subsided, reality set in and I questioned how I didn’t see Trump’s win coming.”

All politics and beliefs aside, if you truly love this country, then you should be horrified that people stormed the capitol building after the President declared that the election was stolen and told people to ‘fight like hell.’ 

These facts are undeniable. They are not political. We are disgusted by how many people witnessed these attacks and voted for the person that encouraged them and who, numerous times, falsely said that the 2020 election was stolen from him. 

“It’s funny how most of Trump’s supporters hate ‘fake news’ (at an Election Day party I was asked if I produce fake news from a Trump supporter), but the person that creates misinformation and tells people what they should and shouldn’t believe is Trump.” It’s a classic example of the call coming from inside the house.

As for these next four years, the selfish part of us wants to have a sort of “told you so” moment and have everyone who voted for Trump suffer exactly what they voted for: a regressive society and a massive blow to the middle and lower classes. 

However, we know this won’t benefit anyone except Trump and his good-old-boys club. So, we sincerely hope Trump does not accomplish anything he says he will. 

We also hope he isn’t able to load the Supreme Court with whoever he wants during his presidency because that has the possibility of leaving a lasting impact on the country for years beyond his presidency.

“I feel like most of his second term will be spent undoing everything that Joe Biden did (which in turn, was to undo everything that Trump did in his first term), and once we have elected a new President, they will most likely undo everything Trump has done,” one editor said. “Basically, we will have barely gotten anywhere in the 21st century.”

We hope that the world does not dive into war, and that climate change doesn’t end all of humanity. As long as the U.S. still exists and we are alive, we will take that as a win. 

In the meantime, we hope Americans can take a step back from the theatrics of the recent election and truly educate themselves on political candidates and their policies. Media literacy seems to be a dying skill, and for the sake of our country, it needs to be restored. 

Overall, we are equally terrified for the future of our country and the people in it. Half of the population is getting their rights taken away, and the other half is happy to trade in the rights of others to keep their pockets lined.

What’s even more terrifying is that a lot of Trump supporters claim to be Christian while simultaneously idolizing him and being greedy. Moreover, they are idolizing somebody that spews hate, and goes directly against Jesus’ teachings of love and acceptance.

Regardless, we will endure these next four years together with the sentiment that Trump cannot run after this and with a blazing hope at the end that, after four years under Trump, America will finally be ready to have a woman as president.