It would be extremely ill mannered to arrive from a foreign land and presume to offer an opinion on an election result. I may be many things but rude isn't one of them. If, however, people want to tell me their opinion, I'm all ears. And I hadn't even left the airport termimal when that happened. Also as I am not adverse to a small amount of eaves dropping (how's that claim about good manners looking now) the election result was pretty much the talk of the town. In Washington DC, that probably shouldn't come as a surprise. Seeing as I am in Washington DC, like any good tourist, I simply had to walk to the White House. There was Tom holding a sign reading "In God We Trust", waving an American flag and playing patriotic music from a portable CD player. He says he's there most days normally more directly in front of the White House but hastily erected barracades following post election demonstrations had forced him back a bit. "It's funny how people say they believe in democracy and the will of the people until the vote goes a way they don't like," he reflected.
Karin was wearing a large cardboard sign with letters not unlike those I've seen on many a school project. "America is Stronger than Trump". Now it wouldn't take a genius to guess she didn't vote for Donald Trump but she volunteered that information anyway. But that wasn't why she was there. Her call to arms was that first and foremost she was not a Clinton supporter or a Trump supporter but an American and that was the cause people needed to now unite under.Oliva's sign respectfully declined Donald Trump as her President of the United States. She said there had been protests and there were still protestors outside Trump Towers in Washington. That wasn't her style. She was more peace loving.
And so it went. There will be a candle lit vigil tomorrow night. I might go and take a look. I might leave it to those who actually had a say on the next president of the free world. Like Olivia, I'm a peace loving soul but a journalist at heart. We'll see.
No comments:
Post a Comment