OK, I'll Post About the Election

With Build Change's permission I stayed at the guest house this morning to watch the election returns. I wasn't all that surprised by the outcome. Disappointed perhaps, but not surprised. I was surprised by how long it took CNN and the BBC (the two English news stations that I get here in Nepal) to call the election for Trump. CNN didn't call it until Trump was literally walking up to the podium to give his victory speech. The extra time though did allow me to catch up on my LBNL projects.

My co-workers here though were all surprised by the result. In one case I had to show her a picture of the TV broadcasting Trump's acceptance speech before she would believe it:

I didn't realize how pink the wall is until now...

As you might expect, everyone that I talked to here in Nepal was no fan of Trump. They were convinced that he would lose and told me a number of times about how all the polls showed that Hillary Clinton would win. I reminded them that we in the USA have seen before how the polls for presidential elections can be misleading. There was also concern expressed that international aid from the USA could dry up under a Trump presidency. Much of the funds coming to places like Nepal are from USAID and the Clinton Foundation. USAID funding could disappear under Trump, and who knows what will happen now to the Clinton Foundation.

The same co-worker who told me I had the blessing of a sister asked me today if I was upset by the election. I told her I wasn't happy about it but I could live with the result. I believe that if America values democracy to the degree that many people claim it does then we must be able to live with the result. Otherwise we are being hypocritical. There were plenty of people who were upset when Barack Obama won 8 years ago and there were plenty of people who were upset when George W. Bush won in 2000, but we survived both presidencies with our democracy still intact. In fact, this may have been one of our most democratic presidential elections in years in that a guy that was not hand picked by the political party leadership won. And 4 years from now, we can vote him out.

That being said, I have no clue what this guy is going to do as president. None whatsoever. That's as far as I will go here with a political rant.

I was kidding though in my FAQs about staying in Nepal depending on who won. I booked my return trip long before I left, and my mom would be very upset if I didn't come home for Christmas. Besides, as I told my Facebook friends this morning before the results came in, I had proof that the sun would still rise the day after the election no matter who won.

See, the sun will come up, tomorrow...