Jim McElwain took to the microphone following the football team’s loss to Florida State on Saturday looking like he’d just been told about a dead relative.
You’ve probably heard of fracking before. For those of you who have not heard of it, let me provide a brief overview. Fracking is another name for hydraulic fracturing, which is a drilling technique used to extract oil or natural gas from deep underground. Right now, fracking is a hotly debated topic both environmentally and politically. Some people say it’s fine, safe and economically sustainable. Others disagree, claiming it leads to contaminated drinking water, air pollution and heightened conditions for global warming.
Protestors against the Dakota Access pipeline have been told to leave their camp by Dec. 5 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Although they said it’s to protect the protestors from confrontations and illness due to the harsh winter conditions, taking away their right to protest will actually do more to harm them. The people who are most affected by this are the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe; they will have a lot more problems in the future if the pipeline is built without interference. The protestors must be allowed to voice their concerns until they are heard.
So two weeks have passed now, and many are still upset, surprised or ecstatic that Donald Trump has been elected the future president of the U.S. Regardless of your position, some facts need to be addressed that are eluding the discourse in this post-election environment. This is not a liberal attack on all conservatives — Trump’s campaign included — nor is this a conservative bulwark. This column is an attempt to provide depth to a disillusioned, party-conflicted, currently anger-driven discourse.
Just because the election is over doesn’t mean we should just sit back and allow the next four years to pass us by. Republicans won not only the presidency, but the House and Senate as well, meaning they could wield a massive influence — including the appointment of Supreme Court justices and presidential appointments. Despite the number of Republicans who seemed to oppose Donald Trump, like Paul Ryan, it looks like opposition to Trump from within the Republican Party has just melted away.
A week ago, I spectated the anti-Donald Trump rally that was hosted by the Radical Student Association (RSA), and what I witnessed was disturbing. I heard the foolish spewing from both sides: the RSA’s representative speaker declaring, “I hate America,” and the Trump supporter in a U.S. hat shouting, “Leave our country.” However, what I saw was even more horrifying. I saw the convulsions of my fellow students’ faces, spit flying from their mouths as they attempted to scream all they could, and the little twitches in each of them when you could tell they’ve had enough – it was the tangible manifestation of how we have all felt during this grueling election year. It was fear, anger and confusion.
It’s almost time for a break! This is exciting. Time to eat your body weight in stuffing, watch some football and then fall asleep on the floor at 6 p.m. Thanksgiving is also a time for family, which excites most people I talk to. However, this year more than any other, I’ve heard people sigh with dread when I bring up Thanksgiving. I ask why they feel this way, and it has been the same answer every time.
BATON ROUGE, La. — One after the other, they ran off the sideline.
Ever since the advent of national news outlets in America, the country’s mass media has almost universally been more liberal. Those who are more Republican have accepted this as fact, using this as a go-to line whenever debating someone of the opposite party. This election season, however, has revealed the true severity of the media’s political leaning, and Republicans have finally, after decades of tolerating this as an unwavering feature of the culture, begun to say “no more.”
I feel like, on a national level, a lot of us have been moving through the stages of grief during this past week and a half. It started with us being in absolute denial that a candidate who many of us saw to be unfit had been elected. Once the initial shock subsided we were angry, outraged at the hateful reactions of extreme supporters. Some of us tried bargaining with the Electoral College as a last resort, with the hopes that maybe, just this one time, history could be rewritten and things would work out in our favor. When we realized that wasn’t possible, you could say a depression hit. It has taken a while to start moving on, but a lot of us are starting to accept the things we cannot change.
Election Day came as a shock for many of us, and very few succeeded in predicting the outcome — not the academics, intellectuals or media, and certainly not the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Instead of doing the predictable thing and giving my hot take on the election results, which will undoubtedly echo that of people in my similar demographic, I’m going to talk about memes.
It began even before either candidate had hit the magic threshold of 270 projected electoral votes.
The night before my birthday, Nov. 3, I received the gift I was hoping for but didn’t expect: The Chicago Cubs won the World Series.
If you ask the average college football fan why the sport trumps all others, he or she might point to this past weekend as proof.
Since the election, we have seen some mixed responses to the results. From protest to social confrontation, the U.S. has been facing an important transitional stage. As a Latina, I have had the opportunity to experience both sides of the coin these days, from friends approaching me to offer their support and tell me they will always have my back to acquaintances stereotyping me and joking about my immigration status.
The summer after sixth grade I was 12 years old, and I was attending camp on weekdays while my parents were at work. This was the first time in my life I noticed the sexual features of the female body. Every day I would go to the pool, and I’d see girls wearing skimpy bikinis, outlining their breasts and showing off large patches of skin on their stomachs, legs and backs. It was during this summer that I French-kissed a girl for the first time. She was one year older than me, she had curly blond hair and her cheeks were peppered with acne. We made out by the vending machines at a bowling alley the camp took us to.
The “Unleash your Creativity Through Technology” tour brought a multitude of women from diverse fields of study to discuss their issues with current gender inequity and how to progress toward higher education for women.
Like many others, I had to take a break from social media in the days following the election. While I understood some prefer to sort through their emotions on a public platform, I also realized I was soaking up these feelings like an overly empathetic sponge. In the past year, social media became synonymous with the election, as each day brought new stories, poll numbers and voices to my various feeds.
Solutions by The State News
