The Most Thoughtful Human Story of the Election I’ve Read
I received this email from a friend. He gave me permission to publish it but asked to do so anonymously. It was so thoughtful, so gracious, so explanatory — I felt you would all enjoy reading it. It’s from a startup founder. It’s unedited.
“i read your tweets tonight, mark. i am there with you.
i grew up in the suburbs of cleveland, ohio and i was hopeful because my high school buddies who live there and are conservatives told me they could never vote for hillary, but they couldn’t vote for trump either.
but i had breakfast with my dad at a denny’s this summer that concerned me. he is a deeply principled man. a very good person with strong values. he is rust belt middle class. he went to the seminary for years to be a priest but ultimately felt it wasn’t for him. he cares deeply about people, is the kindest person i know, and doesn’t have a racist bone in his body. he coached me and my 3 siblings in basketball and soccer and more. he’s that dad. at that breakfast he told me was voting for trump and he was certain trump would win. this was weeks before the conventions.
he told me this wasn’t about democrats and republicans. it was about bringing down the establishment. and clinton embodied the establishment. he didn’t like trump, but said we needed an outsider. he thought clinton was far more flawed than trump.
he told me nobody in the media got it. he didn’t care about any polls. he said there were millions like him who were so angry at the path we were on that they would put anyone in the office to blow it all up. he said he would bet his life savings on a trump win (but he doesn’t gamble).
i tried to convince him how wrong he was. i appealed in every way i could. his mind was made up. he believed he was doing the best thing for the country.
people like my dad elected trump president. of course there is the alt right and more whackjobs who voted for trump, but trump only won because he struck a chord with the mainstream. he got people like my dad to vote for him — good people who believed they did the right thing by voting for him.
my wife was crying tonight over this election. it felt like the biggest failure of america we’ve ever experienced. we talked about how to we discuss this election with our kids tomorrow. our 7-year-old is very curious.
tomorrow i’m starting our work day with discussing the election with our team. we have a community who in large part will no doubt be feeling anger and depression and fear over trump’s victory. and it’s our job to support and lead them. i don’t know exactly how we’re going to do that yet, but it’s our job.
i don’t know why i’m typing this out to you other than i know how deeply you feel about this election and i thought as a rust belter myself, i could give you some insight.
tomorrow we get back at it.
