Elaina “Ellie” Enselein grieved over the results of the presidential election.
The 21-year-old Kent State student joined a few dozen classmates at the iconic campus rock — a focal point for peaceful protest — on the day after the election. There, students read poems and reflected.
The following day, a couple of hundred gathered for support on the plaza outside the KSU Student Center. Most had backed Hillary Clinton.
Reaching the final stage of her postelection grieving process, Enselein never protested. Never lit a fire. She woke up Thursday — 24 hours after hearing the results — and decided to “stop complaining” and take action.
The Chicago native, who is studying public relations and electronic media, drafted a 100-day action plan. It includes denouncing hate, recognizing and using her privilege as a white woman to support and respect the marginalized, spreading love, volunteering, writing an elected official and studying President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda for the first 100 days, then holding him accountable.
“Staying close-minded is the enemy of democracy,” Enselein said. “Stay calm, level-headed … Don’t point fingers … Listen.”
Young voters from Kent to Akron who didn’t support Trump are expressing varying degrees of resentment, acceptance and confusion in the aftermath a Trump victory. News reports of violent protests, attacks on minorities and vandalism have kept the 24/7 news cycle spinning. That Clinton took the popular vote but lost the election has made reconciliation hard for some.
Trump supporters say the protests look more like riots, and the national media are contributing to deep divisions in America instead of bringing the country together after a lawful election.
Some young African-Americans say they are willing to give Trump another chance. They say it sounds like he’s abandoned the racist, misogynistic and xenophobic rhetoric that followed him through a bruising campaign. Others remain in shock that some of his fans — not all, they say — openly embraced white nationalism.
Shock and approval
Michael Ahenkora cast his ballot for Clinton.
When the results came in, “I was like, ‘Oh, wow,’ ” said Ahenkora, a computer information major at the University of Akron.
Since then, he’s tracked violence in state and national media reports, sometimes caught on camera and spread on social media. “I’ve seen people attacked because they were Muslim or black,” he said. “I thought, ‘Is this what the next four years is going to be like?’ ”
Then President-elect Trump showed signs of softening. The call now is to deport about 2 million undocumented immigrants, not more than 11 million. Pieces of the Affordable Care Act may stand. And after repeatedly calling Clinton “crooked” during the campaign, Trump applauded her after the election as “strong” and “smart.”
On Sunday, he asked his fans to be peaceful after telling them he’d cover their legal fees after attacking protesters at his rallies.
“I’m going to have to give him a chance,” said Ahenkora, who is buying the change of heart.
Ayanna Dunbar, 20, a sociology and criminal justice major, is unsure.
She said she’s troubled by comments Trump has made about women and how his policing policies might target minorities.
“I think he really meant a lot of things he said,” she said. “I guess a lot of people were drawn to it.” Then again, she added, Clinton also “said some racist stuff.”
Hyped up
Hershey Dudipala, a natural sciences major at UA, said it was a big election but “I feel like everything was hyped up.”
She sees reports of racist graffiti on a mosque in New York and figures “some people are using Trump’s election as a platform for more racist actions. But I know that not all Trump supporters are racist.”
As for whether the country would abide by the racism and xenophobia on display in the election, “I don’t think the people of America would let that happen,” Dudipala, 18, said. “We’re too civil.”
For young Trump supporters, national news organizations are fanning the dissent, if not igniting it.
“I see the national media, for the most part, as almost colluding with these paid agitators, creating a false narrative of what really happened,” said Dan DeVito, a 24-year-old UA law student. “They’re picking up every little incident and trying to attribute it to Trump supporters. I think that’s another way to divide the people.”
“He won,” DeVito said. “We have an election process. And if you look at those protesting the results, it shows a disrespect for our constitutional republic and the rule of law.”
DeVito said it’s been hard to talk with Clinton supporters. “I do hate to say it, but in my conversations with the other side, many of them are throwing what I would call temper tantrums. Many are not willing to come together for the future of the country,” DeVito said.
Muslim concerned
Walking toward Exchange Street to grab lunch with a friend, a Middle Eastern man in his 30s considered the implications of a Trump presidency.
Anti-Muslim sentiment, he said, was palpable throughout the election. Here on a student visa, he was reminded of a post-9/11 era when the nation cracked down on international immigration and travel, and violence against Muslims increased.
“It could come back again,” said the young man, who did not want to be photographed or named because he is Muslim and fears retaliation. “I think it’s shaky. It’s happening.”
Doug Livingston can be reached at 330-996-3792 or dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @ABJDoug .