Questions answered, concerns shared at post-election roundtable
Salem, Mass., Nov. 9, 2016 — More than 30 students filled the Metro Room in Salem State University’s Ellison Campus Center to discuss the results of the 2016 Presidential Election on Wednesday.
The Post-election Roundtable Discussion, lead by the chairperson of the Political Science department, Kani Sathasivam, and Associate Professor Dan Mulcare, allowed students to bring a variety of questions to the table on the supreme court, political parties, foreign policy, and the news media.
Students had filled the space behind the occupied round table when Mulcare began the discussion and addressed the surprise he felt towards the election results because certain political science theories to determine the winner did not hold up this election cycle.
One example Mulcare used that seemed to incorrectly point towards a win for Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail was the endorsement by many leading newspapers, and even some conservative ones.
Sathasivam said he wanted to keep his focus on foreign policy questions, but first addressed why he perceived Donald Trump won more than 60 million votes from the general public and clinched the election with 290 electoral votes.
“For a lot of those people, it’s less about voting for trump than giving both middle fingers to the elites… news media elites, university elites, and especially the hollywood celebrities, who are in the deepest of shock,” Sathasiyam said.
He added that the middle portion of the United States felt that those elites on the east and west coasts don’t care to include the rest of the country in their politics and look down on that population’s beliefs and values.
Sathasiyam, who is teaching a class on foreign policy this semester, explained how this election cycle provoked reactions from other countries that were “unprecedented.”
“A lot of leaders around the world broke what is the normal thing to do, which is to not take sides in an american presidential election, and openly endorsed Clinton,” he said.
Those who endorsed Clinton during her campaign, like France and Mexico, quickly gave congratulations to the president-elect in order to create a strong relationship and to quell uncertainty surrounding Trump’s foreign policy plans.
“The angst is merely about what happens because we don’t know. Trump has been extremely vague, no policy statements have been made, so that’s what these foreign governments want,” Sathasiyam said.
The floor was opened for students to ask specific questions for the majority of the event. One student wanted a better understanding of third parties and asked whether one can tell if third party voters had an impact on the election results.
“It depends state by state if those votes would have broken for Trump or Clinton,” he said.
Professor Mulcare briefly explained that our political system is “not set up” for third parties to be successful in presidential politics because although they can gain traction in the primary process, building third party political institutions like that of Republicans or Democrats is much more challenging.
The discussion, which was the final event of the Center for Civic Engagement’s Pizza and Politics Series, helped put some students at ease with the results.
Julio Mota, a junior in the political science department, said that he was uncertain about what Trump could do before he attended the discussion.
“Now, I’m definitely confident that he’ll be able to do a good deal of what he wants. It’s an opportunity Republicans won’t want to let go of,” said Mota before leaving the event.
Other students, like 23-year-old Nadine Kanj, are much less confident. Kanj, who is a Muslim, said she is mad about the results.
“I don’t agree on having a president that wants to put a ban on Muslims. It’s terrifying. America’s supposed to be made up of all different races, colors, everything,” Kanj said.
After attending the event, Kanj was still uneasy about the results of the election, but her view of the way America is supposed to be has kept her optimistic.
“I feel a little better because we’re all together,” she said. “We all support each other so hopefully we can get past these four years.”
