Terese Marie Mailhot: What went wrong with the 2016 presidential election

My son was in tears. He asked me if his grandmother would be deported (she’s a citizen born in Mexico). He’s eleven and a better, kinder person than I am. I told him that she wouldn’t be deported, and that we can afford lawyers, and then I named all the friends and family we knew who would defend the rights of the most vulnerable in America. A bully won the election. Where did we go wrong?

Apparently Clinton didn’t appeal to white women. Apparently Clinton didn’t appeal to people of color. Many Indigenous people felt lukewarm about Clinton, or voted for a third party candidate, or were ostensibly incapable of human empathy or rationality.

I want to say Clinton ruined herself. She made limp remarks about Water Protectors at Standing Rock, and she was too late in taking accountability concerning mass incarceration, and calling humans ‘super predators’ wasn’t a good look. She didn’t pull people of color in, and, Hillary supporters, you didn’t help with your various white feminist posts that excluded people of color.