Keep Calm And Carry On
Reflections On A Tumultuous Election
By Tom Korson, Special to the GPHN
![12-16-korson-pic](http://greaterparkhill.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/12.16.Korson-pic.jpg)
The election of Donald Trump to be our 45th president surprised a great many people, quite probably including the Trump campaign itself.
There has been much turmoil in the wake of the election of Mr. Trump. Protests have erupted in major cities, including Denver. There are reports that students in other countries who had planned to apply for admission to colleges and universities in the United States are now unsure whether they should do so because of comments made by Mr. Trump while he was a candidate.
![Thusday, November 10th, Downtown Denver CO. An Estimated of 5,000 people shoulder to shoulder curb to curb march down Champa St.](http://greaterparkhill.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/12.16.Election-protest-photo.2.jpg)
A friend of ours who works at the University of Denver told us recently that many students on campus, especially women and minorities, have expressed fear and anguish about the result of the election.
Mr. Trump’s rhetoric at his rallies was inflammatory. His positions about immigration have marginalized Mexicans in particular and Latinos in general. He has demonstrated disrespect for women. He has called for a ban on Muslims from troubled areas of the Middle East to enter the United States. He cruelly imitated a disabled reporter. He has derided the media.
Many of our friends have expressed shock, dismay, and fear about what a Trump presidency will be like. I know of at least two churches that opened their doors the day after the election to provide opportunities for prayer and reflection.
In our backyard
My wife and I have lived in Park Hill since 1973. We moved into this wonderful neighborhood at the tail end of the blockbusting, which had divided Park Hill along racial lines in the 1950s and 1960s, and we wanted to live in a racially integrated neighborhood.
One reason why this is such a welcoming neighborhood is the work of the Park Hill Action Committee, which grew into the Greater Park Hill Community, Inc. Rev. J. Carlton Babbs was the minister at Park Hill United Methodist Church from 1955 until his death in 1978. He and others tirelessly supported racial integration in Park Hill, particularly in housing.
Without such brave efforts of Rev. Babbs and many others, this neighborhood would not be what it is today, and we would not have chosen it as our longtime residence.
Hillary Clinton won Colorado’s nine Electoral College votes with 47.8 percent of the vote. Donald Trump received 43.7 percent of the vote in Colorado. Denver, long a Democratic stronghold, voted 73.6 percent for Clinton, while Trump received only 18.9 percent of the Mile High City’s vote.
This was the first time since Colorado achieved statehood that the Republican candidate won the election without carrying Colorado. No Republican had won the White House without carrying our state since 1908.
Trump won four counties in southern Colorado that voted for President Obama in 2012. As of press time, as absentee votes continue to be counted, the New York Times reported that nationally, Clinton received 1.7 million more votes than Trump.
Like many of our friends, we supported Hillary Clinton. We attended fundraisers for her. We hosted two Clinton campaign volunteers for a month before the election.
There were yard signs for Hillary Clinton all over Park Hill, but I saw only two Trump signs in our neighborhood.
‘I just don’t want them around me’
The New York Times published a fine article on Nov. 15, “Political Divide Splits Relationships – And Thanksgiving, Too.” In the piece, a team of reporters interviewed voters around the country who found that their family relationships had been greatly disrupted because of hard feelings arising from differing views about the election and its result.
A software developer in Boulder canceled his plans to go to Texas for Thanksgiving, where his family members are all Trump supporters. One couple, Clinton supporters, changed their wedding plans from a wedding in the United States to a venue in Italy because they knew that relatives in Florida – strong Trump supporters – would not make the trip. “I just don’t want them around me on the most important day of my life,” the bride said.
The reporters spoke with Misty Bastian, an anthropologist in Pennsylvania who is originally from rural Tennessee. Bastian told them that she had sensed a “parting of the political ways” from her family in Tennessee for a long time, but that her support for Hillary Clinton seemed to be “the last nail in the coffin.”
The sun rose
There is a great need for healing. One way I try to cope is by displaying my copy of the motivational poster, “Keep Calm and Carry On,” which was developed by the British government in 1939 amid widespread fears about the coming Second World War.
I greatly admire the statesmanship and leadership of President Obama, who remarked after the election that on Nov. 9, the sun rose. A statement of elegant simplicity. Mr. Obama and Mr. Trump met in the Oval Office shortly after the election, and the president promised his full cooperation in the transition.
In his First Inaugural Address in 1861, President Abraham Lincoln, seeking to avoid the Civil War after seven southern states had already formed the Confederate States of America, appealed to “the better angels of our nature.” It is my fervent hope that the better angels of our nature will bring us through this very tumultuous time.
Tom Korson and his wife, Mary Mullarkey, have lived in Park Hill since 1973.