The results are in: a former reality TV star and a world-famous businessman will, in January, become the leader of our nation. Donald Trump has forever changed the face of United States Presidential elections.  President-elect Trump has shown us that anyone can become president; all you need is a lot of money, the proper platform, and an emotionally charged campaign to do so.  

On November 14, 2016, Donald Trump’s name was announced to the world as the 45th president of the United States of America, and he will take office on January 20th. In the meantime, while current President Barrack Obama finishes up his final term in office, Trump is in the process of selecting his closest advisors to step in on Inauguration Day. Trump has been working with transition team advisors to carefully choose the members of his presidential cabinet. Typically, this process interests the American people, and the country is eager to see who will be helping our newest president do what’s best for the nation.

The whole 2016 presidential election has been far from normal, and many have criticized the campaign that the Trump team ran. Now, Trump is causing a similar level of controversy with his initial cabinet selections. The President’s cabinet has been around since the first Presidency and was established in the constitution by Article 2, Section II. The cabinet’s role is to help advise the President on any subject he may need help on in relation to the duties of each member in the cabinet. As Trump selects his closest advisors, we thought it would be interesting to see where the American people’s sentiment stands in the wake of the most dramatic campaign and election in history.

In order to get a better gauge on  the opinions that people in our school held towards the election, we interviewed members of our school community that voted in this most recent election. In our interviews, our main goal was not to portray our own opinions and beliefs, but instead to ascertain the voting population’s decisions in the election.

We chose our questions carefully and asked questions that targeted the voters’ reasons for choosing one candidate or the other. Although we did not disclose the voter’s final vote for president, we did ask some general questions about the election. These questions included, ‘Who would you have liked to see win the election?’ and ‘would seeing a woman take office surprise you?’

The responses we received from these questions were variable, but definitely proved to be interesting. We found that most people who voted would have been surprised to see a woman take office, 80% to be exact. However, our results to the question about satisfaction with the election results are contrary to this. 100% of our survey participants reported that they were not satisfied with the outcome of the 2016 election. Based on this data, we have inferred that most people did not vote for Trump in this election.

Our follow-up question created a lively conversation from participants. For those respondents that stated they were not pleased with the president-elect (100%), we asked why they had this opinion. One person stated flat out, “how can I be happy with a President I can’t even respect?” Harsh words. It was in these responses that we noticed the most diversity among answers. But, through all of the responses the thread of negativity persisted. This was a very unhappy sample population that we spoke with.

Whether it be religious, politics, or race that determines your decision in the election, we made sure not to exploit anyone’s personal opinions when conducting these interviews for this article, and therefore have chosen to refrain from sharing some of the more charged comments. The key takeaway is that not only has Donald Trump shown America what is necessary to win a Presidential election, but he has also shown us exactly how such an emotionally charged election takes its toll on the voting populous.

Hopefully our nation can find healing in the weeks leading up to the Inauguration and President-elect Trump’s first months in office. With the help of our new President and the support of his Cabinet and Congress, we must move forward from the mistakes we have made thus far.