The essays, analyses and opinions presented as Community Voices express the perspectives of their authors on topics of interest and importance to the community, and are not intended to reflect perspectives on behalf of Salish Current.
From a digital distance, insults and judgments fly in the aftermath.
Election Day wasn’t long past when social media feeds around the Pacific Northwest began boiling over with emotions about the results. People voiced despair, fear, celebration and even threats. Everyone seemed to have an opinion.
“We grieve. We rage. We will take action. Will you?” reads one Instagram post by @womensmarch, a verified page. The words are white block letters set on a solid black background.
A like-minded post reads, “If men could die from accidentally getting someone pregnant they would be voting differently.” The caption adds, “why is it so hard to put yourself in our shoes?” The post was made by @salty.world, who is also a verified account.
To be verified on Instagram an account needs to represent a well-known business, entity or person and apply for verification or pay Meta. A blue verification check mark means the account is exactly who they claim to be.
Grace Schumock, a college student at Portland State University, who is not a verified account, was among those who reposted quotes and content that resonated with her reaction to the election.
“I was totally shocked when I heard that Trump won. I could not believe that he won the electoral college as well as the popular vote. I was so sad and scared when I found out,” she explained.
Schumock regularly engages with current events on social media. Her Instagram story was lively with posts throughout the day. When she found something that she felt represented how she was feeling, she shared it with her followers. The posts she chose to share was an array of content.
Her shared posts revealed the fear other women, people of color and the LGBTQ+ community have about the next four years. Most posts were about taking care of yourself and grieving, but getting ready to get back up and standing up for LGTBQ+, people of color and women’s rights.
Though these are only a few posts, they and many others like them were shared on Instagram stories and liked by hundreds of thousands of people.
The message is simple: Many Democrats in the Pacific Northwest are angry and scared. The feeling expressed by many is to grieve now, but don’t let them (the other side) get you down. Don’t let them win.
Nina Englund, a student at Western Washington University says the results were slow to hit her. She was almost numb to seeing that Trump had won when she woke up at 6 a.m. on Nov. 6.
“By the time I went to bed I already kinda knew what was gonna happen. I don’t know how I got myself to sleep that night,” Englund said, adding that this might have contributed to her numbness in the morning. “Honestly it was just a big like ‘are you joking?’ kinda moment.”
Her posts took on an angrier stance than those of Schumock, such as warning that if people voted for Trump they would not be treated with niceties. She mentioned that watching her follower account go down was almost like “watching the trash take itself out.”
Instagram was not the only platform buzzing with grief and celebration. X, formerly known as Twitter, was filled with similar posts but many people felt more comfortable saying outlandish and crude things. Nicholas J. Fuentes, a 26-year-old social media personality and a diehard conservative Republican, certainly did not hold back.
“Your body, my choice. Forever.”
His comment did not go unnoticed. Responses from women included things such as, “I’m buying a gun,” and “Holy shit.”
One interaction on the thread of comments on Fuentes’ post was especially jarring.
A woman responded by saying that no woman would ever let him procreate with them. Underneath her comment, another man responded, “We don’t need permission.”
His post on X circled various social media sites and garnered even more attention on Instagram
Unfortunately, it was not the only unhinged post on X. Perhaps the somewhat new owner of X, Elon Musk, who recently joined president-elect Donald Trump’s team has something to do with it. In the past Musk has made public negative comments about Vivian Wilson, his “estranged transgender daughter,” saying that she was “killed by the woke mind virus.”
Posts like this on X by the owner himself open the floodgates for others to jump on the bandwagon of hate, racism, sexism and homophobia. The site’s new community guidelines seem to be lenient, if they are even enforced, and allow people like Fuentes to make threatening comments and others to like and share them.
Trump’s win this election has shone light on how many of our neighbors, community members and even family members think about the women and LGTBQ+ communities around them and making at least some venues a safe place for hate.
— By Sophie Bechkowiak
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