Woodsville
When news anchors first announced that Trump had carried Pennsylvania early Wednesday morning, Laurie Rock pumped her fist in the air and shouted in triumph.
“It was such an epic moment,” she said on Wednesday morning, working the receptionist desk at the Grafton County Nursing Home in Haverhill, where Trump won a significant majority over Hillary Clinton. “It was something not to miss.”
Rock said she’s now looking forward to Trump making good on his campaign promises, including “bringing the jobs back here to this country, where they belong. We need jobs. We need to do something about the illegal immigration that’s flooding our country.”
Nursing home staff said 33 residents cast votes using absentee ballots. One was Oral Bourbeau, 84, originally from Hooksett, N.H., who said she was bothered by the outcome.
“Well, he loves war,” she said. “And I don’t understand all these swears — all this nastiness. What’s the point? All this dirty mouthing.”
Still, Bourbeau said she didn’t vote for Clinton, who pulled out a razor-thin victory in the Granite State. Because she didn’t like either major party nominee, Bourbeau cast her vote for a third-party candidate, Libertarian Gary Johnson.
Down the hall, Carol Thornblad, at the nursing home to visit her husband of 65 years, Carl Thornblad, said she was disappointed with the results, which she chalked up to the latest sign that women still don’t get a fair shake in America.
Concerns about civility were widespread throughout the region.
About 3 miles away, Woodsville High School Principal Eric Chase said that, over the past couple of months, he’s seen many signs of student engagement in the election, from bumper stickers and pins to spirited conversations with one another about the candidates.
Chase said the unusually bitter exchanges between the candidates represented a slight “erosion of social niceties” in the public discourse.
In one of the school’s classrooms, teacher Bob Scianna was teaching U.S. history to juniors and seniors including 17-year-old Adam Cataldo, of North Haverhill, who said he had fallen asleep on the couch at about 10 p.m., and was only half-awake when he heard his parents and siblings excitedly discussing the results.
“The main reason I chose to support Donald Trump was because of abortion, because I’m not really for it,” Cataldo said. “And he was the only one I saw that was against it.”
Ashley Machia, 17, of Haverhill, said she was concerned about the signals that Trump was sending to the American public.
“They think it’s OK to say, like, women are fat, ugly pigs. … Now that he has openly said all that sort of stuff on TV, people will more go along with it … because they do think it’s OK,” Machia said.
Some Trump voters, including Lori Conley, a worker at the Four Corners General Store in Piermont, said that on the morning after, their primary emotion was not joy, but relief.
“I am relieved that Hillary didn’t get it,” said Conley, who identifies as conservative but was unhappy with her choices. “I’m not a Trump supporter. I held my nose and voted for him.”
She said that, while she recognized Trump’s character flaws, she saw Clinton’s flaws on issues ranging from Benghazi to her email scandal as far more substantive and serious.
Rick Kidder, a carpenter who was in Four Corners to pick up a cup of coffee, cast a similarly reluctant ballot.
“I voted for Trump not because I like him, but because I really didn’t like Clinton,” Kidder said. “Hopefully, he’ll shore up our military and come against some of the corruption in Washington.”
Others, including Dartmouth College students in Hanover, which heavily favored Clinton, were profoundly unhappy with the outcome.
At least one history professor canceled classes in favor of office hours during which students could talk about their feelings, while across the Green, trees were decorated with handmade signs with colorful marker lettering expressing sympathy for minority groups, including Muslims and women.
“Undocumented students, we are here for you. You belong here. You belong. You belong,” read one.
In a lounge in the Collis Center, about two dozen glum-faced students watched three large-screen televisions in a gloomy silence as Clinton delivered her first public remarks since the loss.
The Walk has grown significantly in a matter of 15 minutes. pic.twitter.com/XkTRy10UGr
— Hyemin (@hyeminxx) November 9, 2016
Casey Hunter, of Westchester, N.Y., and Eliana Kaplan, of Hawaii, both 19, were in tears. They said that they’d been up since 3:30 a.m. watching election results, and woke up at 8 a.m. to continue to watch coverage.
“We’ve been crying all night,” Hunter said.
They said they were baffled by the election outcome, disappointed in what they saw as the American public’s mass affirmation of bigotry, and frightened about what Trump will do as the leader of the free world.
“I’m worried about every single person who’s not a wealthy white man,” Kaplan said.
Hours later, hundreds of students marched with signs and banners across the campus and down Hanover’s Main Street.
Marcus Berg, a Dartmouth junior from Minneapolis, said he was still trying to sort out his own feelings.
“It seems like the bigger issue is not even that Trump is elected,” said Berg, who is black. “It’s that the messages that he sent throughout the election of sexism, racism, ableism and for the country to approve of those values, it hurts people of all different minority groups. It’s the fear that my future child or future family member will think its okay to treat women like an object. It’s the fear that my white colleagues will have children and that it will be all right to say the N-word toward my child. It’s the fear that someone like my brother who has disabilities, people will feel fine mocking him.”
An estimated 1,750 migrant workers on Vermont farms now are worried about their future.
Migrant Justice, a Vermont organization that advocates for migrant workers, released a statement on Wednesday in which organizer and former dairy worker Enrique Balcazar said the community has suffered from endemic oppression.
“We have always fought back,” he said, according to the statement. “Trump’s election as president makes this oppression more evident than ever. We are all affected when one community is attacked and criminalized. It’s time for us all to come together to confront this new reality, united against fear.”
Such calls were echoed by a plea for civility by one of Scianna’s Woodsville High students, Lily Kinder, 17, of Pike, N.H., who said that, in the wake of the first election she’s ever paid attention to, she is worried about how her community, and the nation, will come together.
“A big part of this election was respect for people, respecting everyone. That’s probably one of my biggest worries, how people react. I’m hoping that now that he won, that people who were for Trump and who were for Hillary can respect each other. And that he respects all people.”
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.