{"id":1807,"date":"2016-11-09T15:37:42","date_gmt":"2016-11-09T14:37:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2016\/11\/09\/wetenschappers-en-studenten-over-trump-we-maken-een-revolutie-mee\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:22:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:22:07","slug":"wetenschappers-en-studenten-over-trump-we-maken-een-revolutie-mee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2016\/11\/09\/wetenschappers-en-studenten-over-trump-we-maken-een-revolutie-mee\/","title":{"rendered":"Scholars and students on Trump: \u2018We\u2019re witnessing a revolution\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tabc \/ Good Morning America<\/span>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Just like the rest of Europe, the EUR community woke up Wednesday morning to the news that Donald Trump had been elected as the next President of the United States of America. And this despite all the signs the evening before indicating this office would go to Hillary Clinton. A massive shock for many considering that finding Trump supporters at the Woudestein or Hoboken campus is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Three students and three researchers describe their first reactions upon hearing the news.<\/p>\n

Henri Beunders (Professor of Developments in Public Opinion, ESHCC)<\/h4>\n\t
\n\t\t
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\n\t
\n\t\t\u2018Before long we\u2019ll see the launch of an impeachment procedure.\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t–<\/span>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHenri Beunders\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption>\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

\u201cWhen I saw the high voter turnout, that\u2019s when I knew: Trump is going to win. His win is in line with Berlusconi, Putin, Orban in Hungary, Szyd\u0142o in Poland and Brexit: we\u2019re witnessing a revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of us are living in a bubble. Intellectual students, universities and the mainstream media all supported Clinton. I did too. This is also a defeat for them. The media must be scratching its head as to why no one took Trump and his supporters seriously. Why didn\u2019t they take to the streets to try to understand the rednecks and the white man?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Democrats and the intelligentsia look like fools now. In the coming time they\u2019re not going to remain quiet and they\u2019ll try to get as much dirt on Trump as they can. Before long we\u2019ll see the launch of an impeachment procedure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steven Kushner (American citizen and professor in psychiatry at Erasmus MC)<\/h4>
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\u201cI\u2019m in San Diego, California with family. On election day, I mainly spent my time watching the elections on television. I was already done voting. I did that from the Netherlands through the mail, on Hillary Clinton. These are elections unlike I\u2019ve ever experienced. Earlier, you were just rooting for one candidate and against the other, but it has never happened before that I found the other candidate just fundamentally unfit. That\u2019s what makes this loss so difficult.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump has very little experience on the international stage, and that\u2019s what worries me the most. The emergence of China, for example, could be great, if managed well.. If not, that\u2019s an unfathomable risk to global security. He does need help, I hope he gets it. Hopefully the campaign was just all politics, and he now sees the gravity of his position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tim Hodes (19), Psychology student<\/h4>

\u201cSomeone without knowledge of politics taking power? I\u2019m curious to see how this will play out. I\u2019m going to go watch Trump\u2019s speech, but it seems he came across as quite reasonable. My gut reaction was to cry when I heard the news of his victory. I simply can\u2019t see how this will work. On the one hand he won\u2019t be able to realise some of the promises he made, he\u2019s also bound by treaties. But he\u2019s what I would call a rational idiot. There\u2019s always the chance he will continue to provoke.\u201d<\/p>\n

Etienne Aug\u00e9 (propaganda researcher, ESHCC)<\/h4>
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\u201cI totally did not see this coming. In a way it\u2019s also good news: a candidate like Hillary still can\u2019t win despite having the support of Wall Street and Goldman Sachs, despite raising so much money. She still wasn\u2019t able to get the people to rally behind her. In this sense it\u2019s a victory for democracy. I\u2019m no fan of Clinton, but I\u2019m also certainly not a fan of Trump. I worry that Americans didn\u2019t vote for Clinton because she\u2019s a woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019m happy about now is that this horrible election campaign is over. There was so much hate on both sides. An interesting time awaits us. People say Trump was the worst candidate ever, but that\u2019s not the case. Europe was also shocked when Reagan was elected. Hopefully this will turn out the same as it did with Arnold Schwarzenegger in California. It didn\u2019t end too badly there and right now it\u2019s hard to say what kind of president Trump will be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read also:<\/strong> Etienne Aug\u00e9 looks forward to the elections with EM<\/a><\/p>\n

Sascha Bambach (27), master student in Criminal Law<\/h4>

\u201cWhen I checked at 7:30 this morning, I thought Hillary might still have a chance, but no, there was no way for her to win. I didn\u2019t support either side; neither one of them was the ideal candidate. On Facebook it looked like the whole world was horrified, with people already comparing Trump to Hitler. That\u2019s going a bit far and this doesn\u2019t mean the end of the world. We\u2019ll have to wait and see what the effects are, but my feeling is that the entire show doesn\u2019t really concern me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rogier van Reekum (sociologist, EGS3H)<\/h4>\n\t
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\n\t\t\u2018Het is nu ineens \u2018okee\u2019 om openlijk racistisch te zijn, en je openlijk uit te spreken tegen mensenrechten en de grondwet.\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

\u201cI watched until 3:30 in the morning, and by then the tide had already turned in favour of Trump. When I woke at eight o\u2019clock it still came as a surprise, because there were so many factors involved for Trump to win this election. To be honest I feel it\u2019s truly a disaster, Trump as President. Not so much because it means the political winds have changed. I believe that Trump will surround himself with people from the right-winged camp of the Republican Party, such as Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee. People who can help him make decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s most damaging is the effect this will have on politics in America and in other countries. Suddenly it\u2019s acceptable to be openly racist, to openly speak out against human rights and the constitution. The politics of the extreme right are the new norm and we will feel the repercussions in Europe too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vince Heijmans (19), Economics and Business Economics student<\/h4>

\u201cI\u2019m not really surprised by the result; it was to be expected. With all his money that guy was able to buy off everyone. I saw the result this morning and I thought: this means war, he\u2019s all about production, he wants more money. It\u2019s only about the money. This couldn\u2019t happen in the Netherlands where we still have a system where multiple parties have to work together in a coalition so that a single party can\u2019t assume complete power outright.\u201d<\/p>\n

More about the elections<\/h2>