So I could not help but notice US President-elect Donald Trump's young son Barron seemed to look how so many of us felt following the biggest upset in modern American politics.
Turns out I was not the only one to make that observation while watching Trump's two-faced victory speech — there are numerous articles online showing several snapshots of the poor lad looking exasperated and desperate to be anywhere else but there.
Listening to the victorious reality TV star — I mean, Republican candidate — was difficult when almost constantly distracted by the boy who showed a fidgety impatience. To be fair, the address was in the middle of the night and the youth was no doubt tired.
Although maybe he simply could not reconcile what he was hearing his father say, all of which stood in stark contrast to everything The Donald had said up to that point.
Where was all the rhetoric about locking up “Crooked Hillary,” deporting bad hombre rapist drug dealin' and murderin' Mexican illegals, a monumental and logistically impossible to build and completely ridiculous super-wall, Muslim extremists and refugees waiting by the millions for a plane ticket to the US, women who are fat slobs and those who are hot enough to just grab at will — well, you all know the rest.
But let's give Trump the benefit of the doubt. Bear with me, if you can.
Perhaps the campaign trail speeches were just empty rhetoric designed to rile emotions — a clever media manipulator's ploy to get votes and ratings, which would make sense for a reality TV star. Not to mention that it plainly worked out stunningly well in his favour.
So who but Trump knows? Maybe all that barely coherent jibber jabber over the past year will actually be followed by sober restraint and careful forethought moving forward. His victory speech shockingly indicated as much.
Even devastated in defeat, Clinton implored people to give Trump a chance. Bernie Sanders was more curt but nevertheless open to working on common ground.
“To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him,” the Vermont senator posted on social media in a thread that went viral. But Sanders did not stop there.
“To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him.”
If The Donald — it will take some period of time to adjust to saying President Trump with a straight face — actually comes through with these new uncharacteristically moderate and not completely-off-the-hook claims of extending an olive branch of collaboration, fantastic. I will be glad to have been proven dead wrong and would no longer hesitate to employ the proper title when addressing him.
Not holding my breath, to be honest.
A young son's enthusiasm — or in this case crushingly complete and utter lack thereof — speaks volumes.
What I'll be curious to see is whether the base that chanted sophisticated slogans like “Lock her up” and “Drain the swamp” will eventually lose its own enthusiasm for Trump. What will those voters do if by 2020 there are still Muslims, Mexicans and members of movements such as LGBT and BLM, as well as crippling debt and crumbling infrastructure — spoiler alert, there still will be — and no wall or Clinton in jail?
Meanwhile, protests had already broken out following the election with thousands who oppose Trump hitting the streets in several US cities chanting their own slogans, the most popular of which seemed to be “Not my president.”
At the very least, the next four years promise to for better or worse be rather interesting.
