Yesterday night when I went to sleep, intuitively I was sure this was going to be the result. It was an all too familiar scene.
When I first began to take notice of the US elections, I thought 'no way this man will win it, he's a joke'.
Then he began to beat out all the republican competition and I thought 'well thats among the republicans, no way he will beat the main elections against the democrats'.
Well today, he did.
This is after Trump has publicly demonstrated such great incompetency, lack of empathy, poor moral values and so on.
Not too long ago, I would have cried 'how can Americans be so stupid', similar to what happened with Brexit. Today though, I feel like I understand the other side a little more. I understand a little better the nature of this result.
A vote for Trump is not necessarily an endorsement of Trump, as it is a vote against Hillary. The media likes to portray Trump supports as stupid people with terrible morals, similar to the man himself. Yet I came to realise that there are huge numbers of voters who are not like that. They are voting for Trump knowing fully well what kind of person he is, knowing fully well that he would not make a great president. They know that he will not make America great again.
They are voting because they are voting against everything Hillary stands for. To them, they are taking a gamble. No one really knows what a Trump presidency will be like but we are all quite sure what a Hillary presidency will be like. These people are betting that a Trump presidency will not be as bad as Hillary's in their perspective. There are many crazy things Trump may do, but they do know that those crazy things will be different from what Hillary would do.
One key example is the issue of the supreme court. There are people who are voting for Trump because they want a conservative supreme court. The supreme court decision can affect more than just one presidential term. Trump will only be president for four years, but the supreme court may well have more powers than Trump to shape the course America's history in the long term.
For me as a Christian. I don't know how to feel. The election of Trump makes me feel very much unsatisfied knowing the type of person he is. How can such an incompetent man, and a man of such poor character, hold the office for the most powerful man in the world? Yet at the same time, I'm sure I would not be happy about a Hillary win either, knowing that it would lead America further down that slippery slope to hell.
So this morning looking at the results, I really was not sure how I feel about it.
Which really makes it all the more difficult for American Christians.
Perhaps in these dark hours, may we come to learn to put our hope not on earthly things, but on the things above.
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