A few thoughts on President-elect Donald Trump

By Caitlin Kelly

The phone rang this morning at 8:30, waking me, waking my husband who got home at 4:30 a.m. after editing photos all night for abcnews.com.

“Come home!” said the caller, a friend of more than three decades, a woman slightly older than we are, who lives in my hometown of Toronto.

The emails started soon after that, from friends in Ontario and British Columbia — and New Jersey and California and many other places asking me…

What just happened?

Misogyny won

I stayed up last night only until 12:20 before retreating to bed, as it was already pretty obvious by 10:00 p.m. that Hillary Clinton was going to lose. All day long, there were line-ups at the Rochester, NY grave of Susan B. Anthony, who fought for women’s right to vote, piling flowers at her gravestone and covering it with “I Voted” stickers.

A secret, private Facebook group of millions of men and women, Pantsuit Nation, had sprung up to talk to one another candidly, movingly, about why this mattered so much to all of us; Sec. Clinton even alluded to it in her concession speech.

I watched it live, and , finally, wept.

For every young girl and woman who had spent the day in dizzy, glorious euphoria at voting, finally!, for a woman, her loss was a bitter, bitter defeat.

Yes, of course, someone had to lose.

But watching someone as supremely qualified for the job as she to a man with no political experience?

The idea of a woman at the helm of state was clearly deeply repugnant to many voters, a source, no doubt, of some amusement to those in Britain, Canada, Argentina, Iceland, Germany and many other states and nations with elected female leaders.

Fear won

Fear of economic chaos and further job loss or stagnation. Fear of the “other” — the woman in hijab or the man with a heavy accent, the child who had to swim into a boat to be rescued in the Mediterranean or fleeing the bombs that killed the rest of her family.

Fear of the unknown, as if anyone sitting in the Oval Office can, magically, make it all better.

The Presidency isn’t a game for amateurs

The President has access to nuclear codes.

The President can enact or veto legislation that affects millions.

The President is the face, literally and figuratively, of the United States; to have someone in the Oval Office soon who has assaulted women (and boasted about it), has lied to and cheated business contacts and who has never borne the tremendous responsibility of holding elected office?

This is the highest office in the land.

It is the greatest honor to be chosen to speak on behalf of all Americans; I’ve stood in the Oval Office, while Bill Clinton was in office as we knew someone who would allow Jose and I a few moments there.

It is, for many people, a sacred space.

And the person who sits behind that wooden desk? Their moral character matters, and deeply.

This man…

The media had no idea how strong Trump’s support is — and should have

I work as a journalist and have for decades, as does my husband as a news photographer and former photo editor for 31 years at The New York Times.

It is our job, and that of our bosses and colleagues and publishers, whether of digital, print or broadcast, to know what the hell is going on out there.

Not just what out friends say or what academics with tenure or at think tanks opine, or what so-certain pollsters tell us.

We would only have known some of this by leaving our safe, cozy, warm newsrooms and venturing into places that are physically, emotionally, intellectually and politically deeply uncomfortable for some of us.

Chris Arnade, who wrote for The Guardian, did some of this boots-on-the-ground reporting work, although he admitted he spoke primarily, (a serious oversight) to men.

A media landscape in chaos isn’t helping.

An industry increasingly filled with 22-year-olds with no experience beyond a few college classes — cheap, malleable, “digital natives” — isn’t capable of this.

You can’t “just move to Canada”

The website with information on immigration to Canada crashed last night because so many panicked Americans tried to use it.

Nope.

My country of origin isn’t just a place to flee to and nor should it be; those with the best shot will be younger than 45, have a job offer in hand and speak fluent English, (and ideally some French as well.)

Irritated even then, I wrote this Salon column back in March when Trump was only starting to look like a more serious threat. (I was born and raised in Canada, and lived there to the age of 30):

If the growing prospect of President Trump scares the shit out of you, Canada might be looking like a nice cozy bolthole right about now. But it’s not just a kinder, gentler U.S. with better hockey and beer.

Hey, it’s close, civilized, a quick flight from the Northeast. They speak English.

But it really is a foreign country.

A nation almost 100 years younger than the U.S., Confederation was in 1867, creating the first four provinces. For all its vaunted socially liberal policies, it’s also a country with its own history of submission and domination – English over French, the 150,000 First Nations, Metis and Inuit children forced for decades to attend brutal residential schools, the unresolved murders of 1,200 indigenous women, prompting the recent allocation of $100 million by Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne to investigate and address the issue.

While Canada recently welcomed 25,000 Syrian refugees, don’t be too quick to assume there’s an equal welcome for thousands of panicked Americans eager to flee a political scene they find abhorrent.