Everyone remembers it differently. The day after. On November 9, 2016, students filed into Parker as they always do, but something was different. The night before, Donald J. Trump had been elected the 45th President of the United States of America.

You could almost feel the weight of the air barreling down on your shoulders. Those who stayed up until 2:30am, watching closely to see if the results would somehow change, barely managed to stay awake in class. No one bothered to state the news because everyone already knew quite well what had happened.

But no one could hide the shock smeared across their faces. More noticeable than red paint.

When I walked into my first period class, my teacher briefly acknowledged the night before, but it felt almost too soon. The girl next to me was on the verge of tears. Many people I knew were affected in personal ways by the election of Trump.

For some reason or another, I was not supposed to go to MX that day. But naturally, I found my way to the auditorium, just as Mr. Greenstone and Mr. Bigelow took the stage.

They shared with us how they had been working tirelessly to create a presentation about our first female president….which they had had to delete.

These two men who have studied American history for many years, have followed many presidential election cycles, patterns, and statistics, were just as shocked as the rest of us.

Now, as we approach November 8th once again, not much has changed.We remain in a continuous state of shock.

The election has been a wake up call to the small democratic bubble we call Chicago, our home. We live in a city that provides sanctuary to immigrants. We live in a city that seeks common sense gun-restrictions. We live in city that, well over a century ago, birthed a democratic political machine, and only 12-years ago gave rise to Barack Obama.

We live in a city that hates Donald Trump.

On the contrary, there are indeed plenty of people in the United States that believe in Trump and his policies. Although Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, 61,943,670 Americans voted for Trump. That’s a number much larger than we ever imagined.

We go to a progressive school, and Trump is an anti-progressive like we have never seen. He has singularly perfected a gutter-ball style of politics centered on violent divisions of race, creed, color, and background. In Charlottesville, Trump even gave standing to white supremacists and neo-nazis. In the past year, the President, the leader of the free world, has taken America and us in a forcefully different direction, away from our nation’s roots.

Our immediate reaction was protest. In January, 3.3 million people carrying signs and wearing pink pussy hats paraded the streets all over the country during the Women’s Marches. In April, thousands of people who did not necessarily have anything in common aside from the fact they enjoy living and breathing took over Washington D.C. for the March for Science.

Currently, Puerto Rico is still suffering from the major effects of Hurricane Maria. North Korea is testing weapons of mass destruction. Russia is impeding upon our access to credible news.

Meanwhile, our President is using his prestige and power to condemn professional athletes for kneeling during the National Anthem.

Close elections often result in mourning on the losing end, but, in this case, many democrats are far past mourning. They have stopped accepting things they can’t change, and have made efforts to change things they can’t accept.

Resist.

We go to a school where the words “Global Citizen” are imprinted on our walls, but how possible is ‘Global Citizenship” if our President doesn’t value anything outside the walls of the United States? We are taught to be empathetic students and people, yet Trump is using twitter as an attack weapon on other countries and, sadly, even on individual people. He’s building walls of separation, destroying relationships, and eroding our foundations, yet his supporters still see this man as ‘great.’ Why?

Our country is divided. Extremely divided. Maybe even in a state of Civil War.

We have become less welcoming since the election. Trump talks about not wanting to remove statues of the confederacy so as to preserve our heritage, but with his Travel Ban and the ridiculous ‘Wall,’ he has defaced our very own Statue of Liberty. He puts an end to her motto of “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” We are a different country now.

It’s time now for an uprising.