President-elect Donald Trump’s huge victory on Nov. 9 stunned many voters of Caribbean descent who said they did not expect the real-estate mogul to pull out a victory.
The vast majority of the residents from Brooklyn we spoke to expressed feelings of shock, fear, and anger about the results, and some felt that the country underestimated the motivation that brought Trump supporters to the polls.
“I am disgusted — I watched the coverage up until 9:30 pm and I had to move away from my television,” said Crown Heights resident DJ Yard Z.
“There are so many dimensions and aspects to this — ultimately I think a lot of these people who voted for Trump had their motives rooted in them not having any kind of kind of entitlement their fathers and grandfathers had.”
Still, some voters seemed less than shocked by Trump’s victory, and even blamed Hillary’s and the Democratic Party’s overconfidence for her defeat at the hands of a lesser foe — one the last President would have beaten handily.
“It was arrogance on the side of the Democrats — they thought they had it in the bag but the people of this country feel differently,” said Patrick Desir, an East Flatbusher who voted for Clinton. “The flawed candidate won off of hate because she never once captivated the people like Obama did.”
In the days leading up to the election, polls were showing Trump gaining on Clinton. As results came in Tuesday night showing Trump winning in battleground states, people were growing concerned, said Desir.
Third-party voters like Rose Cine (who cast her ballot for the Green Party’s Jill Stein), seemed more hopeful of the outcome than others — but predicted Trump voters will be disappointed in him once he takes office in January, because the bombastic reality television star will have to change his tune now that he’s actually the leader of the free world.
“His speech gave a relative idea of how it’s going to be for him and he’s going to have to be a different person,” she said. “I think people who voted for him are scared because they don’t know what’s next and what he’s going to enact and prioritize. He won’t be able to reverse everything he promised his supporters, but we’ll see.”
