8th November 2016
Today is a big day for people in America, and a big day for democracy in general. It’s election day in the USA, Trump Vs. Biden. For me, sitting in India miles away from the US, this election is more of a source of entertainment than anything else, much like how someone would enjoy watching a reality show. I’m all geared up to stay up all night and watch the election coverage. This reminds me of the 2016 US elections, and how that day was full of surprises for me.
It was November 2016. I had just started watching “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” back in college, a comedy show that focused on political topics. This had lead to my increased interest in US politics, especially in Donald Trump. It was funny to see him run, and even funnier to see the rational people freak out when he was actually going to win. The election day was 8th November 2016.
Does that date sound familiar to you as well? It was actually the day when our President Modi made the historical Demonetization announcement. That was my first shock for the day when we all came to know that 500 and 1000 Rs notes were now worthless. Many of my friends had rushed to the ATMs to withdraw some 100 Rupee notes, but I didn’t as I thought it was no big deal. Boy was I wrong.
I stayed in my dorm room and watched the US election coverage all night. All the polls had predicted that Hilary would win. But as I was watching the results come in, I was secretly hoping that Trump put up a good fight, just so that things be more interesting. But against all odds, Donald Trump was set to win the elections. It was time for breakfast already, and I thought the day has given me more surprises than I had hoped for, so I closed my laptop and went down to the mess to eat.
As I came back up to finally go to sleep, I just checked my Facebook once. To my surprise, I had a message from Biswa Kalyan Rath, the comedian! Actually, I had posted a video of his standup on my youtube channel, which strangely got 1000s of views. Instead of just putting a copyright strike on my channel, Biswa was polite enough to search for me on Facebook, and ask me to take the video down, which I immediately did.
So yes, the last US election day was pretty eventful for me, I am not sure how this one would turn out.