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It was Tuesday, November 8, 2016, America chose – and time, as always Tuesdays, produced ir latest issue. Every four years same ritual: you think as a journalist, to know or at least to guess who will be next president of United States, and must be prepared for it to be completely different. Because if US TV stations announce at some point in night: “The next president is….”, n we stay up to press of newspaper for a maximum of two hours, to update “victorious” version of prescribed texts, to get in shape and to lift into sheet .
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I have accompanied many such election evenings as a journalist: 1992, when Democrat Bill Clinton beat incumbent Republican President George H. Bush out of field; 1996, when Clinton was re-elected; 2000, when Al Gore collected half a million more voters than George W. Bush, was lost as a result of complicated but decisive electoral system. Everything was on count in state of Florida, for weeks, one did not know wher in end Bush or Gore would move into White House until Supreme Court spoke a highly controversial power to this day.
Then 2004 Bush’s re-election, as one almost until last second, until results from state of Ohio Eintrudelten, thought his Democratic challenger John Kerry would have made majority of electoral men and thus race. Finally, 2008, election of Barack Obama and his renewed victory 2012; I experienced se two evenings close up as a USA correspondent.
And n January 8th, 2016: I was in support of our reporting to Washington, D. C., travelled and spent evening with my laptop in TV basement of American journalist friends on edge of capital. My portrait of Hillary Clinton was done, I was pretty sure she would be 45 president. A victory of Donald Trumps seemed almost impossible outside of every imagination and after all polls and mamatical probabilities.
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Everything looked after a relaxed evening, with chips and coke. The first results also seemed to confirm predictions. Wolf Blitzers, John King and Anderson Cooper from CNN’s TV channel were constantly running in front of a huge, pretty cabinet (red is color of Republicans) electronic map back and forth, declaring that this has nothing to say. In course of evening, election-critical regions would adopt blue colour of Democrats. Clinton’s voters are mainly in metropolises, large population centers, where y need longer to vote.
I zapped back and forth between TV channels, sometimes to liberal MSNBC, sometimes to conservative Fox News – same sound everywhere. But suddenly, I do not know exactly at what time, faltered incessantly analyzing moderators of breath, broke ir voices, y looked incredulously at huge map and ranked according to explanations.
At one time, constituencies turned red, which had voted for Obama four and eight years ago. At least as fatal for Hillary Clinton: She brought big cities and liberal centers of America, but not with advantage she needed – and with which almost all observers had reckoned. The general Clinton fatigue, Clinton bor, which many felt but did not really want to admit, demanded its price. Florida was lost, Ohio, Michigan, n even Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In end, Hillary Clinton had nearly three million votes more than her opponent Donald Trump, but he won all-important majority of electoral Committee.
Sometime between 22 and 11pm East Coast time was clear: Donald Trump will be 45 president of America. I hurriedly turned on my laptop, threw my article about winner Clinton, about her policy and programme of her presidency in trash, and hastily rummaged out text that I had on morning of election day, albeit rar disbelieving, also in broad strokes Had finished: about defeat of Democrats and deep shame of having lost one for sure believed success and, in all or ways, to lose a man like Trump.
I have been beside my assessments of election home. And it is little consoling that this happened to almost all journalists that even Trump did not believe in his victory. Utterly puzzled, downright frightened he, his family and closest advisers appeared at night in New York in front of ir followers.
