CNN contributor Van Jones early Wednesday morning offered an emotional reaction to Donald Trump’s presidential victory, describing the election as a “white-lash” and telling his fellow panelists that “it’s hard to be a parent tonight.”
“I have enough class and I was raised well enough to say when you outdo expectations, good for you. But there’s another side to this,” Jones said on CNN as he began to describe what Trump’s win means to him.
“People have talked about a miracle — it’s hard to be a parent tonight for a lot of us. You tell your kids, ‘Don’t be a bully.’ You tell your kids, ‘Don’t be a bigot.’ You tell your kids ‘Do your homework and be prepared.’ And then you have this outcome and you have people putting children to bed tonight, and they’re afraid of breakfast. They’re afraid of how do I explain this to my children,” Jones said. “I have Muslim friends who are texting me tonight saying, ‘Should I leave the country?’ I have families of immigrants that are terrified tonight.”
Jones then argued that the election was in part about race.
“This was many things. This was a rebellion against the elites, true. It was a complete reinvention of politics and polls, it’s true. But it was also something else,” he said. “We’ve talked about everything but race tonight. We have talked about income, we’ve talked about class, we’ve talked about region. We haven’t talked about race. This was a white-lash. This was a white-lash against a changing country. It was a white-lash against a black president in part, and that’s the part where the pain comes. And Donald Trump has a responsibility tonight to come out and reassure people that he is going to be the president of all the people who he insulted and offended and brushed aside.”
“Yeah, when you say you want to take your country back, you’ve got a lot of people who feel that we’re not represented well either. But we don’t want to feel that someone has been elected by throwing away some of us to appeal more deeply to others,” Jones added. “So this is a deeply painful moment tonight.”
Watch a clip via CNN:
If there’s a bright side to all of this, no taco trucks on every corner.
I’m not sure I can root for the USA in the Olympics. My grandparents were Finnish. Maybe I’ll root for Finland.
shrug, he’s right.
My 87 year old mother is staying with me for a few days. She went to bed last night not knowing the outcome. She just got up and asked me how it turned out. When I told her “President Trump,” she simply asked “Bloody Marys or Screwdrivers this morning?”
Think I’ll stock up on Smirnoff.
I love your mom. Give her my best.