Eighty-four percent of San Francisco voters supported Hillary Clinton, and protests against Donald Trump continue to roil downtown traffic, but on a neighborhood level, residents are reacting to the post-election landscape in a variety of ways.
One concerned citizen on Nextdoor has invited neighbors to a session at Acro Sports (639 Frederick St.) on Thursday, December 1st at 7pm to air their "feelings about the presidential election and decide what to do next."
In the meantime, we talked to several people in Cole Valley and the Inner Sunset about how their post-election mindset. None supported Trump, but that's not an indicator that the neighborhood is universally unhappy with his victory; the front door of Cole Valley saloon Finnegans Wake briefly sported a hand-lettered "NO POLITICS" sign last week.
(If any Trump voters who live in San Francisco are reading this; please contact us. We'd like to share your perspectives as well.)
Anonymous Engineer, Large Tech Company
When we met at Crêpes on Cole, the tech worker wore a safety pin on his T-shirt, a symbol of solidarity with communities he fears will bear the brunt of Trump's proposed policies, or be singled out for increased harassment and abuse.
On election night, he was staffing a polling station and wasn't paying close attention to news reports, "though I did have a couple of friends sending me text messages."
When the election was called for Trump, he emailed his boss to say that he was taking some personal time, and "spent the next day in bed crying," he said, "trying to understand what I did not understand before."
By Thursday, "I realized that whatever I had been doing before was nowhere near enough," he said. Today, he's considering major life changes, such as joining the staff of a recently elected politician, quitting tech to work in a non-profit advocacy group, or setting aside a large portion of his salary for political and charitable donations.
"I don't necessarily know what's the right thing to do, but I know I need to do more," he said. "I'm trying to figure out what the best path is."
John Hamilton, Veteran and Stanford MBA Student
John Hamilton, an Air Force veteran who's pursuing a law degree and MBA at Stanford, recently moved to the Inner Sunset with his family. After the election, he and his wife decided to join the City's Adopt-a-Drain program, to help keep a storm drain clear this winter.
"I thought it was a simple way of stepping up to take care things on my block," he said. "I also provide pro bono legal services for veterans, and I'm looking at how I can expand on that work to better support veterans in our local community."
Hamilton said he hopes "small steps" like these "can strengthen our community to become more resilient to whatever may come in the future."
Maliha Khan, Strategy & Operations Professional
Maliha Khan lives in Cole Valley, but she immigrated to the US from Pakistan, attending Smith College and Harvard Business School.
Though she feels somewhat protected, "given my socioeconomic and educational privilege," she also said she's still feeling "threatened by the outcome of the presidential election."
Khan said her community has been very supportive; one friend donated to the Council on American Islamic Relations, and "my American/Jewish partner/boyfriend [is] listening to my fears and helping to assuage them," she said via email.
Steve Heilig, Associate Executive Director, Public Health & Education
"I keep reminding myself that in my field of public health, we had the biggest, best election in history," Steve Heilig, an executive with the San Francisco Medical Society, an association for the city's physicians, told us via email.
In both San Francisco and California as a whole, Heilig cited "landmark victories on tobacco and soda taxes, funding care for the poor, legal pot, gun control, and more," noting that the changes will bring about "huge reductions in suffering and premature death."
Via email, he acknowledged that he's "reaching for silver linings ... but I'll take the positive where I can find it," adding that he's "as grateful as ever to be a lifelong (coastal) Californian."
To share your thoughts and perspective with your neighbors, stop by the gathering at Acro Sports on Dec. 1st, and/or use the comments section below.
