Authors React to the Results of the 2016 Presidential Election

By Maryann Yin 

The results of the 2016 presidential election has elicited a wide variety of emotions throughout the country. Several authors have publicly shared their reactions to this political development.

The piece embedded above, posted on the Vlogbrothers YouTube channel, features “post-election thoughts” from John Green. Below, we’ve posted blog post excerpts and social media messages written by J.K. Rowling, George R.R. Martin, Grace Lin, Maggie Stiefvater, and Barry Lyga.

George R.R. Martin: “America has spoken. I really thought we were better than this. Guess not. Trump was the least qualified candidate ever nominated by a major party for the presidency. Come January, he will become the worst president in American history, and a dangerously unstable player on the world stage.”

Grace Lin: “The election has told me that half of this country believes that I don’t belong in this country, that many of my friends don’t belong here and probably that even my daughter doesn’t belong here. Regardless of the Constitution, where we were born or how long we’ve been here, we will never be American enough to them. And, what hurts me so deeply, is that they don’t want to change their minds.”

Maggie Stiefvater: “There is no one way to fight, because all of us who opposed this president-elect are very different — that’s part of what makes us who we are. For some people, fighting will mean supporting marginalized friends and strangers if policy moves to threaten them. For others, it will mean forming activist groups to amplify voices that may be stifled and to address harmful voices that might arise. For still others, it will merely mean being brave enough to move past paralyzing anxiety.”

Barry Lyga: “I’ll tell you how I feel: I am absolutely petrified for my friends who do not have the luxury, as I have, of having been born white, male, cisgender, and straight. If this is a nightmare for me, I literally cannot imagine what hell they’ve already conceived, with the knowledge that reality very well could be worse. I yearn to be a comfort to them, yet I know that nothing I do or say will ever — could ever — compensate for what our fellow Americans have unleashed. We’re living in a dystopian novel, but there’s no plucky hero who can rise up to save us all. So, we’ll have to do it ourselves.”