I’ll just leave this here. From the 1970s.
@googledrone Feel free to chime in with an entertaining post using interesting word choice and colorful metaphor that will bring the discussion forward instead of in a circular path. Or are you here just as critic? I can tell you haven’t been on CC long given your post count but “snowflake” is a frequently used term here by a certain subset of posters.
Meanwhile at McGill University on Montreal some students are demanding that the university denounce the American election;
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/mcgill-students-stressed-about-trump
“In the real world, no employer or client is going to give you an extension on a deadline because of the election.”
I don’t think you can make such broad statements about all the employers and clients in the world. I discussed my campaign volunteering and travel with a number of my clients who had pressing deadlines near election day. Many of them gave me virtual pats on the back and encouraged me, even though I would be less available to them for several days.
I know I’m lucky to have the kind of job I do, and hourly workers rarely get this freedom, but since the column was about Yale students…they’re probably going to have jobs more like mine. I bet a LOT of Yale alumni took (or OK’d for their staffs) personal days on Wednesday. Not if they’re lawyers in the middle of a criminal trial, and not if they are ER doctors assigned to a shift, but most professionals can come in late on a Wednesday if they need to for personal reasons. I have plenty of friends who went to work, but burst into tears at random times. I don’t think their careers will be harmed by it.
It’s impossible to generalize across all jobs, but I disagree about Yale students being more likely to have jobs like yours. Big 4 consulting/finance(iBanking, private equity)/big law are all notorious for working their employees insane hours, and being indifferent at best to the personal lives of their junior employees, at least until you make partner or managing director.
^ When I was in private practice, you had to take a leave of absence if you were going to do anything overtly political. And while I will agree that most professionals have flexibility in their schedules, I never saw anybody break down and cry after an election, and if they did it sure would have harmed their careers. And I say that coming from a firm involved in the 2000 recount litigation, with several partners wired into the other political party.
@twoinanddone, re:#42 - The voting age in 1968 was still 21, and so the majority of college students were ineligible to vote. Many of those who could lived to regret withholding their votes from Hubert Humphrey.
“Lived” being an operative word since many young men during that time did not.
@roethlisburger , her mom’a experience (and subsequent PTSD) did have a huge impact on my friend’s life and continue to do so to this day and drive her political activism. That’s all.
Moving it back toward the article and away from pure politics so the thread doesn’t get shut down…This discussion reminds me of those pre-school days at the playground long ago when you’d observe a stark difference in parenting philosophy. When a toddler fell, there were moms who’d quickly brush him off, tell him he’s OK, and immediately send him on his way back to the swing. Then also, there were the moms who’d make a bigger deal over the tumble, who’d let the toddler wail and wail, and then maybe after five minutes offer him some fruit snacks. Maybe those of us who followed the former template are the same ones who don’t appreciate why professors are confirming students’ overblown fears that something monumentally devastating has occurred, when in reality it was a democratic election in the greatest and most free country in the world whose result they just wish were different. Wise parents understand that children watch their mothers and fathers in order to gauge how serious something is. We set the tone. We know the difference between a bump, a bleeding scrape, and a gash that needs stitches. Or at least we should.
As some of us have said, educational institutions could take advantage of this climate to actually EDUCATE students. There are so many interesting topics they could cover in a seminar or brown bag which would actually help students cope with their very real disappointment. One example that comes to mind (in addition to more basic discussions of Constitutional protections and our country’s long history of surviving political trends) is the research of Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert, UVA psych prof Tim Wilson, CMU economist George Loewenstein, and Princeton economist Daniel Kahneman. They study “affect forecasting,” or how people predict their future well-being and happiness. Among the many things they’ve learned from their experiments is that people are really not very good at anticipating how happy or unhappy they will be as a result of a positive or negative life event. In particular, they drastically underestimate the power of their psychological defenses and their ability to adapt to perceived negative occurrences.
What outcry?
I remember going to work the day after Obama’s first election – at an office with a lot of African American employees. The reaction was pure joy. People couldn’t stop smiling. For many, it was the happiest day of their lives, and they were anticipating that the inauguration would be even better.
Let’s just say that the day after the 2016 election was nothing like this.
(Obviously, I live in a blue state.)
I read that teachers at a high school in NY are allowing their students to miss class to protest Trump. The NY metropolitan area was of course dramatically affected by 9/11. Were classes cancelled on 9/12 in places other than around ground zero? A lot of people where I live work in NYC, and consequently our area lost many people in that tragedy. I assure you, however, there was school on 9/12 here. Let me say that in another way: Our country was attacked on our own soil, THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE DIED and students still went to school the next day. So what does that tell you about the teachers’ and professors’ motives in cancelling classes now? Are they really doing what they’re doing just because children are upset? There needs to be some perspective here.
I live in a swing state, and nothing remotely like this happened in 08 or 12. Certainly nothing remotely like what is being duscussed on campuses occurred at that time.
On a related topic, I have to say that I am intrigued by a new argument emerging on the right, to the effect that all of this silliness actually creates a “hostile educational environment” for those students on campus who did in fact vote for Trump. At first I thought it was just silliness, but now I am not so sure. Any opinions?
Of course we have never seen anything like this. Do you not remember earlier this year(before Trump was elected) where students needed a “safe” zone at Emory University simply because someone wrote Trump in chalk on the sidewalk for gosh sakes!
The fact that many posters here keep clinging to their argument that this is all just business as usual politics and that this was a regular election is sad. Either you are being purposefully myopic or you are so firmly settled in your own bubble you can’t even listen to the many posters who have offered you multiple examples of WHY this isn’t the case. Even my very conservative father admits there are valid reasons to be concerned…
But no worries. The silver lining here is that whether or not you like it this situation has radicalized and galvanized a huge segment of the population, not just student. You judge the students when they are “weak” as snowflakes, you judge them when they tell you they will fight back as criminals…obviously any response won’t pass the test. Again no worries as they aren’t looking for your approval.
It was an election, though. Not a military coup or takeover by a foreign power. There will be another one in 4 years. It’s a question of perspective and how to handle the legitimate concerns that do exist. With hysteria and rioting? With Play-doh and hot chocolate? Or is there a better, saner, more productive way?
@GFG where do you see hysteria? By the way I think it’s rather telling your choice of word here 
As a prof I assume you know its origin…
Again this discussion has proven insightful in that if I ever doubted the existence of a conservative bubble…
But I’m happy to reassure my students that there is no mandate here and the majority of those who voted did not vote for a regressive outlook.
And I think what frightens folks more is not scared college students but the ones who are energized and exercising their rights as Anerican citizens.
But if you find yourself too worried I know somewhere I can find you some hot chocolate and a dog to pet 
@Ohiodad51, from what I have seen in my D’s college and in some other young friends’ colleges, some students who didn’t vote for Hillary (so either voted for Trump, voted 3rd party, or chose to abstain from voting in the Presidential race on principle) do perceive their fellow students to be hostile, or at least “anti-them.” As I said in a post up thread, social media on my D’s campus and others (based on what my D and her friends were sharing with each other and me) was deluged with angry, vitriolic posts that called these “outliers” names and accused them of certain negative things, told them not to speak to them, and/or told them that they are not friends. These carried over into “real life,” along with the assumption that everyone was in agreement.
I’ve heard of students afraid to be among other students if their opinions are known to any extent or afraid and unwilling to join in discussions if their thoughts and opinions veer away from those who voted for Hillary in any way. (And, again, in the cases I saw, that included people who voted independent or abstained on principle, not just those who voted for Trump.)
It seems to have settled on D’s campus; I don’t know about the others. On D’s campus, that is to the credit of the faculty and administration, who I think did a terrific job of trying to neutralize the situation and promote intellectual discussion and respect for each other (at least the ones I heard about). However, I think the damage has been done for some students, who are now timid or more timid than ever about having honest intellectual discussions about anything political.
That’s just what I’ve seen. Take it or leave it, as it is, of course, anecdotal.
I already gave an example of hysteria upthread, and one can certainly find many more extreme pronouncements about the future of the US on the national news every night. So many experts were convinced that the US financial markets would be irrevocably savaged if Trump won. In reality, there has been a week of all-time highs for the Dow. Also, as I already mentioned, at my D’s own high school, the day after the election African American students were saying things like “Now we’re going to be sent back to picking cotton.” Kids whose immigrant parents were LEGAL were still convinced they’d be deported because “the government won’t care.” People really do need to listen to President Obama, who pointed out that the federal government is not a speed boat; it’s an ocean liner. It simply isn’t easy to drastically change the direction of the country.
I am certainly not afraid of protest. I’m afraid of rioting, looting, and destruction of property and general societal chaos. I am not worried about concerned students. I’m worried about students who seem emotionally undone by an election, because as an older adult I know that they will encounter far, far worse things in their lives.
And as for the distraught young ladies sobbing on youtube, I am afraid their antics are setting back the cause of women in politics. Female college students should take their cue from Hillary Clinton, who was composed and dignified despite losing far more than they did. If they really think Secretary Clinton lost in part due to a bias against female leaders, then they are certainly not going to convince anyone otherwise with their tears.