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My Election Experience Abroad

By Ty Malcolm

"Oh, you're going abroad in the fall! So... you're going to miss the election?" 

Last spring, when I got confirmation that I would be going to Vienna through FOFAC, this was a response I kept getting. Not an unusual question to receive from GW students - we live blocks from the White House, we walk the monuments, we work on the Hill. For students as politically active as those at GW, an election year is special. I didn't have really have an answer ready.

"Well...yeah, I guess?" 

My original entry point for the EU was actually Germany, where I had a short layover before Vienna. The expandable hallway from the plane to the airport terminal had a TV, and I don't think I will ever forget: the first thing I saw upon entering Europe for my semester abroad was a scowling Donald Trump on a flatscreen TV. This was just the beginning of my expat American election experience, and with the Europeans' fascination for it.

One of the great things about hanging with more European students than American students is that every conversation becomes a learning experience. Throughout the semester, American students were asked their thoughts on the election by Swedes, Italians, Austrians -- everyone. The questions themselves were usually very basic - I don't think anyone was looking for an hour-long discussion. Issues, quotations, and cultural differences would get tossed around, like in any conversation with students from other countries. Maybe someone would make fun of Trump's hair, or Hillary's emails, but it was never really an in-depth or uncomfortable discussion. That would all change after the election.

The American election is never held with Europe in mind -- Polls only began closing around midnight, Austria time. Still, there were at least two public watch-parties that I knew of, and a few friends joined me for one in the 6th district. Food was cheap, drinks were donation-suggested, and the crowd was already heavily focused on the large projector screen in the corner. Everyone, especially the non-native English speakers, became frustrated. The election map would color a state red or blue even with 5% or 10% of the vote tallied.

The talking heads would announce an "important election alert," to explain a controversy that a single county in Nevada had stayed open later than planned. (When you ask for non-stop coverage, you get non-stop coverage!) We stayed until 3AM Austria time, when most states on the screen were still contested. The metro and tram system had long-since closed, and so I walked home, cold and alone, along Vienna's largest shopping street. Vienna is a very safe place, and no one bothered me (except for 3 visibly drunk Austrian girls looking for a party.) I went to bed, wondering why I had gone out at all.

The next morning, I was woken up by my phone buzzing. With no alarm set, and "Do Not Disturb" on, I was really confused. It turned out, I was receiving so many text messages, that it was actually overriding the "Do Not Disturb" function on my phone! Friends from the States, from Germany, from Austria, everywhere - it was official: Donald Trump had won, Hillary Clinton had conceded. During my commute to class, the U-Bahn was filled with Austrians discussing the results. When I arrived at my university, Austrian students were exchanging Trump quotes as greetings, arguing vehemently about every possible issue on the party platforms, and discussing the finer details surviving a nuclear war between America and Russia. (The consensus, it seems, is to take the first possible train to the Swiss Alps.) I could tell, it would be a long day.

Long before the results came in, I had been discussing my interest in returning to Austria for graduate school. Suddenly, any conversation about it became about "my immigration" or being a "Trump refugee." Everything just felt so surreal. My Facebook feed exploded with emotion and arguments. Since Facebook is the way the exchange students here use to talk to each other and find events around Vienna, it was no easy fix to just "log out" for a week. My favorite news sources (The Financial Times, The Economist, etc) are still saturated with election hot-takes, and I think even the Europeans were ready for a break. We spent Thursday night at a jazz bar listening to a student band play, and I'll be leaving for Paris on Saturday morning to get lost in something European, like Napoleonic history or a plate of foie gras. Hopefully when I return, things will have died down a bit!

To sum things up, I don't regret being out of the country for the election. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise, being so far away -- It was a nasty, undignified race, and that's one of the few bipartisan conclusions from the election, I think. Even in Europe, there is no real escape from American politics!