Therese is 70 years old and has always lived in Hermosa Beach, a quiet suburb of Los Angeles. She loves her city, she loves her job: she takes care of the archives of her former high school, Redondo Union High School, where the students, there being more than 3,000 of them, easily confide in her. Thérèse is a bit like the mother in chief of the establishment, attentive and funny, she laughs all the time but since November 5 and the election of Donald Trump: no more laughing.
She first tells me, on the phone, of her amazement upon arriving at high school on November 6, the day after the election of Donald Trump. We are therefore in California, a Democratic state but that morning a lot of young people, while they are not old enough to vote, arrive at high school with red MAGA caps on their heads. They start jumping for joy and shouting “Make America Great Again”. Unprecedented for Thérèse who was stunned, the teachers too, that day, some did not teach, they preferred to dialogue with the young people and try to reassure the non-Trumpists who were confused or even terrified.
So there remains the family but “it’s not great” Thérèse continues: her cousin for example, after 35 years of marriage and 3 children she divorced, her husband voted Donald Trump, irreconcilable…
And then, Therese’s nephew: he followed Trump everywhere throughout the campaign, she no longer knows how to talk to him about friends, sometimes from childhood, neighbors, acquaintances. She collapses when she learns that so-and-so, unsuspected before the election, now enthusiastically admits to supporting the new elected President…
She “collapses”?
Yes, on the phone Thérèse is absolutely crying, because in 70 years, this is the first time she has felt so much in danger in the United States—that’s the word she uses: DANGER, the assassination of President Kennedy in ’63, the September 11 attacks in 2001… she remembers her fear on those two days but today she insists: it’s worse.
Result: Therese leaves the house as little as possible, she no longer listens to the news, she plans to quit her job and why not move. In the meantime, she goes to the beach and looks at the ocean because, in the time she has lived in Hermosa Beach, the beach and the ocean have not changed and that makes her feel good.
