Just after one in the afternoon, I arrived at the The Rugby Club in the CBD. Nervous, I explained to the bouncer that I had come as a journalist, not a supporter. It was a funny joke: Donald Trump wasn't going to win, but here I was at his biggest public election party in Australia.
Even
in retrospect, the party was kinda funny: caught off-guard by the
result, it was titled Donald Trump's Last Stand. The
room was small, and half-full of misfits; Mark Latham, Cameron Ross,
Rowan Dean and Bronwyn Bishop were all there. Sitting and watching
the Fox News election
coverage, I got into a conversation with a Trump supporter. He was
friendly, and explained to me that he liked Trump because he was the
anti-establishment candidate. A crowd of people behind us shouted and
clapped, and a woman ran up. Trump just got ahead in the
betting market!
At
half past two, It occurred to me that Trump could win, but I didn't
take it to be fact. I circled around the stupid, boring party,
getting drunk off the bar tab (which consisted entirely of light
beer) and trying to fill up on the food available (elaborate fruit
platters and virtually nothing else). I approached a journalist from
The Huffington Post, whose ironic
floral button-up made him stand out. Nah he won't win ... I
mean, if Trump gets Florida, then it's game on.
I left for university. Twenty minutes later, Trump got
Florida.
At
half past three I walked into Manning; outside it was raining, and
inside it was packed. The crowd was noisy and emotional and divided.
As much as half of the audience was Trump supporters,
the mystery of their existence as usual impenetrable due to their
culture of surreal, groundless irony. The rest were divided
infinitely more times: Hillary supporters, ALP members, anarchists,
communists, unaligned people, all occupying the same space and time,
hopelessly lost and distressed. Antony Green has called the
election for Trump!
When
I was fifteen, I went to a friend's 18th. It was one of
the first times I actually got drunk: I was in a country I didn't
know with people I didn't know well but they were loving and kind,
and there was dancing in a barn in the country, and it was wonderful.
Until suddenly, someone fell onto the ground in an epileptic fit; he
recovered briefly but then he was down again, quivering, spasming,
salivating ruthlessly on the floor, while all his friends could do
was sit around him in a circle, call an ambulance, check his
breathing, hold hands and sing. It was the first time I'd seen
anything like that in my life. I walked out into the night, drunk and
on my own; I cried and I screamed.
