As President Obama predicted in a video addressed to the nation, the sun rose on November 9, 2016. It rose to news that even last week, would have seemed impossible. Next January, Donald J. Trump will assume the Office of President of the United States.

The initial reaction across the Skyline College campus, and the nation, was devastation to say the least. After over a year of the least substantial and most consequential presidential campaign in modern history, it seemed like everyone was “with her,” and the presidency was Hillary Clinton’s to lose.

And that’s exactly what she did.

Blame has been thrown around everywhere from the Electoral College to the disaffected supporters of Bernie Sanders that didn’t show up to support the Democratic nominee, but the election of 2016 reflects a greater issue at hand that can be found all around this country; conflict has replaced conversation, and all coherency that goes with it.

Donald Trump is the most fascinating man on Earth right now. He has been vilified by the media, the political establishment, minorities, and women all across the board, and rightfully so. But despite this, he will soon be the most powerful man in the world. How did this happen? Well, it is a culmination of years of gridlock, toxic rhetoric, and irrational and ill-conceived actions from both sides.

Many view the rise of Trumpism as an assault on political correctness and the oversaturation of social justice movements in public and private institutions across the country. Microagressions, trigger warnings and safe spaces have, to some, have caused free speech and reason to fall by the wayside. The social justice movement has gone too far in some instances, taking what the original idea of a “safe space” was and drawing the line in the sand even further between demographics.

According to The College Fix, a protest was held at the University of California at Berkeley in favor of creating a university-sanctioned safe space on campus exclusively for students of color. They even went so far as to make lines of human shields across a main bridge on campus demanding that white students that tried to cross “go around.”

This kind of regressive-progressivism is exactly what fueled the fire of a potential Trump supporter that is legitimately concerned about the influx of immigrants into this country, and the impact they could have on our culture and economy.

Of course, Trump would not have ascended to the presidency without a cesspool of political toxins that have been created in Washington by the Republican Party over the last four years. After pledging to do everything they could to stop President Obama at all costs on the day after his inauguration, the GOP rode into power, willingly or not, on the headwinds of a big orange monster they created themselves. Their constituents’ fatal attraction to the dumbed-down, style-over-substance demagoguery that is now synonymous with the Trump brand sets a dangerous precedent for the future of American politics.

Instead of listening to one another with honest, calm and peaceful dialogue, we have now manifested a society that sanctions an environment where one that does not agree with you, is automatically your enemy; which, until it ends, will only cause divisions in this nation to run deeper and deeper. Until that day comes, our Commander-in-Chief will be a man, who even at his most tame and seemingly “Presidential” moments, is at best repugnant.