After 2016, People Are Rethinking How They’ll Spend Election Night This Year

Ask me what I was doing on November 7, 2016, and I’d shrug. Another day lost to the march of my life. But November 8 remains vivid, a montage that has gotten far too many replays: The morning stroll to the polls before catching the subway to work. The margaritas at a Mexican restaurant in Queens. The glimpse of Florida’s returns on the TV screen as we left.

For me, as for many others, the day of the 2016 presidential election is completely unforgettable. “It’s like the JFK assassination or 9/11,” Robert McClellan, podcast host and authorof Leaving Trump’s America, tells OprahMag.com.

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“Often, they are things that we don’t experience directly ourselves, but learn about and are aware of in a way that surprises or shocks us,” K. Andrew DeSoto, an expert in collective memory, explains to OprahMag.com. Other common examples are the death of Princess Diana in 1997, or the televised Challenger explosion in 1986. DeSoto credits the surprise of the 2016 election with its stickiness in people’s minds. “Many individuals had their expectations shattered by those events, contributing to the memorability of it,” DeSoto says.

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