I'm not American, but I remember feeling anxious the entire day- I thought Hillary was probably going to win but the Brexit debacle earlier that year was making me nervous.
It wasn't that I really liked Hillary Clinton or even the Democrats, but as conservative religious rightwing loons the Republicans offended all of my liberal sensibilities, and as someone who'd been gleefully gloating over rightwing rage over a black president and gay marriage being legalised the entire Obama presidency, the possibility of having the tables turned on liberals was just unthinkably terrible.
After the Brexit vote had turned out to be a completely grim experience to see unfold in real time, I had decided to tune out of the election entirely and just wake up to see who won. However, I decided to take a quick look at how the vote was going before I went to bed which ended up being a huge mistake. It was the Brexit vote all over again, just a big fat L with a profound sense of doom settling on me as I began following discussions on Reddit, mainly on r/politics but also on some more general liberal anti-Trump places I can't even remember. I was actually already lurking on the Chapo sub by this point, but I felt conflicted about it because my lib brain was telling me that bernie bros were dangerously sexist or whatever else I'd heard on Colbert
Anyway, I ended up staying up bleary-eyed until 7 AM until just collapsing to sleep on the couch, feeling like an asteroid had just struck the Earth. This time around, I don't really care all that much- while I hope the Republicans will eat shit, watching the VBNMW crowd's reaction to Trump winning would also be funny
Went to work that evening assuming Hillary would win and we'd get to laugh at how hard Trump got blown out, but like, Hillary winning still isn't good. Extremely "here's how bernie can still win" type person. I'm not even American, most of Bernie's proposals in 2016 are just... normal life here in Canada, but my life was pretty comfy back then, so hey sure why wouldn't I hope my American friends can get the same thing?
Slowly saw the east coast flip red, and just had to keep telling myself the west coast hadn't finished, and they were basically a locked in 100 points for the dems, so like, it's not as bad as it looks, I swear it's still fine, it'll be close but it's fine, it's... ah. Ah fuck.
Spent the entire train ride home doomscrolling, reading the reactions of all the Americans I know, and basically went to sleep going "welp, yall fucked, woulda been real cool if the dems actually wanted to win instead of fielding the worst possible candidate".
At this point I'm expecting an exact repeat, but it'll be less of "ah fuck" and more of "yeah that sounds about right".
From what I've seen in all the big elections in the last four years, whenever someone is telling you "votes from X haven't come in yet, it's not lost yet" it is most definitely lost