I teach English to corporate students that are in the US either temporarily or permanently. It has been enlightening discussing this election with them. One of my students looked at me in shock last week, saying she'd heard that only 65% of the population had voted on November 4th, and yet that was something we hadn't seen in 100 years. So then I had to introduce a new word to her: cynicism.

The day after the election, I received this in an email from a friend: Maybe we really can change for the better. I’m trying to get used to the unfamiliar feeling of hopefulness which might take the place of those little jagged kernels of cynicism that have been eating away at my heart.

I, like my friend, am a child of the 60s, when we were filled with wild, boundless hope. Then came the 70s, when that hope was dissipated by drugs and alcohol. Worse, in the 80s, the new generation of young people enthusiastically embraced Reaganomics with its focus on materialism and consumption. It seemed those dreams of peace and equality, social justice and civil rights for all, had never been.

Cynicism is insidious and difficult to combat. It seems that nearly our whole generation fell prey to it during those long years. I kept on voting every four years, but many of my friends did not. Even Clinton's election in the 90s could not completely eradicate it from our hearts. After all, he won the electoral college but not the popular vote. When W was elected, then re-elected, cynicism reigned supreme. Were our citizens really this uninformed, this (dare I say it?) stupid!?