In the run-up to Election Day, Donald Trump’s eponymous tower on Wabash Avenue had been widely viewed as a 98-story joke. Thousands of people had RSVP’d on Facebook for a “Point and Laugh at Trump Tower” event scheduled for the evening following the election, the presumption being that he would lose to Hillary Clinton. On the sidewalk along Wacker Drive directly across the river from the skyscraper, someone had set up a makeshift photo studio—a framing device that passersby could use to complete what had become the selfie du jour: a middle finger directed at Trump’s obnoxiously monogrammed building. Just last week the City Council voted to remove an honorary “Trump Plaza” sign outside the tower as a response to comments he made about violence in Chicago. The move came after a second ceremonial Trump street sign in the shadow of the building had been stolen.
“You’re sure you’re not? I recognize you,” he said, his breath stinking of whiskey.
Still, even a grudging Trump voter like Dan got caught up in the Election Day moment as the Donald racked up electoral votes and the gathering at Rebar continued to swell. When Fox News’s Megyn Kelly called the state of Ohio for Trump, Dan and dozens of others pumped their fists, exchanged high-fives, and chanted “Trump! Trump!” A muscle-bound man wearing a skin-tight “Trump/Pence 2016” T-shirt warned me to watch my laptop—he was about to pop a bottle of champagne once President Trump became official.
I gazed up one more time at Trump’s shiny skyscraper. It almost seemed to be flipping the middle finger right back at Chicago.
