As the hour passed from 11 p.m. to midnight on Election Day, the White House was dark.

The massive black metal gates and wooden platform for the media obscured any sight of light from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. as it was becoming clear that former President Donald Trump would be elected as the 47th president. Outside, a handful of supporters of the former president and a trio of people supporting his losing opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, exchanged barbs with each other as the stars shone through the dark more than the District’s light pollution tends to allow.

The words between the dueling supporters degraded into personal insults, from attacks on their appearances to racial and homophobic slurs hurled by both sides. But perhaps this was to be expected, given the vicious barbs the major political leaders threw at each other all election cycle. An impromptu protest that felt more like a YouTube comment section was almost a natural step from the present-day political arena. 

At 1:24 a.m., just as news outlets called Pennsylvania for Trump, a man with a “Harris-Walz” sign and a megaphone and a group of Trump supporters wearing MAGA hats erupted into an arguing match over the night’s results. 

The latter cheered as they heard about the Pennsylvania results, proudly declaring they were Puerto Ricans for Trump. 

“Kill yourself, kill yourself,” the Harris supporter responded to their hooting and hollering over his megaphone. 

“Shut your gay *ss up,” one of the Trump supporters yelled back.

Derek Torstenson, the Harris supporter with the megaphone, said he came to D.C. from Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he works as a server, to tell Trump supporters he wouldn’t stand for them taking away his rights. Torstenson said the method by which he took that stand was yelling anything and everything over his megaphone.

“I’m here to yell, scream, anything, profanity,” he said, seemingly not considering if berating his opponents as bigots contradicted Vice President Harris’ campaign slogan of “A New Way Forward.”

Torstenson is a frequent protester in D.C. and has a history of altercations with conservative activists and law enforcement. In 2021, Torstenson — or at least a man with the same first and last name — was charged for assaulting a police officer in D.C. during a demonstration, and in 2023, Torstenson called for counterprotests against an anti-abortion student group at Citrus College, to which the president of the group threatened “I’ll send the proudboys after U.” 

Torstenson continued his mission on election night, yelling at the Trump supporters — who said they were first-generation immigrants — to go back to their country of birth. 

The MAGA group stayed outside Lafayette Square, across from the White House, and a member who declined to provide his name said they were there for one reason.

“Trump,” he said.

The supporter said he wanted Trump to win every single state in the country because he believes he will create more jobs.

“We need jobs,” he said. “People who work hard, who are here. They need jobs.”

At 1:25 a.m., a group of five Christian activists marched past the White House, chanting Jesus’ name. One carried a light-up cross twice his height, while another hauled a nonilluminated cross. Another member of the fivesome wore a flashing cross chain and held a sign meant to look like an iPhone screen, reading “Jesus Calling,” another carrying a MAGA-esque flag in the style of a Trump campaign sign that read “JESUS: Make America Godly Again.” After 10 minutes, the cross disappeared around the corner of the White House.

Closer to the gates to enter Lafayette Square, a separate Harris supporter — a short woman who ripped a vape after each heckle — screamed at the Puerto Rican Trump supporters, “Hasta luego, go home to your country ahora,” ignoring, like some in the Trump campaign, that Puerto Rico is part of the United States.

She then began yelling “Ingles! Ingles!” 

Pierre Caulfield, a Harris supporter who wasn’t partaking in the xenophobic chants, said he traveled from Philadelphia earlier in the day to protest Trump. It was his first time in D.C. since he was eight, he said. 

“I feel like this is the final election before I stop caring and never vote again,” Caulfield said. 

He said there were more Trump supporters protesting outside the White House that night than Harris supporters, a turnout that disappointed him.

“I feel like no one in D.C. gives a crap,” he said. “They’re all in their homes, and it’s fine if the party that we don’t want to win wins, but the fact that you don’t show your support or show your face.”

“Would you like to go viral on Twitter?” Caulfield’s friend later asked him in jest, imploring him to ratchet up the provocation of his protests.

“No, I just want Kamala to win,” Caulfield said. 

Minutes later, Caulfield began singing the words to Chappell Roan’s “HOT TO GO!” with one slight modification: “H-O-T-T-O-G-O, you vote for Trump, now you’re a hoe!”

Torstenson joined in, heckling Trump supporters with his megaphone.

The recipient of those verbal barbs, a Trump supporter named Daniel who declined to provide his last name or line of work, said he came to the White House because he wanted to be involved with a “riot” to celebrate Trump’s victory.

“Maybe we can rob a Best Buy or some sh*t,” he said, a manifestation of the brand of “law and order” that comes from a party who nominated a convicted felon for president.

At 2:32 a.m., as Trump’s leads in the battlegrounds of Wisconsin and Michigan widened, a pro-Trump young man who had just been cheering for the now-president-elect walked up to Torstenson, and asked the question at the bottom of everyone’s mind: What was going to happen to Jack Smith, the special prosecutor assigned to Trump’s criminal charges?

Torstenson said he would “suck him off,” to which the Trump supporter rallied fellow MAGA fans in a “Jack Smith” chant to mock the crusading lawyer.

Shortly after, the cross bearers returned. The cross illuminated Lafayette Square once again, and reporters swarmed the group. “Evangelist of Christ” — a middle-aged man who insisted he wasn’t joking about his name, and the group’s leader — said the group are nonpartisan street evangelists from Arizona who preach in public places and had been protesting since the start of the day in D.C.

“Our message is that we’re calling America to turn to Jesus because we believe that the problems in our nation are ultimately rooted in hearts,” Evangelist of Christ said. “Systems can’t change hearts, but Jesus can change hearts.”

At 2:53 a.m., a mere 90 minutes before Trump would win Wisconsin and the election, about 10 local police officers on foot and on bikes went up to protesters and encouraged them to leave, one by one. 

Ten minutes later and about two blocks away from Western Market, a group of about 20 student Trump supporters turned the corner near the International Monetary Fund Headquarters building, marching from Foggy Bottom toward the White House.

Some carried Trump flags, others wore red MAGA hats. One donned a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag wrapped around his shoulders, and another wore a “Tim Sheehy for Senate” shirt, celebrating the soon-to-be-called victory of the Republican Senator-elect from Montana, considered the tipping point seat for Senate party control.

The group began singing Queen’s “We Are the Champions” as they walked toward the White House. It was 3:02 a.m., and Trump had yet to be declared as the winner, but the writing was on the wall with the former president only needing Alaska’s electoral votes to win. As they neared Lafayette Square, the group belted out Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.”

They didn’t get very far until several local police officers on bikes rode up to them, allowing the group to take a group photo near the White House — though it took minutes for them to find a photographer, until a photojournalist on the scene took pity and snapped their picture — before escorting them past a group of counterprotesters, including Torstenson, who were leaving the White House but turned back when they saw the Republicans approach.

The Trump-supporting crowd then walked off into the dark night, their speaker blaring the Village People’s “YMCA.”