Seeing country more polarized, American voters fear for future

BETHLEHEM, the United States - At 52, Jewel Mathewson is optimistic about her life. She found a "good job" and moved from St. Petersburg, Florida, to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a month ago to work as a senior portfolio manager with a big financial company.

Yet, Mathewson, who is white with two children and five grandchildren, is not that upbeat about the future of the country, fearing for the animosity in the wake of the Nov. 8 presidential election, and the money in politics.

"The division of this society is terrible," she told Xinhua in downtown Bethlehem less than two weeks before the election. "I've been through a lot of elections. I've voted since I was 18 years old. Never have I seen the country so polarized."

An independent, Mathewson called it "a heartbreaking decision" to choose from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, both of whom she is "sorrowfully disappointed with." "I don't see how they will bring changes to this country."

"I think the American people are not happy with either person for president. You're gonna have a large demographic of people who're gonna be very disappointed and angry, regardless who is going to win," she said.

"I think I speak for the majority of the American population," whether they're in the mid-west or the west, or northeast, she said.

"Usually the American people will settle for whatever the choice is, but I don't see people are settling for this election," she said. "There's gonna be a lot of animosity towards whoever wins that the other side didn't want to win."

"What's gonna take for us to be united again, a tragedy, disaster, or bankruptcy? Something terrible, for sure. That's unfortunate. We don't have to go down that road. But history repeats itself, always."