WASHINGTON — John Frost, who wore a T-shirt that said, “Dump Trump,” looked at the White House and closed his eyes in a grimace when asked what he thought of the man who will be moving there.

“I don’t want to think about it,” Frost said.

He’d come to the White House Wednesday with a few of his friends to hold signs. His said, “Solidarity.”

The act was partly one of defiance, he said, “but, I guess, also of being in mourning.”

On the day after Republican Donald Trump pulled off arguably the most surprising victory of any presidential election, much of this mostly Democratic city appeared to be in shock.

A few made it a point to come to the White House. Overhead the skies were overcast. On the ground, the faces were grim.

Frost talked about how much of the world seems caught up in conservative movements like Brexit, the United Kingdom’s vote in June to leave the European Union.

“The anger is real,” he said of the sense of those who feel left out of the economy.

“But Trump? This real-life Richie Rich, with misogyny thrown in, has become the working man’s candidate?” he added, contemplating one of the many seeming incongruities puzzling Democrats.

There will no doubt be months of debate, and panel discussions in this city, over what went wrong for the Democratic Party. On the first day of self-analysis, Frost said, Democrats realized they no longer resonate with the blue-collar workers were once part of their core.

“We’ve become a party of urban professionals,” he said.

This being a city where 93 percent of voters supported Democrat Hillary Clinton in the election, most of those who wandered by the White House also appeared to be mourning.

No one was wearing Trump’s red “Make America Great Again” hat.

Alston Riddick, 18, a political science student at Georgetown University, stood alone silently, staring at the White House with his chin in hand.

He’d made it a point to come by on his run, he said, to reflect.

“I remember how excited my parents were eight years ago when President Obama was elected,” said Roddick, who is African American. “Yesterday I was so excited about breaking down another barrier and electing the first woman as president.

“Trump had run on obliterating Obama’s legacy,” he said.

Yet Trump was elected by the same country that elected Obama twice, “in landslides.”

Riddick was still trying to wrap his mind around this, he said, when a reporter walked up.

Like Riddick, Jonathan Kandel, 18, voted for the first time Tuesday.

It was disappointing, he said.

“I don’t feel like my views are represented,” said Kandel, who worried that Trump’s appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court will lead to a reversal of abortion rights.

But, of course, many have felt like they were not represented during President Barack Obama’s administration.

One of them, Jim Fisher, took in the scene of protesters.

“I liked it. It’s time for a change,” he said of Trump’s victory. “We got a man who knows how to run a business. He’s going to beef up the military so we can be proud again.”

Fisher said Trump will restore a time, “around World War II, when people were proud to be Americans.”

“Americans are going to stand together again,” he said.

As one protester started railing against Trump, Fisher walked off and said loud enough for protesters to hear, “Just walk it off.”

“It happened,” he said.

Kery Murakami is the Washington, D.C. reporter for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Contact him at kmurakami@cnhi.com.