Trump

Trump

Donald Trump’s racism, misogyny, islamophobia, homophobia, and just general hate is extremely well-documented. From his rallies to presidential debates, he has never been afraid to say what he feels about any group of people. In the wake of his election, millions of Americans have expressed their dismay at electing such a hateful man to the highest office in the land. I myself have been outspoken in how ludicrous it is to me that we have elected an outspoken bigot to the presidency. 

What has been more surprising to me, however, are the people flying to Trump’s defense. Countless people have claimed that he is not a racist, and that they themselves are not racist for supporting him. Maybe they aren’t thinking about the ramifications of a Trump presidency, or they have chosen to forget the things he spent over a year campaigning for. But I haven’t.

There have been floods of people commenting on social media about how they don’t appreciate being called racist for supporting Trump. They agree with his policy, but aren’t racists. And neither is our now President Elect, they claim. He just wants to remove all the illegals from the country and ban people that might be dangerous from entering. Their words, not mine. 

See, the thing is that you cannot ignore his rhetoric and racism while choosing to only support his policy. His policy is directly influenced by the things he believes. You can follow his hate speech at a rally directly to the policy he wants to implement. There is no supporting the man but not his racism, because that is who he is proven to be. To support the man who is racist is to support racism itself. 

Look at it this way: as a majority Christian nation, it would be nearly impossible to elect someone who worshipped Satan to become President. But imagine for a moment that a Satanist was running, they got a bid from a major party, and they were one of the two main candidates seeking election for the Presidency of the United States. Christians would be outraged from ever corner of the nation. People would protest and speak out and pray for America. Christians would be offended to their core, because a Satanist believes things contrary to the very nature of a Christian. 

Atheists probably wouldn’t be bothered, and other extremely tolerant people would probably just look at his policy and vote based solely on what the two candidates plan to do for America. The nonreligious have nothing to lose really, because they aren’t bothered by a deity they don’t believe in. Christians, on the other hand, wouldn’t even take the time to listen to policy. When you exist in such an offensive manner to the very root of who people are, why would they take the time to listen to him? 

This is what happened with Donald Trump. The people who he offends with his rhetoric and the things he believes are incapable of understanding why anyone would vote for him. The people who are unaffected by things like racism and misogyny get to ignore them and focus on what they think will be better for the nation. They get to ignore the cries of the Christians and and elect the Satanist.

The outcry about Trump’s election is not simply the melodramatic cries of sore losers. It is a reaction to something that offends millions of Americans to the core of who they are. It is the anguish of seeing your soon-to-be President be someone who was outspoken about how terrible, dangerous, and bad for America you are. It is the terror at a running mate who is extremely anti-LGBTQ+ and supports shock therapy to “cure” queer youth. It is the It is the shock that we chose someone who is undeniably a racist to be our president. Think of these things if you have privilege enough to not be experiencing these emotions yourself. Think about how it must feel to be an immigrant in this nation right now. Think how it must feel to be a Muslim. To be LGBTQ+. 

And when someone claims that Trump is racist, maybe think twice before defending him: once about how you could and once about why you are.

Tags: publish, politics, trump, Election 2016, misogyny, homophobia, hatred, racism, LGBT, islamophobia, wordpressed
November 11, 2016 at 09:31AM
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