Without a doubt, the 2016 presidential race has been the most covered race in recent history. Inflammatory exchanges between candidates have fueled the crowds like the blood of gladiators in a grand coliseum. However, the race that has made politics important again for many Americans is drawing to a close with two warriors left standing: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Before you cast your vote this November, I would like to delve deeper into the psyche of the grand ole' nominee who has taken the country by storm. I have selected three actual quotes from the Donald both before and during his unprecedented romp through the Republican party.
To begin we shall look back to 2012 where Trump is was quoted saying "An extremely credible source has called my office and told me that Barack Obama's birth certificate is a fraud." Now to give context for those of you that don't remember, our friend Donald was the leader of something called "The Birther Movement" back during the 2012 election. Trump even ran that year on the single issue of the president revealing his long-form birth certificate. The movement had no other purpose than to attempt to prove that President Obama was not born in the United States and thus could not be president. Obviously Obama released this document and eventually put the matter to rest, but this was after Trump had literally campaigned on the fact that Obama couldn't possibly be American. Whether this was an issue of racism or not, the blatant stupidity to chase this claim for months even after it had been quashed gives me much concern about the intellect the Donald possesses.
Secondly we go to one of Trump's favorite social media realms, Twitter to find our next quote, "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive." Before you break out your tin foil hats to join Donald on his conspiracy train, I would like to let you know that climate change is a nearly unanimous consensus in the scientific community. How can we have someone as president who does not have a grasp on fundamental science? Climate change is a real issue that must be addressed if the human race plans to exist for the next few million years. The last thing the green movement needs is some loud-mouth making outlandish claims against it. If someone with the influence of the president made such claims environmentalism would take a huge step back and there would be no push for innovations in energy.
Lastly we shall look at one of Trump's most famous quotes from the 2016 campaign trail "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending the best. They're not sending you, they're sending people that have lots of problems and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists, and some, I assume, are good people." Now it truly amazes me that I would have to explain to anyone how this is an astonishingly racist and fallacy ridden comment, but I will do my best to break it down. In the first line, the idea that Mexico is "sending its people" doesn't make any sense. Since this comment is a rant about illegal immigrants, Trump is assuming that Mexico intentionally sends people into the United States illegally. I hate to break it to you, but the Mexican government isn't "sending" anyone. Any person who decides to come to the U.S. legally or otherwise does so of their own free will. Now we can just attack the rest of the comment all at once. Trump goes on to infer that the vast majority of people coming into this country from our southern neighbor are violent criminals looking to spread their problems in the United States. How can one assume such a thing about people who by great majority are simply looking for a better life for their families. So no Donald, not some, but 99.9999% of these are great people that want to contribute to the great American experiment. Obviously they need to do so legally, but with such a complicated citizenship process that can take decades to complete, it is no wonder that so many find the easy way in. The last thing we as Americans should be doing is labeling these people as villains and fear mongering the American people to get votes.
These are only three of the ludicrous things the Donald has gone on record to say. As always, I strongly encourage you all to do your own research and find real transcripts of his interviews and speeches to critically analyze the albeit interesting psyche of Trump.
