I think it's overly apparent to everyone that this election is unlike any other. Everyone and their brother has an opinion and it's hard to go even a day without hearing about at least one of our candidates. When it comes to choosing, many people have disregarded the policies, empty promises, and views of our candidates. That is because our choices have never been so awful! Both campaigns are riddled with flaws, and Trump and Hillary have each said and done things that are incredibly difficult to look past. We truly are picking the lesser of two evils simply because it feels almost impossible to fully stand behind either candidate. But as this dreaded election approaches I know without a doubt who I will not be voting for. And that is Donald Trump.

Now I know many of you have already scoffed and chosen to disregard the rest of this article but I encourage you to be open minded and look at this in a different point of view than your own.

I'm not voting for Donald Trump because he is a HUGE step backwards for our society.

Now I agree, when it comes to business he is very experienced and possibly exactly what we need, but people are not money. Trump has time and time again shown that he is crude, arrogant, narcissistic, and has little respect for others. He is liked mainly because he is bold and speaks his mind, which I'll admit does sound refreshing on paper, but his words spoken are not always true and are typically intertwined with words of hate and judgement. Which makes the very reasons that many people support him invalid. We like him because he is a Republican who speaks his mind and isn't a politician? Well then sign my racist grandpa up for the next presidential election because apparently he's exactly what our progressive nation has been missing all of these years! People are failing to realize that different does not mean good; and in this case it doesn't even mean adequate.

I'm particularly passionate about this election because of my upbringing. I grew up in a home filled with love. My dad showed me exactly what it meant to love and respect women in the way that he treated my mom, sister, and I. Those values have been instilled in me and are the very reasons I feel sick to my stomach when I hear our potential president makes sexist comments. But what infuriates me even more is when I hear his supporters blindly follow him and push aside his sexist and racist remarks. I've heard many make exceptions for him because "what he says is not different than something you would hear from a rapper today" and "we have had leaders that were racist in the past and things were fine." But we're not voting on who's going to drop the hottest album of 2016 and we surely don't want to go back to how things used to be when it comes to equality. We are voting for someone who is supposed to lead this great nation. Someone who will lead us to a better, more prosperous, and more civilized America. Our options are garbage but that doesn't mean that we need to completely forget the values that our president should ideally uphold.

When it comes to inequality Trump has shown that he has little respect for minority groups and women. And about 90% of Trumps supporters are caucasian. Now this isn't my way of saying that white people don't know anything about adversity but let's be honest... we don't. Here I am as a white female trying to talk about adversity but I have no idea what REAL adversity looks like. I'm nineteen and I've never been pulled over by the police, never felt like I had any reason to truly fear for my life, and I've never been poorly treated by anyone that had any seniority over me. My life has been pretty easy in that regard but I like many women have experienced some sexism. I've been the butt of sexist jokes and comments and have at times felt completely disrespected and objectified by those around me. Sometimes even by the people I felt closest to. And with any sound of retaliation I'm discredited and what was said has been changed to a simple joke. But sexism and racism are not things to be joked about. And the simple truth is that those who haven't faced this kind of adversity are almost blind to the fact that it truly exists and the power that lies behind it. Racism and sexism are very real things; they are radical truths in our society. They have been the cause of riots, protests, war, and more than anything the division of our country. So the idea of standing behind someone who "inadvertently" supports these terrible ploys that divide our great nation... well they just don't sound like the type of person who would make America great again. Instead they sounds like the kind of person who would further divide our great nation. We would be living in a society with greater inequality. And here we are, already living in a very unequal America and that's with an African American president and a powerful first lady! The idea of things getting much worse is almost too much to bear.

So no, I may not yet know who my vote is going towards in this election but I can say that I have enough respect for myself and the people of this country to know who I'm not supporting come November. Because a vote for Trump is a vote for sexism, racism, and a country further divided than it already is and I know, full-heartedly, that is not the America that I want to live in.