After a week of throwing ourselves into homework and studying for midterms, my friends and I decided to take a break and watch "Shrek" in order to reward ourselves with a bit of nostalgia from our childhood. As we watched, one of my friends, Chelsea, happened to pick up on something: Donald Trump is actually Shrek... No, really. He is. He's not green (instead he's a different color), he's not that tall, and from what I've seen, his teeth aren't rotten and brown. But he is literally Shrek personified.
Shrek is an ogre living on the outskirts of a kingdom in a swamp. Long story short, a king decides to capture all the fairy-tale creatures and place them at Shrek's swamp. When Shrek comes home one day, he sees these creatures basically living in his home and on his land. He goes on a conquest with a friend, Donkey, to get his land back, and along the way Donkey tries to convince him that they can be friends and all the fairytale creatures can live together. And that is the very moment Shrek says one line that I will never forget: "There is no us! There is no our! There's just me and my swamp. And the first thing I'm gonna do is build a 10-foot wall around my land."
You may be confused as to how a fictional character like Shrek relates to a very real, very destructive presidential candidate? Well, let's start with Shrek's personality. Shrek is a very isolated ogre. He doesn't like people and he gets angry when someone is "invading" his space. Sound familiar? Yeah, it's Donald Trump. In the scene mentioned above, imagine Donkey, the friend helping Shrek get his land back but wants the fairytale creatures, including himself, to have a safe place to go, as the Democrats (literally, he's a donkey). The democrats have often endorsed legislation that would allow more refugees (or the fairytale creatures) to come to America. Visualize America, a safe place for those who have been persecuted and threatened with death (just like the fairytale creatures) as Shrek's swamp. Now, here's the fun part. Donald Trump has denied the call for more refugees in America since he began running for president. In fact, he called for a nation-wide Muslim ban on all Muslims entering the U.S. Just like Shrek, Donald Trump doesn't want those who are experiencing threats to their life to "intrude" on his land here in America.
The fact that we can relate Trump to a fictional movie character doesn't make his politics any less scary. Just in the last week, we heard of Trump speaking about sexual assault on camera, making jokes about grabbing women by their genitals, and the other disgusting things he mentioned. He has constantly preached anti-black, Islamophobic, and misogynistic rhetoric. After more than a year of Donald saying incredibly offensive and racist things that were majority ignored, it was this, something that finally angered white women in droves, that made Republican leaders speak out. Not that what Trump said was excusable, because it most certainly wasn't, but it's troubling it took this to stop people from voting for him. It is sad that it took a year of The Donald and all his issues to make noise before America decides to do something. Finally, GOP members called for Trump to resign as the candidate for their party.
Think about what this would mean for the future of America. Think about what a Trump presidency would mean for black, brown, and minority people; think about what it would mean for women, for our children -- for poor people. Think about it would mean for those he calls "immigrants" but have been in this country, their country, longer than himself. Think of what it means for America. No, it won't be great. It will simply be the opposite. So, as Election Day approaches, remember not to vote for Shrek...I'm sorry, Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate.
