On March 16, it will have been nine months since Donald Trump announced his candidacy for president of the United States. At the time, I thought his campaign announcement was the most incredible thing I had ever seen. With little preamble, he went into how America always loses to China, Japan, and Mexico economically--and Mexico at the border. Concerning Mexico, Trump said they send drug couriers, criminals, and rapists--though he did concede that some undocumented immigrants are probably good people (this is a paraphrasing).

At first, I thought Trump’s entire campaign was a joke. Never mind the fact he has no political experience (which, in this political climate, is apparently a positive): somewhat more importantly, he speaks like someone without political experience, and every other sentence out of his mouth on the campaign trail is laced with vitriol, prejudice, and hatred. I was sure, given the way he conducted himself as a presidential candidate, that Trump wasn’t really a presidential candidate: he, in my thinking, was running to place himself in the center of the public eye, and would withdraw himself from consideration once primaries and caucuses began. If he didn’t, then I was sure that public support for him would wane as the campaign season went on. Trump would no longer be the shiny new toy in the presidential candidate aisle, and his supporters would tire of his utter lack of substantive policy.

So in the months between his announcement and the Iowa caucus on February 1, I waited for Trump’s popular support to wither or for him to suspend his campaign--and I grew increasingly distraught when he remained in the race. That he was running to essentially be the leader of the free world with no political experience dismayed me, as it did in the cases of Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina; but what maddened and terrified me more was how he was running. From the beginning, Trump’s campaign was built on the twin cornerstones of xenophobia and prejudice--and those cornerstones were strong enough to get him a plurality of votes in the polls from the moment he entered the race. I wanted to believe his support wouldn’t translate to the ballot box, and I was wrong on that count as well.

I grew so desperate that for the first time in my politically cognizant life, I depended on the Republican party to take action that would benefit me and the nation. When Trump started winning primaries, and Ted Cruz consistently had strong showings behind him--even winning the Iowa caucus--I assumed the GOP would coalesce around an establishment candidate who, able to take on Trump one-on-one, would emerge victorious, as most Republicans who indicated support for a non-Trump candidate were diametrically opposed to seeing Trump be their party nominee. On this I was partially wrong. The Republican party indeed tried to select an establishment candidate; however, it could not settle on which candidate to draft for service. Thus Trump has won most states that have already held primaries, despite the fact that he has to win a majority in any primary or poll.

What scares me most about Trump’s campaign is not his individual actions, but those of his supporters. One man spewing hatred and prejudice is unfortunate; that man being the frontrunner for the presidential primary of a leading party is terrifying, because it means a plurality of Americans either supports or tolerates said hatred and prejudice. One need only look at any Trump rally to see that proven true. In recent months, political correctness has been deemed a negative in a public figure, and Trump has run his campaign on “telling it like it is” (which is basically saying all the prejudiced things his supporters wish they could say).

To a degree, it makes sense that people support Donald Trump: the hyperpolarization of federal politics has meant Washington has often failed to accomplish even the most simple of tasks, such as filling a vacancy in the Supreme Court in a timely fashion. In such a climate, people probably feel politics no longer adequately represent them; thus they turn to political outsiders such as Trump. But when that status is complemented by racial and religious prejudice that feels compelled to freely express itself, it encourages the public to be open and comfortable with that same prejudice. I wonder in fear what a Trump presidency would mean, who it would empower, and who it would marginalize. I am terrified of what Trump insinuates when he says, “Make America Great Again”--to what era and aspects of America’s history he longs to return. I personally can’t find anything appealing in a Donald Trump presidency--especially because he’s yet to expound on any policy at all, let alone those that would make America better--but that anyone else can has me genuinely afraid for this country’s future.