When I registered as a Democrat and my voting card came in the mail, my mom hesitantly asked, “So you’re a Democrat?” After the brief awkward silence, my dad joked, “Get out!” In my family of Republicans (and as someone who shies away from conflict), I often try to keep my liberal viewpoints to myself. However, a certain candidate has affected my ability to keep my beliefs to myself.
This may not be surprising to a lot of people, but I don’t like Donald Trump. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I hate him as a presidential candidate. There’s a lot of discord within the American government and in the world, but I don’t think Trump is the candidate to handle any of the problems we’re facing.
Firstly, building a wall never really solved any political problems in the world. We all know how the infamous Berlin Wall ended. If construction of Trump's conceptual wall ever commences, it won’t be long before history repeats itself and we will find ourselves chanting, “Mr. Trump, tear down this wall!”
I admit that walls have been useful in the past — occasionally, they have been known to have strategic and defensive purposes! But, despite Trump’s attempts to turn us against our neighbors, I’m not too worried about the need for a defensive border along Mexico. Immigrants, illegal or otherwise, are human beings and deserve to be treated as such.
Which transitions wonderfully into my next problem with Trump: his discrimination against Muslims. The Muslim religion is a peaceful one, highlighting many similar principles as Christianity. Saying that we must ban Muslims from entering the country on the basis that all Muslims are potentially terrorists is vastly ignorant and unacceptable.
Terrorists are the outliers in Islam, similar to how the Westboro Baptist Church is not an accurate representation of all Christianity. How would you feel if everyone assumed that you behaved in the manner of the Westboro Baptist Church because you identified as Christian?
I would wager that you would feel generalized and misunderstood. Although to be honest, I’m not altogether sure if Trump’s views are really that different from the Westboro Baptist Church. I don’t care what the question is, discrimination is never the answer.
Although I have many other political differences with Trump, I also have a personal problem with him. As a woman, I cannot vote for Trump. I am an ardent feminist, which means that I believe in the political, social and economic equality of the sexes (among other things). Putting it lightly, Trump is not a feminist.
Quite frankly, I am appalled that Trump even has any women supporters. Trump has made far too many sexist and misogynistic comments directly to or about women. Here are a couple of examples, but there are so many more. Just recently, Trump accused Hillary Clinton of playing the "woman card." He stated that she would not be nearly as popular if she were a man. Which is not only demeaning, but also undermines her candidacy.
I will applaud Trump on one thing — he has somehow managed to convince people that his racist, sexist and ignorant comments are merely his refusal to play by the standards of “political correctness” instead of examples of his bigotry. However, I refuse to vote for a racist. And that’s what he is — a racist.
Despite the fact that neither Hillary nor Bernie will explicitly use the word "racist" to describe Trump, Ben Mathis-Lilley from Slate writes, "As a matter of accuracy, though, if someone who says Mexican immigrants in America are disproportionately likely to be rapists, argues that Muslims should not be allowed into the United States, and repeats sleazy urban legends about the behavior of American Muslims and black people is not a racist, then the word has no meaning."
Trump is the type of person who says, “No offense” right before offending someone, and I think we can all agree that is the worst type of person. So let's all agree to make America great again by not voting for Trump.
