Well, unless you have been living under a rock for the past week, I'm sure you've heard the news that Donald Trump will be our next President of the United States. To the surprise of many, including Trump supporters themselves, he managed to defy all expectations and win the system that he claimed was "rigged." To speak for the protesters across the country who are infuriated by the outcome of this election, I will not accept this outcome as normal. For any pundit on the media or friend on Facebook who urges us to "stop protesting" and "give Donald a chance," I ask you to please recall all of the countless divisive statements made by the president-elect throughout his campaign.
Donald Trump is a man who has bragged about sexually assaulting women, called for a mass-deportation of Mexican immigrants, called for the ban of Muslim American's re-entering the country because of their religion, and hell do I even need to go on? Although he did claim he wanted to be a President who would unite all of the people in his acceptance speech, the rhetoric and stances he has ran his campaign on truly did the complete opposite to this country for the last 18 months. Just one day after he won the Presidential election, he made several tweets going on the offense with the peaceful protests going on:
Now Donald, the protests sparked all across this country are by no means anyone else's fault besides your own. You cannot shift any blame on "professional protesters" or "the media" when your own words and actions are used against you. Throughout Trump's campaign, he has made it clear to your supporters that he views the freedom of speech and freedom of assembly as a threat. To show the full story, he did follow up this horrifying tweet 9 hours later with an attempt to clear up what he "really meant":
As someone who is normally nonpartisan and typically leans to be more of an Independent on issues, I can certainly say that these protests would not be occurring if any other republican who was not a complete demagogue won the election. As someone who has attended the peaceful protest in Boston after election day, I can certainly say that we focused more upon promoting discussion on the issues we care about rather than Donald Trump himself. From chants echoing "my body my choice - her body her choice" and "black lives matter", the positive messages for progressive change were the centerpiece of this protest.
Just the other day, a change.org petition was created and has massed the support of millions of Americans for the Electoral College to consider voting for Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump. It is very unlikely that the Electoral college will suddenly go in favor of Hillary Clinton, which is why my goal for protesting is to pressure Donald Trump to stick to his word. Oh, so now you want to be the person who unifies each and every individual in this country? Well now, we as Americans are responsible for holding him to his message. Because he promoted such opposite values as a presidential candidate, we will remain vocal in the upcoming 4-8 years of his presidency.
As I see it, Donald Trump's call to suddenly "unite the country" is a call to silence the voices of those whom are oppressed. Regardless of where you stand politically, the undeniable fact that many individuals are in fear that their rights as human beings will be stripped away from them under a Donald Trump presidency should concern you. As a PROUD American, I feel it is my duty to remain vocal in times of injustice which do not always directly and negatively effect myself. I hope whoever is reading this considers to do the same.
