Dear everyone who Voted for Donald Trump, our President-Elect.

I swore I would never write about politics on my social media or take any sort of public stand on social media, but times have changed. I changed my mind with this election. I will probably write more articles about politics in the coming weeks and months. However, after that, my voice will be silenced again. My political views are not up for debate but keeping them to myself is too much to bear right now. I have to use my voice in the best way I know how and that is through writing. I have to do something. Donald Trump has forced me to say something. I can’t sit back in silence and not use my voice. You let him have his voice so I would like to use mine too.

Before you jump to any conclusions, please hear me out. I don’t think you’re racist, homophobic, anti-Islam or any of those other accusations that have been floating around. I’m not going to sit here and accuse you of anything. I merely want to question, why?

Most of you seem to have made a decision based on your own truths and put lots of thought into whom you would vote for and I believe it. I respect you and your beliefs. They may not align with mine, however, that doesn’t mean they’re not valid. I like to assume that most of you actually read up on him and his policies before voting.

However, the candidate you voted for seems to stand for racism, being homophobic, anti-Islam and doesn’t respect women. He has blatantly made fun of the disabled, and made some disgusting comments about women, people of color and Muslims, not to mention the LGBTQ+ community.

I don’t understand how this helped his cause. Why was that forgiven? Why was that okay with you? You may not believe in those ideals, yet you voted for a movement that does. It seems his campaign was built upon hatred for others. By voting for him, you basically joined this movement that was built upon that hate. There may very well be some concrete ideas that will help our country, but where will the hate for those groups help those ideas?

My heart sank to my stomach when I saw him up on that stage ready to thank everyone after he won. His acceptance speech was about his claimed “forgotten.”

As I watched him make his speech and heard him claim, “The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.” I was angry and upset. Why? You might be wondering why I could possibly be so upset. It was just a speech. No big deal.

Well, you see.

Donald Trump wasn’t talking to me when he said that. He addressed the nation as a whole, but wasn’t addressing me or millions of others too.

He forgot about me. He forgot about so many others, on purpose. He forgot about women, Muslims, Mexican immigrants, LGBTQ+ and so many more.

I’m a woman and I’m mixed race. I might be white but I’m also Mexican, a minority on his hit list. Double trouble am I right? I refuse to put myself in a box to support someone who wouldn’t dare support half of me. He sees two parts of me as less than his forgotten. He wants to make America great for people who are not the same as me. What does that tell you about him? Why is it that he feels he has to ostracize people in order to achieve? Wouldn’t you think we would be better together?

So Donald Trump voters, you may not see it my way because you may not understand it. I may not fully understand where you are coming from either. You could possibly fit into his forgotten. You may not want my empathy or anything from me for that matter, but I’m still going to use my voice. So to all the Donald Trump voters, I have one question for you: Why?