Sunday night’s debate confirmed what a majority of independent American voters already believed: Donald Trump is a woefully unqualified, unfit, and unsuitable candidate for President of the United States. When asked about his shameful 2005 comments on what he believes he can do to women, a despicable statement in and of itself, he went on to brush it aside as “locker room talk”, and immediately proceeded to speak about his strategy against ISIS. Spoiler alert: his strategy would be as ineffective as his outreach to African-Americans and the Latinx communities. When asked about said outreach, he actually boiled down his argument to one question. What have you go to lose? To help Mr. Trump answer this question, I compiled a list of things I would lose if he were elected. Here’s a short version of that list, for your consideration:
-I would lose the ability to walk or drive down the street without police officers being able to ask me for proof of citizenship, and I’d lose my ability to walk through an airport without TSA and K-9 units stopping me because my brown skin and beard make them suspicious.
-I would lose the ability to say, “My country stands for freedom and democracy.” when your comments on Muslims and Latinxs amount to the violation of civil liberties within those communities.
-I would lose the ability to walk with my African-American, LGBT, Muslim, and Hispanic friends without the fear of people decrying our religion, our identities, or our races.
-I would lose the security I have from people who wave Confederate flags and Nazi banners and yet demean and threaten those who do not stand for the pledge of allegiance from coming at me and calling me un-American because I’m a Latino.
-I would lose, or rather have already lost, my faith in civil discourse at the highest echelons of power in our nation without the need for personal attacks and slander of a caliber never seen before in our history.
-I would lose the ability in my lifetime to drink a glass of clean water and breathe clean air because you thought it was a Chinese conspiracy against Americans, and my children would never know a world unaffected by climate change.
-I would lose my ability to voice my opinion against you and your policies because of your vocal advocacy for censoring the internet and various web services.
-I would lose out on the already stagnating housing market for people of my age and I would make less over the course of my life than the average person from previous generations because your economic policies would kill the economy for the second time in my life.
-My family would lose the ability to peacefully live in your America, where our loyalty and citizenship would be constantly under assault.
-I would lose an America that rescinds rights guaranteed to its citizens based on heritage, and an America that stands for liberty and justice for all.
-I would lose out on sharing and respecting the cultural heritage of my fellow Americans in favor of promoting the WASP-centric view of American culture.
In short Mr. Trump, if you won this election, I would lose. All the people who have valiantly struggled and currently fight for equal rights for all races, genders, religions, and sexual orientations, the soldiers who have made the ultimate sacrifice for a country dedicated to freedom and all those who stand against your authoritarian stances, lose.
Your plan for the Muslim communities in America closely parallels the treatment of Japanese-Americans in the United States during World War 2; calling on a community to spy on each other and report on each other while questioning their commitment to the American ideal is disgusting. Your plan for undocumented migrants and possibly the Latinx community is essentially Eisenhower’s “Operation Wetback” on steroids; forcibly deporting 16 million people from the US which would require an unprecedented invasion of specific communities is a blatant violation of the 4th Amendment. The plans you have for American foreign policy threaten even our longest lasting and most trusted allies abroad and boil down to exchanging mutual, collective defensive hostage to profit.
Don’t pander to me about what I have to lose Mr. Trump, you look like an idiot.
