Overwhelmingly Rejecting Trump is the Top Priority

It’s crucial that Donald Trump be summarily and soundly defeated on November 8. The electorate of the United States must send a clear, unequivocal message to the world, and to our fellow citizens: The ideas, attitudes, and behaviors of Donald J. Trump are no longer acceptable in the twenty-first century. The first step in offering a healthy vision for the future of America is unambiguously and permanently abandoning the failed prejudices of past centuries. In repudiating the candidacy of Donald Trump, we are drawing a clear line in the sand against bigotry, arrogance, and the entitlement of wealth and social privilege.

Here are a few examples of exactly what voters must repudiate on November 8.

Xenophobia

Donald Trump claims that immigrants from Mexico to the U.S. are rapists and drug dealers, despite the fact that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than the people who already live here. Trump also claims that immigrants are stealing jobs, and should not be helped or supported by Republicans because they “will not get any of those votes.” This claim also has no basis in the evidence. In fact, nothing Donald Trump says about immigrants holds up to scrutiny. There is no place in our diverse nation for this kind of xenophobic rhetoric. We are stronger because we welcome all who want to work to build this great nation, and Donald Trump’s claims are a direct attack on the foundation of the American melting pot.

We must make it clear that in the United States, a nation of immigrants, there is no room for xenophobia.

Religious Bigotry

Donald Trump does not limit his proclamations of bigotry to chicanx North Americans. He also feeds into the feverish anti-Muslim lunacy of the far-right. Without a hint of embarrassment, the Trump campaign published on their website a call for a “complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” Most of Trump’s off-the-cuff comments are unintelligible or contradictory, but even his later attempts to “moderate” that stand only reinforce his anti-Muslim views. Trump is even comfortable summarizing what he believes are the consensus beliefs of a billion adherents to a diverse religion, saying, “Islam hates us.” In making these claims, Trump ignores the very research he claims to cite, research that consistently shows high unfavorability ratings for fundamentalist, extremist groups like Daesh in majority-Muslim nations. Here too, Trump’s biased rhetoric of inflammatory ignorance ignores a fundamental premise of our secular nation, one found in the First Amendment, that we shall neither establish priority for one religion nor shall we prevent its free exercise.

We must make it clear that the United States is a secular nation, where people of all faiths are welcome, and where people of all faiths stand shoulder to shoulder as citizens.

Ethnic Bigotry

Unfortunately, Donald Trump is not content to foment the popular racism of the modern era. He is also more than willing to turn back the clock and dredge up the specters of prejudices past. Donald Trump’s long corporate and personal history of racist actions is well-documented. Unsurprisingly, those attitudes have persisted in his campaign, leading to him calling a supporter a “thug” and having him ejected from a rally. Trump has also ventured into criminology, ignoring the actual research on the subject (which correlates poverty to crime), and tweeted smugly that the “overwhelming amount of violent crime in our major cities is committed by blacks and [H]ispanics.” Behavior like Trump’s, which would be uncomfortable if it were to come from your drunk neighbor at Thanksgiving, is particularly excruciating in contrast to the thoughtful, measured analysis of racism in the U.S. consistently offered by President Obama.

We must make it clear that the hopes of the American Civil Rights movement represents the future of democracy in the United States. The train has left the station, and any American who wants to be part of the future of this country had better get on board.

Gender Inequality

Shockingly, we also have to make it clear that the suffrage movement of a century ago is also a settled issue in modern America. Upon learning that female voters will likely be instrumental in defeating Trump, a number of his supporters to Twitter with a hashtag demanding a repeal of the Nineteenth Amendment. That could be seen as an aberration, if it weren’t for the fact that Donald Trump’s campaign is either silent or hostile to every major, modern issue dealing with the status of women in society. Even when the GOP leadership tries to distance itself from Trump’s boasts of sexual assault, their track record on women’s rights makes it clear that Trump’s failure to support these issues is not an anomaly. The question of women’s equality should have been settled decades ago. The fact that it has not is a national embarrassment.

We must make it clear that, in the United States of America, the rights and privileges of citizenship are not guaranteed to all men, they are guaranteed to all people.

Environmental Devastation

Then there’s the topic of the environment. Donald Trump has a long history of ignoring the destructive environmental consequences of his actions. Consequently, it is no surprise that he wants to cut or eliminate the EPA. Nor is it a surprise that he thinks climate change is hoax, which would make him unique among the heads of state for the 195 nations recognized by the U.S. State Department. Contrary to Trump’s cavalier and dismissive statements, the threats of mass extinction and climate change are perhaps the single greatest threats facing humanity for this and future generations. Even the conservative leaders in other Western nations recognize this. Producing political leaders who deny the scientific consensus in this way makes us look as if our government is shamelessly in the thrall of wealthy business interests. Disingenuously parroting baseless propaganda for selfish gains has no place in twenty-first century America.

We must make it clear that the citizens of the United States will work to fight environmental threats with the same drive, commitment, and sacrifice that we used to save the world from the threat of the Axis powers in the 1940’s.

Chicanery

In repudiating Donald Trump, we are not just repudiating his ideas and platform, we are also repudiating his character, or his apparent complete lack thereof. While Trump claims to be a successful businessman, the record of his “business” career shows a string of broken contracts and unpaid bills. In fact, old habits die hard, as indicated by the Trump campaign’s apparent unpaid debt to a polling firm. None of this should be terribly surprising, since it is increasingly clear that Donald Trump, whose actual net worth is unclear, was completely comfortable making money from blatant fraud. We do not need to return to the days of the Teapot Dome scandal, a national disgrace that would almost certainly pale in comparison to a Trump presidency, especially since the candidate apparently does not even understand what a blind trust is.

We must make it clear that the United States does not venerate “businessmen” for their “success” at betraying the workers who built their fortunes, or at conning the desperate out of their hard-earned money.

Ignorance and Incompetence

Perhaps most embarrassingly, despite these practices, Donald Trump has actually significantly underperformed for someone who started with such a large nest egg. That is, however, less unexpected considering the multiple, long lists of astonishingly stupid things he has said. Sadly, Donald Trump’s entire platform consists of ill-informed, poorly-conceived, and often plainly absurd ideas – all of which demonstrate his complete inability to engage in serious, informed policy discussions. The idea behind a democratically-elected leader in a republic is that we choose someone who represents us at our best, not at our most base, ignorant, and ill-informed.

We must make it clear that the United States deserves its place at the head of the world’s table, and to do so we must clearly reject simplistic, childish solutions based on empty rhetoric and unsophisticated ignorance.

Misogyny and Abuse

Finally, in looking at the character of Donald Trump, it is inevitable that we examine the way he represents the worst caricature of white, male privilege and sexual entitlement, to a degree that would make the characters on Mad Men cringe. The most egregious example is undoubtedly Donald Trump’s claim that his celebrity allows him the freedom to sexually assault women without consequences. While Trump tried to dismiss this as “locker room talk,” women immediately recognized it as embodying the violent, predatory nature of sexual entitlement that has deep roots in male privilege, especially among the politically and professionally powerful men of Trump’s social tier. In addition to Trump’s own claims, the women around him are stepping forward to share their allegations that Trump sexually assaulted them, and barged in to ogle their naked, teenage bodies. Beyond that, we have Trump’s massive catalog of offensive, demeaning, and insulting statements about women. It is as if the GOP has decided to run as their standard bearer the platonic ideal of all of the worst stereotypes of the leering, groping, patronizing boss. Men like that have held power for far too long, and it is time to bring their reign to a close.

We must make it clear that the United States embodies a twenty-first century paradigm of leadership that is rooted in respect and inclusiveness, and that we reject the patriarchal traditions used to abuse women and diminish their power.

Conclusion

There is no need to use exaggeration, parody, or hyperbole to describe the ethos of the Trump campaign. In fact, none of those tools could approach the reality of Trump’s own words and actions. Sadly, the xenophobia, bigotry, recklessness, ignorance, chicanery, and explicit misogyny that define both Trump’s platform and his brand are deeply rooted in the shameful recesses of America’s past, the very past to which Trump has offered to return the nation by making America great “again.” This election will decide whether or not those “values” continue to define the politics of power in the United States. The alternative is for voters to step forward and send a clear, final message that those days are gone, that the America of the future is a place of inclusiveness, diversity, equality, thoughtfulness, accountability, and vision.

As terrible as Donald Trump is, this election is about more than just his candidacy. It is about defining the identity of the American people for the next generation. Trump’s shocking candor has left no ambiguity in the choice. Do we collapse back into the worst elements of our past, or do we unite and move forward? That is the choice that matters most on November 8.