"Pursue that flighty temptress, adventure"
Prepare to be terrified: Meredith's inner thoughts, uncensored. So, in the mighty words of J.K. Rowling, "Let us step into the night, and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure."
10/11/2016 0 Comments The Thing About Trumphere's the deal. I do not like Donald trump. But I'm far more worried about his supporters, and the amount of support he has.Full disclosure: I wrote this about a month ago (October 11 to be exact) but never ended up posting it. My opinion has not changed much in that time, but for the purpose of the statistics in this post you should know that they are relevant to October 11th. So here goes...
The United States shocked (and in some cases, delighted) the world by nominating Donald Trump as the Republican candidate for president. And many, including myself, did not seriously believe the demagogue would win the nomination until he actually did. Honestly, I was too optimistic I suppose. I believed that America was actually better than that. I really thought that we wouldn't nominate such a hateful person to lead our nation. Yet we did. And no matter who wins the 2016 presidential election, we have to face the fact that right now, after the release of the 2005 tape and the second debate, 37 % of voters support Donald Trump. At this moment, 46% of voters support Hillary Clinton and 8% of voters support Gary Johnson. Some polls in September indicated that as many as 43% of voters supported Donald Trump. I know that polls are not always the most accurate indicator of voters' opinions, which was demonstrated during Brexit, so we have to allow that there could be a lot more or a lot less support for Trump. But the fact that he was nominated by one of the two major political parties in the United States suggests that his support is strong. That means that somewhere between thirty and forty percent of America agrees with Trump's xenophobic rhetoric or is at least willing to compromise with it. I understand that people do not like Hillary Clinton. I see her faults, and I cannot pretend that her attempts to silence the women who Bill Clinton was involved with one way or another do not bother me. But in this moment, I would like to focus on Donald Trump's hateful words. People's stances on many policies or current events issues can often be traced back to hateful or unsympathetic feelings which then intermingles with a fear of the different. Trump understands that people in America feel this way, so he exploits these fears. What words am I talking about? Well here are a few that I find particularly unsympathetic and/or inaccurate. "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. they're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." "The Mexican government is much smarter, much sharper, and much more cunning. And they send the bad ones over because they don't want to pay for them. They don't want to take care of them." "[You] have people coming through the border that are from all over. And they're bad. They're really bad. You have people coming in, and I'm not just saying Mexicans, I'm talking about people that are from all over that are killers and rapists and they're coming into this country." "Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” (released as an official press release by the Trump campaign) “Look, we have to stop with political correctness. We have to get down to creating a country that’s not going to have the kind of problems that we’ve had with people flying planes into the World Trade Centers, with the — with the shootings in California, with all the problems all over the world. … We have to find out what’s going on.” “I called for a ban after San Bernardino and was met with great scorn and anger. But now … many are saying that I was right to do so. And although the pause is temporary, we must find out what is going on. We have to do it.” “We must suspend immigration from regions linked with terrorism until a proven vetting method is in place.” "Sadly, the overwhelming amount of violent crime in our major cities is committed by blacks and hispanics-a tough subject-must be discussed." I ended up putting more than I originally meant, but I actually ended up leaving out his interactions with the Khan family, anything he's said about women, and his many other gross generalizations about minorities or the LGBTQ+ community. And concerning some of those statements above, he has made recent statements that try to minimize what he said before. However, everything he said in the above quotes were at one point met with a great deal agreement and many of them still do. I do not understand how so many Christians support Donald Trump. I included statistics about the Pew Research Center below. I call myself a Christian. My faith background is in the Presbyterian Church (denomination being PC-USA) and the Catholic church, reflecting the faiths of my parents. Some people would probably say I'm not a Christian. Sometimes, I see other Christians acting with what I would call completely "unchristian-like" attitudes. The problem is that each of us sees the other acting in non-Christian manners. Because people interpret their own faith so differently, I'll share with you how I see Christianity in hopes that you may understand some of my stances and why I do not understand the large support Trump draws from Christians. To me, God and Christianity are synonymous with love. Being a Christian just means being a person who believes that they should "love your neighbor as yourself." In fact, along with loving God "with all of your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" Jesus says that that "no other commandment is greater than these." Jesus just leaves it at love thy neighbor, without any parameters on who qualifies as your neighbor. He doesn't say "but don't love them if they are an immigrant" or "but don't love them if they are black" or "but don't love them if they are gay." So as a Christian and as a human being, I feel called to welcome immigrants who have been driven out of their homes by war. I feel called to agree that black lives matter, and that American leaders could do more to show that they believe black lives matter too. When people use religion as an excuse to be hateful, I then ask, why follow that religion? Why be part of a religion that you believe calls you to be hateful? I just feel like there is never an excuse for hatred. Again, I must reinforce that this is just my humble opinion. You don't have to agree with me. I just hope you might understand me a little better. Many people denounced Trump after hearing the tape of him talking to Billy Bush in 2005, in which he alludes to his own sexual assault of women. He apologized, but defended the conversation as "locker room talk," as if it was okay for men to talk about women this way. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that so many people denounced Trump. However, two things bother me about the situation: 1) I dislike the language many politicians used in their condemnation. Many used the language of "As a father, son, brother, etc. I disagree with what Trump said" and I find it mildly obnoxious and somewhat self-centered. I was not alone in my discomfort. I bring you...the best tweets from the day of the release and many denunciations: "Fun fact: in addition to being wives and daughters and mothers and sisters and grandmas and aunties, women are also people." and "Other fun fact: it is entirely possible to care about and empathize for human beings without thinking of how they exist in relation to you."-both from @anneursu "It is so revealing all these Republicans saying 'I have a wife & daughter & mother' You don't know any Muslims? Any Mexican immigrants?"-@chrislhayes "You don't have to have daughters or granddaughters to find Trump's comments repugnant. It's an odd, unnecessary qualifier."-@johnlegend 2) Beyond the way the denunciations were written, I have a much more real issue with the exodus of many Trump supporters. Trump's words about sexual assault are awful yes, but they are no less awful than many other words that have come out of his mouth. So why now? Some people seem to think that this was just the last straw. Others seem to think that the idea of Trump assaulting a married woman caused the outrage. I think it may be a combination of both, yet I think that if Trump had been recorded insulting the LGBTQ+ community or the black community or immigrants instead the scandal would not have generated nearly as much outrage. Lindy West of The New York Times fantastically verbalized how I feel in her opinion piece "Donald and Billy on the Bus": "Most of you are no better than Mr. Trump; you are just more subtle. If you have spent your career brutalizing and dehumanizing women legislatively rather than personally, you are no better. If you were happy to overlook moths of violent racism, xenophobia, transphobia and Islamophobia from the Trump campaign, but now you're mad that he used a bad word and tried to sleep with another man's wife, you are no better. If you have derided and stigmatized identity politics in an effort to keep the marginalized from organizing, you are no better. If you snicker or say nothing while your fellow men behave like Donald Trump, you are no better. The truth is that all of you have failed women for generations, and you deserve to lose our votes." And while some of that may be unfair to a case or two, and while it certainly is harsh, I find mostly truth in her statement. As Britain found out through Brexit, a large percentage of our country is willing to allow or strongly agrees with a nationalistic pride being leading theme of a candidate's platform. May I remind you that nationalism was a major cause of World War I and II. History from the early twentieth century seems to be dangerously repeating itself. A few minutes ago, my dad (not knowing what I was writing) said that Trump supporters "have always been there," insinuating that they have always been thinking with a mindset not so different from Trump's. I replied to him, "But now we know they're there. So what does that mean now?" Thinking more on it, I think that means that everyone, liberal, conservative, etc., now has a duty to sit down and try to understand the other side's point of view. Both sides probably view each other as equally evil-and if not evil, at least horrible. This is mainly out of the ignorance of both sides. In this context, I mean the ignorance of not knowing why the other side believes what they believe and not bothering to find out (usually because of rage or stubbornness). Perhaps one side will change the other's minds. Perhaps not. Perhaps the sides will at least understand why the others' beliefs exist. Perhaps not. But no person can enter the conversation acting as if they are trying to conquer the other. Otherwise, practically no understanding will be found. But if everyone enters willing to genuinely listen to the other person, I believe that America really does have a bright future.
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