Back in 2011 when Trump first began making political noise using “birtherism” as a platform, I had to laugh. It was so easy to see him as a crackpot and since we all believed at the time that he was speaking to a small, fringe group among the GOP and the teapartiers, none of us took him seriously.
I’m not laughing anymore.
There’s no longer anything funny about the statements he’s making. He’s dredging up the worst and most vile forms of hatred in his supporters. He’s becoming dangerous to us as a nation. That was quite obvious after he condoned the physical assault of a Black Lives Matter protester at one of his rallies and it’s becoming more obvious every day.
He began this campaign by calling undocumented immigrants rapists and drug dealers and you, his supporters, cheered. As soon as he expressed hatred toward people who didn’t look like you, you were hooked. Never once have I heard Trump or any of you acknowledge the fact that you, too, would break the law to keep your children alive and provide them with the best opportunities you could. None of you seem to want to acknowledge that when we talk about immigrants, even those who enter our country illegally, we’re discussing human beings.
Lately, Trump’s rhetoric has become far more disturbing. Registering Muslims? Forcing them to wear ID badges? Why does all of this sound so familiar? Are we becoming so full of fear and hatred that we’re willing to become Nazi Germany, labeling certain people less than human, less deserving of equal rights and human dignity, because of their religion and their race?
I’m watching Trump rallies in which supporters felt inspired to physically assault a man for saying “Black Lives Matter.” I’m watching you cheer Trump’s promises to ban mosques and place them under surveillance, to bring back waterboarding, and to “make America great again.”
What you and Trump fail to understand is that silencing, vilifying, and torturing people is never what made this country great. It was our promise of freedom and equal opportunity and our quest for equality. It was men like Dr. Martin Luther King, and President John F. Kennedy who called us out when we fell short on those promises of freedom for all groups of people in this country and their work to bring America closer to adhering to those promises.
No, I definitely cannot laugh at what I’m watching anymore. I’m watching the people of this country lash out at those they do not understand and therefore do not wish to include in those promises of freedom and equality and I’m watching one man tap into that fear and hatred for votes at any cost. I’m watching with a broken heart and I’m devastated.
What have we become?
