Fairness and Donald Trump
On November 10, 2016, the "real" Donald J. Trump tweeted:
Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!
No, these are not professional protesters. These are people who are angry that Donald J. Trump is now the president-elect.
These are people Trump criticized and tried to marginalize.
These are people whom Trump supporters have been harassing, attacking, and vandalizing the cars, houses and businesses of.
And yet, while Trump claimed in his acceptance speech:
"Now it’s time for America to bind the wounds of division; have to get together. To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people."
Thus far, we've seen little evidence of this.
Trump lacks the common decency, the cajones:
- to acknowledge we live in a country with freedom of the press and free assembly
- to tell his supporters to stop their harassment of people they've been carefully taught to hate
- to be truly presidential which means acknowledging Americans have the Constitutional right to protest
Even John McCain, a man I frequently disagree with, had the guts to remind his audiences once the birther movement got started that President Obama was, indeed, born in America. That's something that Trump never had the courage to do in front of one of his screaming crowds.
While Trump is now claiming that he can be a uniter, the fact that he's already talked about bringing very polarizing people into his administration like Newt Gingrich, Chris Christie and Steve Bannon (of Breitbart fame) means his presidency is going to be all about pleasing loud, conservative, old, rich, white guys. More evidence a Trump administration will not be inclusive: The architect of the most racist law in modern American history has been named to Trump's team, Kris Kobach, Kansas secretary of state. The Trump team is also showing itself to be anti-science with proposal for climate-denying EPA head, Myron Ebell.
It's going to be a long four years. I'm sure I'll be one of those protesters from time to time, and I'm going to go because I have read the Constitution and there are times when I still wonder if Trump has. I will never purchase a Trump-related product, go to a Trump-related property, and generally avoid NBC which helped to make Trump a "star" with his reality show. Being president is not a reality show - it's reality, an ugly reality for those of us who know Trump and his people are going to ruin our country (but hopefully, only for four years).
The Southern Poverty Law Center is collecting reports of hate-incidents in the US. If you see vandalism or hear harassment or attacks, you can report them here: https://www.splcenter.org/reporthate and on Twitter using the #reporthate hashtag. Keep your smartphone camera at the ready - that's our strongest weapon against harassment.
