People need to fight against the election of Donald Trump
By Katie Earles
On Nov. 9, I, along with many other students at Grady, came into first period in a hazy state of shock. How could we elect a racist, sexist, xenophobic bigot as the leader of our country?
How can we be progressive as a nation with a leader who got elected based off of the promise to “Make America Great Again”? This phrase itself raises the question: when was America ever great? When women couldn’t vote? When abortion was illegal? When gay marriage was banned? What exactly are we going back to here? These questions, for me at least, remain unanswered, and I am wholly unconfident that our now President-elect Donald Trump will be able to answer them.
The night after the election, right outside of Grady, I joined a protest of at least a hundred people who marched up 10th Street yelling chants of opposition toward Trump. We walked together filled with anger. The momentum of people walking with signs, the honks of cars passing by in support, and people holding hands in solidarity resulted in the subtle realization that we do not have to accept Trump as our president.
Atlanta was not the only city that housed a major rally against Trump. Since the election, people have flooded the streets of at least 25 major cities across America. Hundreds of thousands of people have joined anti-Trump rallies in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
While post election protests may seem like whining or being a sore loser, attention to these protests will only bring attention what is now a single party republican government. Why should we as a country passively submit to a president that the majority of Americans do not respect or agree with? We need to rise up, and we need to unite.
This is not the type of unity Clinton spoke of in her secession speech, nor the unity Obama spoke of. We need to unite to stop hate from ruling America. We must band together in solidarity and opposition to those in power who do not acknowledge our basic human rights.
It is our time to unite and fight against Trump his plans for our country. This is fighting for the values that make us human, and if we have to do this for four years, then count me in.
After the election, many people thought that Trump would calm down. His over the top persona would simmer, and he might actually have the morality to run a country. However, many people have returned to their prior state of despair as Trump has chosen Steve Bannon as his senior counselor and West Wing chief strategist. The former leader of the Klu Klux Klan, Davie Duke, praised Trump’s decision on hiring Bannon.
“I think [hiring Bannon is] excellent,” Duke said on CNN’s KFile. “I think that anyone that helps complete the program and the policies that President-elect Trump has developed during the campaign is a very good thing.”
To many people, Bannon is considered to be a white supremacist. His former leadership at Breitbart, a conservative website infamous for anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant views, has many wondering whether Trump truly will appoint those who respect all Americans.
We should not stand by and pray that Trump will be a good president when all of the evidence points toward Trump leading the country headfirst into the depths of despair. We should not shake hands with the other side and say “good game” when the game turned on the majority of the American people. We should no longer accept the things we cannot change. We should change the things we cannot accept.
People need to unite with President- elect Donald Trump
By Sophie Rivard
After his victory in the 2016 Presidential election, Donald Trump angered many Americans who decided to take to the streets in protest. As someone who had thought the idea of Trump’s presidency was a joke throughout the course of his candidacy, I wasn’t happy with the results of the election.
Despite this, I have come to terms with the outcome and realize that we, as a nation, have to unite together. Through protesting Trump, rather than specific policies, we are making our voices heard but for the wrong reasons.
In a time like this, where political views have divided the people of this country, we have to come together. Throughout the course of this election, the two opposing sides have become increasingly hostile toward one another.
Both sides defended the candidate they favored by attacking those who supported the other side, forgetting those people were their friends and neighbors. The country is only going to fall if we stand against one another. Public officials from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama have stressed the importance of coming together to accept the election outcome. Clinton advised us to do what would be best for our country, and we need to accept the result and look to the future.
We cannot afford to let ourselves become so separated because the consequence will be a country with political views so partisan that the government will not have the ability to function and pass legislation. When it comes time to influence the policy decisions Trump is making we have to make our voices heard. We have to unite as a collected group, regardless of political affiliation, to make a real impact. The results of the election were disappointing for many, but it is time that we move past that to keep the United States truly united under one flag.
The importance of protesting policies rather than the president alone is that we will be able to achieve greater results. For example, when Trump was still a candidate, he claimed that he would dismantle Obama’s climate change program. This is where we have to use our voices to force Trump to consider the detrimental impacts of his decision.
As a check on the government, we would have to convince Trump that this idea would not be in the best interest for the United States, since protecting our country from the impacts of climate change is crucial to a sustainable future. We need to stay informed on issues and continue to argue for what policies we think are right rather than protesting against that which we have limited power to change.
Freedom of speech is an inherent right: one that we should protect. However, many of these protests have turned violent and will likely attract a backlash from the other side, so we have to ensure that our protests are focused on fixable issues, such as the government’s specific actions. Turning to violence as a form of protest is not going to produce the intended results, but it will contradict the ‘Love Trumps Hate’ motto that we are trying to enforce.
Come January, we will have no choice but to accept President-elect Trump as the next leader of our country. We should hope that he is successful within his term because to hope for his failure would be to hope for the failure of our country.
