Lest we forget – Why we protest

Yesterday students in our community’s high schools took to the street to protest President-elect stated agenda. I could not be prouder of our youth – and the school system and parents who supported this protest.

Why did the youth do this? Don’t they get that it is over? Don’t they get that we have a new President?

Oh, our youth ‘gets it’! They ‘get it’ all too well! It seems our school systems and their parents have taught them that a person ‘says what you mean and mean what you say’; and that demonstrating decency, respect, inclusion, and empathy are qualities and values of a good citizen… Thank you students. Thank you teachers. Thank you parents.

So, lest we forget before we move on – minimally for historical purposes if you will… Let’s remember some of the quotes our President-elect said during his meteoric rise to the Presidency:

On immigration:

  • “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists,” Trump said of undocumented Mexican immigrants while announcing his candidacy last June.
  • “Public reports routinely state great amounts of crime are being committed by illegal immigrants.”
  • When Trump was asked to explain the connection between a U.S. born judge of Mexican heritage of alleged bias and his ethnicity, Trump said “I think it has to do with perhaps the fact that I’m very, very strong on the border… This judge is giving us unfair rulings now I saw why. Well I am building a wall and it is a wall between Mexico not another country.”
  • “For many years, Mexico’s leaders have been taking advantage of the US by using illegal immigration to export the crime and poverty in their own country – as well as in other Latin American countries.”
  • Referring to undocumenteds, he said: “These are people that shouldn’t be in our country. They flow in like water.”
  • “We have at least 11 million people in this country that came in illegally. They will go out, they will come back, some will come back, the best, through a process… It may not be a very quick process, but I think that’s very fair and fine.”

On guns:

  • “It’s too bad that some of the young people that were killed over the weekend didn’t have guns attached to their hip, frankly, where bullets could have flown in the opposite direction.”
  • Trump says there’s another way to fight crime – by empowering “law-abiding gun owners to defend themselves.”
  • “If you had more guns, you’d have more protection because the right people would have the guns.”

On foreign affairs:

  • “Don’t tell me it doesn’t work – torture works — waterboarding is fine, but it’s not nearly tough enough, ok?”
  • “Whether you like Saddam Hussein or not, he used to kill terrorists.”
  • On whether South Korea should have nuclear weapon: “It’s not like, gee whiz, nobody has them.”
  • Regarding Japan: “It’s very simple. They are going to have to defend themselves.”
  • “Wouldn’t you rather in a certain sense have Japan have nuclear weapons?”

On climate change:

  • “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive”.

On 9/11:

  • “There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey, where you have large Arab populations. They were cheering as the World Trade Center came down.”

On Muslims:

  • “Donald J. Trump is calling for a complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the United States…”

On the freedom of the press:

  • Trump has pledged to weaken the First Amendment, and “open up” libel laws so that public figures can sue and win cases against the media companies.

I get that many of these statements are politicking and posturing during the campaign to get elected. I get that he has already indicated he is shifting some positions. I get that President Obama called him a pragmatist… Yet, he said what he said. I have to take him at his word.

Mr. Trump, you will indeed be my President. But you do not represent most of my views, nor have you exhibited a behavior that I consider worthy of respect – and therefore I cannot respect you, sir… Respect is earned – not demanded or commanded, even if you are the President of the United States of America.

p.s.: This short video titled “Is Donald Trump Mentally Ill?” captures much of our President-elect’s comments – in his own words.

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