Coming to Terms With a Trump Presidency: Trump IS Your President, Now What?

It’s been almost one week since Donald Trump was elected President in probably what’s been the most shocking Presidential election in American history. Since then, I’ve watched people blame the DNC, Hillary Clinton, non-voters, third party voters, women, Florida, Latinos, and each other for Trump’s win.

I’ve watched friends admonish family members for voting for Trump. I’ve seen hate crimes against Latinos, Blacks, Muslims and other minorities increase. The Southern Poverty Law Center has documented over 200 incidents in the first 48 hours after the election alone. These are alarming numbers considering Trump hasn’t even taken office yet.

I’ve watched thousands of people in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and other major cities mobilize and protest against Donald Trump. There are Inauguration Day protest marches being planned and never have the American people been as opposed to a U.S. President as they are against Donald Trump. It is a moment in time unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

The actions many are taking to voice their anger, rage, and fear speaks volumes of the division a Donald Trump presidency has already created in this country. He speaks of unifying the nation but his failure to address the recent blatant acts of racism by his supporters doesn’t support his rhetoric.

Furthermore, his appointment of Steve Bannon, the Breitbart News Network executive chairman known for having white nationalist views ― and who has himself been accused of anti-Semitism, as chief strategist and senior counselor does nothing to instill hopes of a unified nation under a Trump administration. Trump cannot expect the American people to believe his words when his actions are not aligned with what he is saying.

Getty Images Huffington Post Illustration

To say that passions are at an all-time high with Americans is an understatement. People are outraged, especially considering that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. It has caused many to challenge the current Electoral College process and question if it’s time to do away with it altogether. Donald Trump as president is not what the majority of Americans want, yet that is what we are left to deal with for the next four years. Carrying signs and hash tagging “Not My President” doesn’t change that. Trump is our President and we are stuck with him despite how much or how loud we protest. The question is what are we going to do now that he is? Did I vote for Trump? Absolutely not. Do I think he is the wrong person to lead this country? Unequivocally yes. But now isn’t the time to point fingers.

Now is the time we take our outrage and turn our anger towards something productive with tangible results. We cannot change the Presidential outcome, but we can mobilize in our communities. We can roll up our sleeves and do the hard grassroots work that is required of us. We can take responsibility for our neighborhoods and engage with our local representatives on a real level through deliberate dialogue. We can hold them to task by making our faces seen and our voices heard at every town hall meeting. We can get to know our local police chiefs, and our school superintendents. We can get to know our assembly men and women and educate ourselves on policies they’ve advocated for or against. We can call out injustice every time we see it and not just rant about it in a Facebook post.

The time is now for all disenfranchised groups to band together for the greater good of this country. If we try to fight for each group’s equality individually we will be fighting forever and we will never know what equal rights for all looks like. This division among us is precisely why Trump is our President. Divide and conquer is a real tactic and it’s the reason we need to stop dividing the fight for equality into sub groups for Blacks, Latinos, Women, LGBTQ, Muslims, Native Americans etc. Now is the time for all of us to unite if we indeed do believe in equality for all.

Considering the country’s current political climate when it comes to race relations, women’s rights, police violence, healthcare, immigration, among the many other issues that plague this country, Trump’s inability to inspire unity, acceptance, and hope is dangerous. He says he wants to make America great again for all Americans, but in the short week since he’s been elected, he’s done nothing by way of his actions, to give me hope that he will indeed do great things for all Americans. In fact, this past week he’s already begun back peddling on some of the key campaign promises that got him elected like building that wall along the Mexican border.

In his first interview since his election, Trump told Leslie Stahl from 60 Minutes, that the infamous wall he plans on building across the Mexican border could be part fence. Part fence? Interesting how he never mentioned that during his campaign. His plan to immediately deport all undocumented citizens is another strategically fabricated lie. What he meant to say was, undocumented citizens who have committed crimes.

In fact, this past week he’s already begun back peddling on some of the key campaign promises that got him elected like building a wall along the Mexican border. In his first interview since his election, Trump told Leslie Stahl from 60 Minutes, that the infamous wall he plans on building across the Mexican border could be part fence. Part fence? Interesting how he never mentioned that during his campaign. His plan to immediately deport all undocumented citizens is another strategically fabricated lie. What he meant to say was, undocumented citizens who have committed crimes.

What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a lot of these people, probably 2 million, it could be even 3 million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate, Trump said.

Are you deporting them or incarcerating them Mr. Trump? Which one is it?

This sounds very different from what he was spewing on the campaign trail. Moreover, Obama has already deported 2.5 million undocumented criminals during his Presidency so Trump doing the same is no different from what the current administration is doing. I’m not quite sure how this is the change those who voted for Trump were seeking. What this proves to me is that a large segment of this country was desperately seeking change that they sided with the individual who seemed to present themselves as such. Trump isn’t doing anything differently, but the way he delivered his message sure made it seem like he was. Despite his more of the same politics on certain issues, the fact that he is placing White supremacists in some of the key roles in his administration is what we should be concerned with.

In my opinion, those who have his ear and are his advisers are greater cause for alarm as they will be instrumental in how Trump leads this country. To me, that is more frightening. If it were only Trump we had to worry about I wouldn’t be as concerned, because though Trump made a lot of promises during his campaign, considering his history with flip flopping on certain issues such as abortion, and considering how he is already deviating from some of his most popular campaign promises, it seems like he himself doesn’t know where he stands on certain issues. The only thing I am sure of when it comes to Trump is that he cannot be trusted.

His ego centered narcissism is a direct contradiction of his ideology of wanting to make this country great again for all. He has never done anything for the greater good. His history proves that. His elitist mentality that has spanned over his 70 years doesn’t simply go away because he now finds himself elected President.

Later this month he is scheduled to stand trial for the Trump University case. Not surprisingly his lawyers are asking for a postponement because,

The President-Elect should not be required to stand trial during the next two months while he prepares to assume the Presidency. The time and attention to prepare and testify will take him away from imperative transition work at a critical time, Trump attorneys Daniel Petrocelli, David Marroso and David Kirman wrote.

We acknowledge plaintiffs have a right to trial of their claims, but their rights will not be abridged if trial were continued to a date after the inauguration to allow the President-Elect to devote all his time and attention to the transition process.

Once again Trump is trying to use his position, power, and privilege to his benefit. This is what we have traditionally seen from Trump and it is what we will continue to see for the next four years as he leads this country.

Even though I would like nothing more to say that he is not my president, it still remains that he is. I can continue being angered by it and do nothing or I can use that anger and channel it towards working to create solutions that will challenge some of Trump’s policies designed to attack the most disenfranchised populations of this country. Come January the person chosen to lead us will change. The work I do will not.

One thought on “Coming to Terms With a Trump Presidency: Trump IS Your President, Now What?”

R Fife says:

November 19, 2016 at 1:46 PM

Nancy Arroyo Ruffin, “Not My President” – we do not have to accept what might come from the Electoral College. To use a very old, not politically correct saying, ‘ not over until the fat lady sings’ (sorry, but it make the point). You giving up is what is so sad. Best to you, R

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