You’d be forgiven for think that we’d woken up in some horrific nightmare, but no unfortunately not.
Donald Trump has been elected as the 45th president of the United States of America. Just let that sink in, if it hasn’t already. A man with no military or political experience has beaten a woman who has been Secretary of State and a public servant for her entire career. This is the modern day democracy where truth and experience no longer matter.
This election has shown us everything that is wrong with how we view the world. It has shown us the power of social media and how the echo chamber effect is a very real thing. We like to think that everyone is as progressive as we are but the truth is, we don’t know what goes on inside people’s heads.
Let’s break this down; over the election campaign Donald Trump has shown himself to be a racist, a misogynist, a homophobe, anti-choice, a denier of climate change and most of all, he has shown himself to be above the law. The next President of the United States is set to go on trial for the alleged rape of a 13 year old on the 22nd of November 2016. And yet none of this mattered because this is who has been elected to the White House.
And what was Hilary Clinton’s crime? She was a woman.
The FBI investigations did not help but let’s be clear here, both candidates were viewed as dishonest by roughly 60% of the electorate. They had nearly equal dishonesty ratings going into this election and yet it is Trump who has won.
The implications of this election are huge. Every minority in the US be they Hispanic, people of colour, LGBTQ+ or Muslims to name but a few are in danger. After Brexit, there was a 400% rise in hate crime in Great Britain. With this result we could see something similar, if not on a larger scale and that is a terrifying prospect. Among the first to congratulate Trump were the far right in Europe such as Marine Le Pen and the Ku Klux Klan. With elections in both France and Germany within the next 6 months, this victory will only serve to strengthen their cause. Think about it, the first African American President of the United State will have to hand over the presidency to a man who was endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan. That is how insane this situation is.
Women too are in danger. 52% of white women voted for Donald Trump. 52% of white women voted for someone who sees them as nothing more than something to be groped and fucked rather than vote for Hilary. It appears that being accused of rape does not impede your chances of becoming the President of the United States. By electing this man to power, we have normalised sexual assault. If the President of the United States can “grab them by the pussy” and get away with it, what’s stopping anybody else?
And why has this happened? Because god forbid we put a woman who appears “cold” in the White House. God forbid we put a woman who is qualified and experienced in charge. We’d rather put a racist, misogynist, homophobic, anti-choice, alleged rapist in the White House because god forbid we’d put a woman in charge.
The only way to counteract what has happened today is to unite. By staying silent when people are being racist, sexist or homophobic we only aid the instigator. We need to stand up to hatred and support each other. We need to protect the most vulnerable in society from those who wish to destroy us with hatred and bigotry.
Let this election be a lesson to us; if we don’t learn from history then we are doomed to repeat it.
