Let’s start with the basics.
If you are middle-aged or a millennial, if you’re middle-class or if your family is on food stamps, if you are any color, if you are gay or straight or anything in between, if you’re sure of the left or if you prefer the right, if you are a citizen or not, you are here — and by being here in this country this is what you agree with: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
But that’s just specific to the United States. Let’s see what the world agrees with — what the United Nations put forth as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. This is from Article 2: “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”
Now let’s take a look at the big guy with the big personality holding the highest office in this country. We’ll just go in order because it’s easier. Let’s see what he has done.
Has he discriminated based on race? Yes. Sex? Check. Language and heritage? Check. Religion? God, yes. Another yes to “political or other opinion,” and most recently, a resounding yes to “national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”
But what inevitably happens after each and every one of his departures from that universally agreed upon common ground? Nothing. Nothing happened when an entire book came out chronicling his “stormy, outrageous” presidency, nothing happened when his proposed healthcare plan promised to leave millions more Americans uninsured and besides a handful of strongly worded letters, nothing happened when he called Haiti, El Salvador and parts of Africa “shithole countries.”
Sure, after this thing and the next thing, classmates and distant relatives will post outcries on Facebook and share articles and write articles (much like this one), but after all the petition-signing and angry-reacting and proverbial steam rising from our computers as we type away, he’s still in the White House. Or, more accurately, he’s still somewhere playing golf using our tax money.
Nothing seems to be working. People are not convinced of his wrongness. Either people overwhelmingly agree with statements made against his actions or they just don’t, interrupting the flow of sentences arguing for fundamental equality with “I agree, but,” which means they don’t really agree at all.
Things that would’ve been unspeakable had they happened under Obama or Bush are now suddenly okay. Imagine if there were sexual assault claims made against President Obama — how quickly would he have been shown the door? What wouldn’t have happened if Bush spent over $20 million on golf trips in 80 days, as the current president has done?
The common ground is no longer common, the basic human rights outlined decades before are no longer ensured to apply to every person. That’s what makes this dangerous.
So here’s to trying again — to demanding change this time instead of just insisting on it, to using our loudest voice and having the right people hear. Show up. Stand up. Speak out. To do otherwise is to make sexual assault, racism, sexism — Trump — the norm.
Contact Amanda Rizkalla at amariz ‘at’ stanford.edu.