Editor’s Note: All articles for Her Campus OR State are the opinions and beliefs of the writers and do not reflect Her Campus OR State, the Oregon State University or Her Campus as an international magazine
Dear Mr. President,
I want to start off by congratulating you on taking your place in history. However Mr. President the history you and I are thinking of are vastly different. See, in your mind your place in history is as the 45th President of the United States of America. In my mind your place in history will be next to the other four men who managed to win the presidency while not winning the popular vote. Your place in history will be remembered as being the first president to lose by millions of votes. Your place in history will be remembered as drawing a protest against your presidency, in DC alone, that was three times the size of your inauguration crowd. Your place in history will be in inspiring the single largest protest in United States history. Your place in history will be in motivating people from all seven continents to protests your presidency. You took your place in history long before you even signed your first executive order.
Now that you have signed your first executive orders, however, your history may be changing and expanding. Your story of American detriment continues. As of now you have signed executive orders to enact ACA rollbacks, cut funding to abortion services, and approved the Dakota Access and Keystone Pipeline. You have also crippled our EPA, and tried to wipe facts from being released about climate change. You have “taken down the Spanish-language version of the White House website.” You also plan on making an executive order to build the “great” wall. You have accomplished all of this while reminding millions of Americans that you do not care about us or our future.
You have reminded me again that as a woman my body is not my own, and that a room full of men get to regulate it. You have reminded me that my own body is more regulated than a gun. You have reminded me that what a biblical text says trumps my own say. You have reminded me that to be a woman is to be less. You have remind me that OUR planet is not at all our’s, but rather belongs to the highest bidder and oil companies that have cash to burn. You have reminded me that if you are not a cisgendered, white, heterosexual, middle class American who speaks english then you are not safe. You have reminded me that I must once again be fearful of being Jewish, and that my Muslim brothers and sisters must also fear. You have reminded me that my friends who identify as POC are not safe in their own skin. You have reminded me that indigenous people are not welcome to their own land. You have reminded me that I am not safe in my own school. You have reminded me that I should fear for my life when exercising my first amendment rights. All of this, you have reminded me Mr. President and you haven’t even been in office a week.
However Mr. President if this week has taught me anything it is that there is still hope, and before you go on getting a big head this hope does not come from you. This hope stems from what the marches taught me. They didn’t just teach me that there is a vast group of people that oppose you, but rather there is a group of people that will not let your presidency define a generation. At the marches a common chant was “WE WILL NOT GO AWAY, WELCOME TO YOUR FIRST DAY,” and this is true. Mr. President we will not go quietly into the night for every move you make we will be there. We will never stop fighting. These people, who walk every path of life and identify in all intersections of life, will not let you continue without a fight. We will create such a commotion that you cannot ignore us. We will constantly be there to remind you who this is going to affect, and how this is going to impact them. We will fight for those who cannot fight, we will fight for those who don’t know how to fight, and we will fight for those who don’t know that they should fight.
Mr. President you have motivated a movement that will be the cornerstone of this historic period. When people look back in generations to come your name with be a footnote in our fight. In years to come when people are free to be themselves regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, nationality, marital status, gender, or their intersectionality we will be the ones remembered. In the future when what makes us different is celebrated not used as bait in fear mongering, we will be the ones remembered, not you Mr. President. We will be remembered as an example of what to do when the odds are stacked against you. We will be the ones that they look to when trying to understand what makes America great.
Mr. President, we are doing what you asked us to do. We are making America great again. Now it may not be in the way you want, but it is in the way that America has always progressed to greatness. America has always achieved greatness by moving forward towards a better tomorrow, not trying to go back to a glorified past. America cannot be great if more than half of us feel unsafe. America cannot be great if more than half feel unwelcomed. America cannot be great with hate. So Mr. President the loud majority of people are going to fight on, and we are going to make America great, without you as our leader.
Lastly Mr. President, you called Secretary Clinton a “Nasty Woman,” well let me promise you this,