On February 5, republican senator Mitt Romney voted in line with democrats in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. Not only was this move shocking, but also bold because Romney was going against his own political party.
In the speech he gave explaining his reasoning, Romney states, “In the last several weeks, I’ve received numerous calls and texts. Many demanded, in their words, that I ‘stand with the team.’” However, Romney did not succumb to the pressure and voted to impeach the president.
He did what was best for our country.
He acknowledged that the acts Trump is being tried for are crimes, labeling the actions as “a flagrant assault on our electoral rights, our national security and our fundamental values.” He realized that the man we have leading our country is a threat and chose to vote against his party in his fight to get Trump out of office.
This is what everyone should be doing.
Not voting against their party, but voting to better our country as a whole. That is what our democracy is rooted in.
When Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, before he was even the presidential nominee, he gave his “A More Perfect Union” speech, where he highlighted the country coming together. He emphasized that in order to better our country, it was something Americans needed to do together.
However, since 2008 the two primary political parties have not become united in their goals for our country but staggeringly polarized.
Further along in his speech, Obama said that, as a country, we could “accept a politics that breeds division and conflict and cynicism,” and that is exactly what we have done. The political spectrum has become more bitter than ever before, and that persists into this next election.
The last election’s results, in my opinion, are inexcusable. A man was inducted into office with a known track record of being blatantly ignorant and disrespectful.
Everyone knows the infamous “grab ‘em by the pussy” remarks. This exchange alone should’ve been enough to discredit Trump as a political candidate — he clearly has no regard for women as people. He has multiple sexual assault and rape claims against him, he clearly views women merely as objects, valuing their worth based on their sex appeal. Nearly 51% of the United States’ population is female, so that is nearly 51% of the population that Trump is disparaging.
Then, again this was before Trump was elected, video footage surfaced of him mocking a disabled reporter. I am at a loss for words for how incredibly blasphemous, rude, and insulting his actions were and there is no hiding them! The proof is literally right there!
If it were any other political candidate, democratic or republican, they would’ve been reprimanded and dragged through the mud for making such a display, but Trump? He somehow gets elected president.
During his first run, he stood on this pedestal, where he has miraculously remained over the course of his four years in office.
Since becoming president, Trump made bigoted remarks such as calling African countries “shitholes” and Mexicans “rapists”; criticzed the film Parasite for winning best picture at the Academy Awards because it was from South Korea; paid hush-money to silence the women he had affairs with; had many instances of potential obstructions of justice claimed in the Mueller Report; dropped bombs in Yemen without congressional approval; attempted to withhold disaster relief funds from Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria; he attacks the media, threatening to arrest reporters who publish content he doesn’t approve of, and according to Fox News host Chris Wallance, Trump “is engaged in the most direct, sustained assault on freedom of the press in our history;” and has been impeached by the House (not the senate) on accounts of foreign colusion and obstruction of justice, all for personal, political gain.
Recently, he has also tarnished the reputation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom by awarding it to conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh and attacked child, climate change activist Greta Tunberg for her work around the world. This came, ironically, after First Lady Melania Trump has campaigned for anti-cyberbullying and went after a legal scholar testifying during the impeachment trial for making a joke about her young son Barron Trump. However, she doesn’t care about her husband’s targeting of a child.
Simply put: Donald J. Trump is a terrible person.
None of the points were strikes on Trump’s policies, but his character. He is a man I am, and everyone else should be, embarrassed of representing and leading our country. He is not the face we should be putting forward when dealing with international relations or any other matter, and quite frankly he is making a mockery of America’s entire government. The President of the United States should be a role model to children, and Trump is not someone young people should not look up to or ever aspire to be.
In the upcoming election, I know who I am voting for, but many have no idea or perhaps don’t like who their options are. If you fall under that category, this is me begging on my knees, for you to not vote for Trump. When voting, if you struggle with who the other candidate is, don’t think about your vote as a vote for them but a vote against a disrespectful and irresponsible leader.
This is where the country needs to proceed party, and the needs of the masses need to trump everything else. Trump benefits no one except those who are exactly like him, which is a rich white men. He is a man that desperately needs to be out of office, and this election is our opportunity to make that happen. America can’t survive another four years of his tyranny.