Trump’s second term as President of the United States has started, and he is going full steam ahead on his conservative agenda. His promises of lower taxes, cheaper groceries, and a stronger America immediately seemed to have gone down the drain that swallows most politician’s empty promises.
To start off, he has started mass deportations of “illegal immigrants”, separating families, raiding people’s homes, and allowing military service members to act as border enforcement officers, which has not been legal since before 1878, when the The Posse Comitatus Act was enacted. To go along with this, he has suspended the U.S. Refugee Admission Program, changed birthright citizenship, ended family reunification visa programs, and continued to work on building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The birthright citizen rules now enforce that a child born in the U.S. is not a citizen if their mother is in the country illegally, or legally here for a temporary time, and if the father is not a citizen or if he is a legal permanent resident of the U.S. He has also allowed non-federal officials to act as federal Homeland Security officers through Homeland Security. Even if someone is trying to legally acquire a green card, he has cancelled these hearings.
As if that isn’t bad enough, he has withdrawn the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement. Trump is openly a climate change denier, despite the overwhelming and damning evidence of climate change that can be seen all throughout the world. To make the situation worse, he has resumed fossil fuel drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which was formerly protected from this environmental distress.
Trump has also dissolved any diversity, equity, and inclusion plans in the government, and the White House Gender Policy Council. He has also only allowed two gender options on any official government documents. The Title IX guidelines on transgender rights and supporting and protecting LBGTQ+ students have been removed, giving the chance for people to be harassed for their sexual and gender orientation in educational settings without protection.
Thanks to Trump, it is now much harder to apply for Medicaid, and has removed the United States from the World Health Organization.
Recently, President Jimmy Carter passed away, putting Inauguration Day within the mourning period of his passing. In an immature and self-centered act of disrespect, Donald Trump insisted that the flags be flown at full staff instead of half staff on Inauguration Day, despite the mourning period policies saying they should be flown at half-staff.
Trump has pardoned everyone involved in the January 6th Insurrection. He likes to say that liberals are crazy, saying “The crazy lunatics that we have — the fascists, the Marxists, the communists, the people that we have that are actually running the country,” , but there has been no act even close to the Insurrection of the Capital by the Democratic party since the election.
He is very in favor of the death penalty, and has supplied every state with the supplies for lethal injection, and has encouraged states that have outlawed the death penalty to make it legal. How can people who have been so openly against criminals and for the death penalty, elect a convicted criminal to run the country?
And now to the economy. So many people claim that they voted for Trump because of the economy and lower taxes. Since he was elected, tariffs on products from China have been raised to up to 60%. He is also focused on lowering the taxes of the top 1% of people in America, not the people who really need a tax break. So if your goal was to make Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg even richer, then mission accomplished.
The hypocrisy in this country has reached astronomical levels, as people claim to care about human life, and freedom. No, they care about controlling women, white children, and protecting their right to own a gun. God forbid someone is trying to protect the immigrant child who is already living in poverty, or wants gun regulations to reduce the amount of school shootings that are happening in the United States. The number one cause of death for children in the United States is firearms. If you care so much about abortion because you claim that every human life should be protected, why don’t you start with the children that have already been born and are just trying to go to school without being shot at.
If you can proudly say that you support Trump, you are proudly saying that you don’t respect a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body, don’t care about the families being separated from each other because of ICE, don’t care about the environment or trying to reverse climate change, and don’t care about the children being killed in schools on such a frequent basis.
This is a plea to open your eyes, and make your own decisions. A plea to educate yourself and do research on the people you support. A plea to care about your neighbors and the people struggling around you. A plea to check your own privilege and prejudices, and try to genuinely improve this country. America was built on the hopes of freedom, diversity, and equality, so please do the bare minimum, and care about the human beings around you.
Sources:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/201426/the-richest-people-in-america