A demonstration was held in front of the White House on Monday to protest the Trump administration’s anti-trans policies. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Once again the Trump administration is proposing another cruel policy; this time trying to erase transgender people. It is an outrageous policy on its surface and can only be thought up and proposed by cruel individuals at the direction of a president who believes bullying and cruelty are the way to lead the nation.
If we as a people continue to accept his actions history will judge us all as complicit just as they judged the German people during the Holocaust. They will judge us because we have the opportunity on Nov. 6 to speak out with our votes and say NO, we will not continue to accept this.
This despot in the White House, and there is no other word for Trump, began his rise to power attacking immigrants. He called for a ban on all immigrants from Muslim countries. He continues to do that and today passes policies taking children from their parents and threatens to close the American border to those hoping to get asylum here. He uses peoples’ struggles to attack and denigrate them, call them names, and lie about them.
This is a man who has shown he has zero empathy for anyone not born with a silver spoon in their mouth as he was. For anyone who struggles to work to support themselves and their families. For anyone who struggles to afford healthcare for themselves and their families.
He is a congenital liar telling one lie after another if those lies serve his purpose to rile up those who join him in his vicious attacks on those less fortunate and not born to privilege. The sad part is so many who believe his lies are those who he personally scorns. Those who he has shown in his business practices he is willing to lie to and cheat. They for some reason don’t understand he is in essence attacking them.
One can only compare this man to Hitler and his followers to the fascists who together tried to destroy a people and a country. He is willing to stand in front of his followers, declaring himself a ‘Nationalist’ without their understanding of what he is actually saying. He uses that word to signal he is joining with the White Nationalists and Neo Nazis he said were ‘good people’ when they rioted in Charlottesville, VA. One can imagine the next step being he will have his supporters at these scary rallies he calls campaign events lift their arms and scream ‘Heil Trump’. If you think that is far-fetched you are wrong. It is history repeating itself. We have seen it before.
Today more than ever we must think of the words of Martin Niemöller; “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Trump has come for the Muslims, Trump has come for the immigrants, Trump has come for the poor, now he has come for the transgender community, and tomorrow he will come for you unless you stand up to him and say NO! This is not what America is about. This is not who we are.
On Nov. 6, ‘we the people’ must say to Trump “Your time is up we now come for you.” If we don’t do this we all lose. If we allow him and the Republican Party that controls Congress and is silent and totally subservient to him to continue to control Congress we all lose. They are not there to defend us because they fear him. Trump has already said to them “If you fight me or try to stop me I will come for you”.
So it is up to you and me, those who are still willing to stand up to this despot and fear monger to say ‘No More!”. To say we are not afraid of you; we will not bow down to your playing at being king. We will not stand for your desecrating our constitution and hurting our fellow Americans.
We will take you down at the ballot box. We will show you who America really is. Your time is up and you will go down in history as a failure because you are a failure as a human being. History will not get the chance to judge us as complicit because we will show you on November 6th we are not. We the people will take back our country.
Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBT rights and Democratic Party activist.
