Inauguration Day 2017
Our country is being split apart by a President who operates from the gutter and a Republican party that is going along for the ride. The extent of the damage that Donald Trump is doing to the United States won’t fully be known for decades, but we are living in the here and now and can no longer allow Trump’s racism and xenophobia to be a continuing path of governance.
Donald Trump has repeatedly used the power of the presidency to spew hatred and bigotry without remorse. There is no justification for his behavior or the denigration of the highest elected office in the land. Every time Donald Trump goes on the attack people think he can’t go much lower. But then the next time, and the next time, he does just that. This past weekend Trump went too far.
Using the pulpit of the POTUS Twitter account, he spoke words of outright racist and xenophobic hatred for four freshman Democratic Congresswomen of color. He told Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota (born in Somalia), Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna S. Pressley of Massachusetts:
“…go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done.”
Telling a person of color to “go back to where you come from” is a comment too painfully well known by minorities. It reeks “you don’t belong here.” It was bad enough that Trump uttered the words in the first place, but then he defended himself the next day saying,
“It doesn’t concern me because many people agree with me.”
With the affirmation of his own bigoted remarks, Donald Trump publicly condoned racism and xenophobia to the entire world. To him, using that spear is only politics. But it’s the politics that’s letting him get away with it all.
To ask a bigot, “Why?” is to ask a question for which there is no rational intelligent answer. To ask Trump’s fellow Republicans why they, for the most part, remain silent is to understand the extent to which Donald Trump governs by fear.
This new silent majority is afraid they won’t get re-elected if they speak out because Trump will intercede. Pathetically, job security is what it’s all about for these Republicans. Their weakness has done nothing but embolden Donald Trump. It’s disgraceful. Those who remain silent should lose their seats simply because they have remained silent.
There is no living Democrat whose voice is as strong as that of President Barack Obama’s in speaking out against racial injustice and bigotry. As the first African American president elected by our country, Obama’s voice carries power unlike any other for the times in which we now live.
There is no former president who understands how it personally feels to be on the receiving end of Trump’s abject racism. A former president whose own birthright was ignorantly challenged by Trump’s racist taunts. Barack Obama’s voice needs to be heard once again as a clarion call to unite as much of our country as possible, and stem the fallout of the racial divide created by today’s politics.
President Obama, break your silence. These are not normal times in which former Presidents keep their thoughts to themselves out of respect for the office. This is not about endorsing a current Democratic presidential candidate. This call to you is made out of the great need we as a nation have to hear sanity again in an effort to stop the breaking apart that is taking place. We understand after shaking the new President’s hand and wishing him well in January 2017, you hoped for the best for all of us. But it’s come down to living with the worst unchecked presidential behavior our democracy has witnessed.