By A Muslim student from Ohio
Working from their offices and high level positions in the White House, a new regime of white nationalists and ethnocentrically minded individuals have all too effectively managed to ride the coattails of mainstream politicians into the Whitehouse. A toxic mixture of Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and white supremacy has managed to mutate into the mainstream politics of America and turn our political dialogue into a dangerous mix of ignorance and demagoguery.
It is by no means mere exaggeration to suggest that there is no one who holds more responsibility for this phenomenon than Donald Trump himself. During the 2016 election, then candidate Donald Trump, despite heavy pressure, refused to voice any serious condemnation of white nationalists, and neo Nazis who had chosen to vote for him due to his anti-immigrant political platform. He repeatedly forwarded tweets by a known racist with the online name WhiteGenocide, and also forwarded a tweet with a star of David surrounded by dollar bills which is a highly anti-Semitic caricature.
Trump has extended his hand in friendship to some of America’s most notorious bigots, even going so far as to appoint Stephen Bannon, the former head of Breitbart, a news outlet which he described as a platform for the alt-right. Breitbart is a racially vitriolic and hateful website with headlines such as “Hoist It High and Proud the Confederate Flag Proclaims a Glorious Heritage.” Bannon is a man known to have told his former wife that he did not want his children going to school with Jewish students because their parents raise them to be “whiny brats.”
One needs no further proof of Donald Trump’s open hostility towards Muslims than his own words, policies, actions, and appointments. In 2015, Donald Trump called for a “Total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” When condemned, he cited an anti-Muslim poll from a known Anti-Muslim hate group Center for Security Policy.
During the 2017 Ramadan holiday, Trump’s own Secretary of State Rex Tillerson refused to hold a celebratory dinner breaking a bi-partisan tradition upheld by every president regardless of political leanings since the Clinton presidency.
The results of Trump’s ties to these forces of hate have led America down a path she once tread during her darkest years. These were the years during which immigrants, Jews, and African Americans were looked upon with suspicion, when nativist and hateful sentiments fueled the hearts of many, and when the traditional ideals of America were in greater danger than ever before. This is just another example of how Donald Trump and Mike Pence regime have taken our country down a dark road of hate and division. It is incumbent upon all those people of conscience who hold human sentiments in their hearts to hear the beckoning call of justice and stand for those ideals for which America has been called a beacon of hope since its inception.
Now is the time to drive this neo-fascist regime from the reins of power. If we wish to be free, if we wish to preserve those privileges and ideals for which our forefathers have so long sacrificed so much, we must remove this regime from power and refuse to accept an America built on hate and division. In the name of humanity, we must never accept oppression and we must stand for the ideas which bring us together as human beings and as a nation just as our founders did all those years ago.