Electile Dysfunction (Current students plz look!)

[G.Irish]

When people shrug their shoulders and say, 'yeah he's racist and he's hurting people but the economy is good so whatever' they're basically saying they don't care what happens to their fellow Americans, as long as I get mine.

When the president is openly racist, enacting policies based on a racist worldview, and whipping up racist sentiment, it is a threat to people of color's safety and way of life. When people shrug their shoulders as the president goes further and further down that rabbit hole are effectively saying they don't care what happens to minorities. You may not consider yourself racist, but you're ok with a racist being the most powerful man in the world.

And that is what was so disturbing about Trump's election. Everyone knows that America has plenty of racists. But many didn't think in this day and age that so many people would be willing to ignore this man's racism and misogyny. People in their own family, people that are their friends. That all those people would turn a blind eye to a man who openly brags about sexually assaulting women. And totally ignore that this man doesn't think brown people deserve the same basic rights, opportunities, and access to justice.

In some ways I get it. They saw two 'bad' choices and chose the Republican option, or the let's-try-something-different option. For some of those people, Trump's sexism and racism are just disagreeable facets of him that they can overlook in favor of stuff they like. The same way they may hang out with Joe from work who is kinda racist but he always brings good food to the barbecue. But for me, and many like me, we can't overlook that stuff because those things are a threat to our existence.