Opinion: Advocate staff member sickened by Trump’s racist and sexist actions

By Emma Hall, Advocate Staff

Donald Trump is the current president of the United States running for reelection. Representing the Republican party, Trump wants to terminate the Affordable Care Act, seeks to overturn Roe v. Wade, and believes individual states should manage testing for COVID-19.

As a Cherokee and Blackfoot woman and as a journalist, I find it incredibly revolting to give a vote to Trump. One of his first actions as president was approving the environmentally dangerous Dakota Access pipeline, which has ravaged Lakota land.

Trump has also frequently called former Democratic presidential nominee, Elizabeth Warren, “Pocahontas” a term that doesn’t affect her as a white woman, but instead is used as a slur against Indigenous women, specifically towards those in Powhatan Nation.

He also never shy away from attacking the press. Trump has repeatedly called the free press the “enemy of the people.” From my experiences as journalist since 2015, I associate the term “fake news”, a phrase Trump made infamous, with discrediting a story ones find unfavorable. Furthermore, by refusing to condemn the murder of Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, Trump made it clear that he doesn’t care about the lives of journalists whatsoever.

Trump’s tagline: “Make America Great Again,” fully encapsulates his presidency for white supremacists. For them, Trump is the perfect candidate, because he frequently attacks Black, Indigenous, and other people of color. For example, Trump called Mexican immigrants “rapists” and “murderers”, established a Muslim ban, put thousands of undocumented migrants in detention centers, and called COVID-19 the “China Virus.” Moreover, Trump also failed to condemn white supremacists on the debate stage, telling the Proud Boys to “stand by.”

These are only a few examples of the racist actions Trump has made in the past four years.

In 2016, Trump was the subject of 26 sexual misconduct allegations, some dating back to the 1970s. Trump denied all allegations. Yet, Trump has time and time again been disrespectful and vulgar towards women, even before he became president. With the mission to overturn Roe v. Wade, women across the country are endangered of losing our reproductive rights.

With Twitter as his main platform, Trump is infamous for posting public statements through tweets. In early October, Trump announced his COVID-19 diagnosis, underwent treatment, and called the illness: “almost nothing.” As of this month, COVID-19 has killed over 200,000 and infected over 9 million Americans. For the majority of the pandemic, Trump has not worn a mask and repeatedly violated COVID-19 safety guidelines with his rallies.

According to Axios, eighteen Trump rallies “ultimately resulted” in more than 30,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19. This Stanford study also claims that this outbreak could result in more than 700 deaths.

The handling pandemic could possibly worsen, as Trump recently threatened to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectous Disease.

Trump was also impeached in December 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after allegations surfaced that he solicited Ukranian authorities to influence the 2020 election. He was acquitted of these charges in February.

In September, The New York Times discovered that Trump in 2016 only paid $750 in federal taxes and is in debt of $400 million to foregin entities. The public is still unaware of who these foreign entities are, and how it will affect the future of the country.

If Trump gets re-elected, the United States is looking at another four years of the same chaos.