Does Trump’s victory forbode havoc?

Tirzah Khan, Managing editor

Great job, guys! We did it! We elected Donald J. Trump as our 45th President.

We elected someone who is inexperienced in politics, who was accused by 12 women of sexual assault and who has a history of consistently discriminating against minorities.

We elected him over Hillary Clinton, an incredibly qualified woman who has spent years in politics, who has been fighting for Americans since college and who would have made America a genuinely better place.

We did that. America. But more specifically: uneducated white America.

Before you start crying out that not all uneducated whites are racist and misogynistic, let me clarify. I know that. But the data speaks for itself: New York Times exit polls show that 63 percent of white men and 53 percent of white women voted for Trump, compared to 8 percent of all African-American voters. And while 49 percent of white people with a college degree voted for Trump, 67 percent of white people without a college degree voted for him.

I’m disgusted with uneducated white America for truly disregarding women, people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants—anyone who’s not them. I’m disgusted with white America for feeling so secure in their own lives that they feel they can “shake it up” at others’ expense. I’m disgusted with white America for exploiting the luxury that they have to vote for someone who strikes such a deep-seated fear in the hearts of others, and by others, I mean people who aren’t just like them.

Perhaps these people weren’t malicious. If we give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe they weren’t as callously dismissive of others as their vote would indicate. Maybe these uneducated voters were hypnotized by Trump’s prodigious personality blind to how their vote jeopardized minorities and others.

Trump supporters elected a man who has targeted and attacked a reporter with a disability, a Muslim veteran’s family and a woman who gained weight (gasp!) in his precious Miss Universe pageant. What’s more, their man views foreign policy as a deal that he has to win by ripping off others. He has talked about dismantling NATO, withdrawing support from countries in need, and refusing to let in the millions of homeless refugees seeking protection. Recently, he appointed Stephen Bannon as his chief strategist, a man who runs the openly misogynist and racist site Breitbart News.

As a conspicuously Muslim girl, I’m terrified of what’s going to happen now that Trump supporters have been validated. Since the election, there have already been instants of minorities being targeted with hate crimes: Published news stories note a woman reported a man threatening to set her on fire if she didn’t remove her headscarf. And a University of Oklahoma student was suspended after sending messages about lynching to black students at the University of Pennsylvania. The list goes on.

Just to be clear, I want Trump to prove me wrong and succeed. But can he?
At every turn, he has lied and insulted, and then lied about lying. For example, on Nov. 11, he tweeted that protests were “very unfair” and “incited by the media.” Nine hours later, he tweeted that he “loves” that protesters “have passion for our great country.”

I hope that last tweet was sincere. It’ll take tons of protests to transform Trump into a president who’ll make America great for us all.