Glancing at my phone on the late morning of Nov. 7 and seeing Joseph R. Biden as the projected presidential winner, I felt 500 pounds lifted off of my shoulders. To no longer live another four years filled with anxiety and fear about if my basic human rights will be taken away; I cannot wait. I can taste and feel some small peace slowly coming back into our country.
Although Biden was not my first choice as the Democratic Party’s nominee, his actions and plans to combat current issues like social justice, coronavirus and student loan debt give me hope that we will have a competent president for the next, at least, four years.
I didn’t get to vote in the 2016 presidential election, but if I could’ve, my vote would be for Hillary Clinton. Like this election, all I wanted was someone to beat Trump, as Clinton was not my top decision to represent the Democrats.
Before Trump was first elected into office, his past actions showed enough evidence to me of how much of a monster he was — and it has only become worse four years later. Yes people can change, but there is no evidence that Trump has tried to. His monstrous actions come from him being a pure racist, homophobic man and a white supremacist.
Back in 1989, five teenagers of color, now known as the Central Park Five, were accused of raping a white woman in her late 20’s who was jogging in Central Park (now known as the Central Park Jogger). All of the teens ended up being innocent but still were put in prison. Before knowing this nor any context of the story, Trump placed full page ads in NY newspapers that stated “Bring back the death penalty.” He also claimed that he wanted the teenagers to be punished. In 2019, years after all five were claimed innocent, Trump did not apologize or regret his advertisements, and said that you have to look at both sides.
In any situation, it is obvious to see both sides of the story. But, we should be sympathetic for the city police who put these teens through a living hell for something they did not do? They threw them in jail after it was evident they did not do anything and was simply a wrong place wrong time situation. It’s difficult to process how our President does not feel sympathetic for his actions even after the said party was proven innocent.
But it’s just one of his many examples of being a racist. Trump also has a history of defending white supremacists. In the first presidential debate, he said that the Proud Boys, a male-white only group that has a racist political agenda, to “stand back and stand by.” He also described a Hispanic woman as “Ms. Housekeeping” implying that all Hispanic women in his eyes are housekeepers. He also has a long history of continued racism dating back to the 70’s, where he discriminated against African-Americans buying apartments. He also defended those part of the “Unite the Right Rally” in Charlottesville where they protested the taking down of a confederate statue.
Now Biden has made mistakes as well. In 1994, Biden helped write a crime bill to address rising crime rates in the country. This bill allowed juveniles to be tried as adults and increased incarceration even more than before the bill was passed. However, there is a major difference between Biden and Trump: Biden actually acknowledges his mistake while Trump refuses to acknowledge his past misconduct.
Besides being a racist, Trump has said on televison that he does not support gay marriage. However, Trump has claimed he now supports it because cases were settled through the Supreme Court regarding the situation. People can change their opinion, it happens. I know personally people who voted for Trump in 2016 and now regret it. But how come he enforced legislation that discriminated against the LGBTQ+ community?
In 2019, Trump overturned President Barrack Obama’s legislation allowing transgender people to serve in the military. He even tweeted about how he plans on keeping this in place despite the lawsuits trying to overturn it. If he is so supportive of the community, he wouldn’t have done this. Meanwhile, Biden plans on supporting the community and there’s no evidence of him not supporting LGBTQ+ rights.
Trump is clearly a monster who does not respect communities besides his own: white men. I would be willing to support him if he actually had some reasonable legislation, especially regarding the current pandemic we are living in. But he has not taken any leadership towards combating the virus. Over 250,000 people have died, and cases are rising. But yet, Trump is not imposing any safety precautions like a national mask campaign or temporary lockdown. He has banned travel, to be fair. But as it is, the president knew how dangerous this virus is but didn’t want to scare the American people. This is just clearly unprofessional and immature.
It has been over two weeks since Biden was declared the winner and finally, the General Services Administration (GSA) declared Biden the official president-elect. Trump, however, has neglected congratulating the Biden administration, but praised the GSA’s announcement on Twitter. He however, continues with his conspiracies that the election was fraudulent.
I am willing to give Biden a chance to correct all of Trump’s mistakes hence why I voted for him and Vice President elect Kamala Harris. I more-so wish Harris would be the President because she is a woman of color, like myself, and can implement legislation knowing what it’s like to be a minority gender and ethnicity-wise. But I am just grateful she is there to put Biden in check.
The election is over. Biden won and set a record number of votes in this election. It feels fantastic knowing we will now have a true leader in office after four years of suffering.
