Recently I shared this on my Facebook wall, but these days I don’t even know how much longer I’d like to keep that open to be honest. I thought I’d repost it here for posterity’s sake, in case something happens.
https://www.mikebloomberg.com/news/mike-bloomberg-2019-naacp-convention-education-holds-key-biggest-challenges/
“When the President tells even one American to go back to where he or she came from, the President is challenging the very meaning of citizenship”
I very rarely (maybe have never?) get political on Facebook, but after these last few weeks feel compelled to share my thoughts so that all my friends and family know exactly how I feel.
Donald Trump campaigned on hatred for America under Barack Obama, which is entirely within his rights. However, the freedom that allowed him to do that is the exact freedom that allows Democrats to campaign on hatred for America under Donald Trump. There was no justification to tell Trump to leave America in 2015, just as there is none to tell it to any of the congresswomen he has attacked now.
I am very disappointed at the justifications I have seen from those I follow for his comments in the past week or so. This is the most thinly disguised version of racism, sexism, and xenophobia we have witnessed in a president who is already very prone to all of those qualities.
There is no moral justification for the hypocrisy we are letting go unchecked. No amount of tax cuts or supreme court justices are worth the generational, international shame we have brought upon ourselves by signaling to the world that we are willing to sell our entire set of foundational morals for a debatably better economy. I legitimately dread the day in a few years when I will read the haunting memoirs of children kept in cages on the borders, rightfully portraying Americans as the villains.
I understand I will likely not influence one single person with this post, and that many of you will unfollow or unfriend me. I do not apologize for that. If anything, I apologize for holding back my thoughts for so long in an attempt to be civil in the face of a president who has shown the greatest contempt for civility I have ever personally witnessed. I need you all to know where I stand.
I am so proud to be working at a company whose CEO says the leading sentence of this post, and to feel like I am making a positive difference in the country I deeply love. Because I truly do love America, and feel so extremely lucky to live here. Which is how I know we can do so much better.