Photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore, Flickr
The 2020 presidential election is just around the corner. As a stressed and concerned population of Americans, we should be scared. Current President Donald Trump has recently released that he will not leave office peacefully, if elected out.
Trump has been receiving plenty of hate and critique while in his four years at the White House, especially within recent months. Underneath his individualistic, self-entitled ego, he is scared. He is scared of losing, and if he does lose the race, he will be a poor sport. He will be a poor sport even if he does win.
In a recent press briefing on Wednesday, Sept. 23, Trump was confronted with various questions. Longtime reporter Brian Karem asked President Trump, “Will you commit to make sure there’s a peaceful transferral of power after the election?”
Trump is aware of the number of people against him. He is aware of the rioting and vocalization of Americans fed up with him and his administration. Though many people want Trump out of office, they also want to be ensured that he will encourage a peaceful and practical transition to the new president.
Shockingly and disturbingly, Trump responded to Karem with, “We’re going to have to see what happens, you know that. I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots, and the ballots are a disaster.” This was only the beginning to his statement, refusing to commit to the peaceful proposal.
“Get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation,” Trump continued. “The ballots are out of control. You know it. And you know who knows it better than anybody else? The Democrats know it better than anybody else.”
Trump’s statement at this briefing is uneasy and frightening. Our current president is coming off as a dictator or promoting dictatorship. America is a democracy, and any true American should realize Trump’s departure from those values and his expression of dictatorship. No leader with assumed pride for their country should be constantly putting down and directly targeting its millions of citizens.
Not only were viewers unsettled, Karem was completely shocked, and he later expressed his fear on his Twitter feed: “This is the most frightening answer I have ever received to any question I have ever asked. I’ve interviewed convicted killers with more empathy. @realDonaldTrump is advocating Civil War.”
Trump single handedly has encouraged the divide of our country, and he continues to break us down every minute he remains in office. America is supposed to be built on varying opinions, backgrounds, cultures, identities and lifestyles. Our differences were meant to strengthen our cohesiveness, creating the new American identity. We sadly are not seen as such anymore, or maybe we never were.
Democrats and Republicans are just two labels of American identity, but Trump has outright shamed people for being Democrats or anything other than a person he identifies with. For years now, he has promoted and led a war against two sides of our nation, and it must come to an end.
Trump and his outlandish pact of dedicated followers have adapted extreme passion and aggression for their party. It is expected that Trump will not be alone in creating chaos as a result of his win or loss – his followers will strike in fearful and dangering uproar.
I can only fear what our nation will be like after the fallout of the 2020 election this November. I firmly believe that we need to get the horrid mockery of America out of office. He is responsible for the seemingly incurable divide of our nation, the normalization of violence and influence of ruthless “freedom of hate speech.” He has damaged our country enough; we need to move forward.
However, with that being said, at times I am not sure what will be worse: Trump winning or Trump losing.
If Trump wins, our country will continue to fall, break and deteriorate. If Trump loses, the response will not be pretty. Trump is a man of concerning power, and I predict that he will not hold back from doing anything he can to stay in power or anything he can to cause havoc in our nation.
With Trump openly suggesting that we should all just forget about the ballots, persist to his continuation in office and continuously drag his Democratic citizens, we are already on the verge of unexceptable dictatorship and lazy, unrelenting leadership. Trump’s nation is not an American nation.
Times will only become scarier as the election approaches, and it is okay to feel unsafe, but this pain will hopefully end in a matter of months. If we stand together, Trump’s possible dramatic release from office can be less damaging, whether he is peaceful or not.
emelvin@ramapo.edu
