California does its part, Trump still wins
November 10, 2016
As I watched the election coverage unfold last night on television I couldn’t help but be nervous.
I didn’t want Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump to win the race, but I knew we had to settle on one of them. I just thought there was no way it would be Trump.
Sure, Clinton has her flaws, but she hasn’t made blatantly racist remarks about minorities on a regular basis like Trump has and that is something I just can’t get over.
As I watched Trump take the stage last night to accept the presidential nomination, I was uneasy and his speech didn’t help. He finally said some nice things about Clinton and thanked her for her public service before he rambled for a while, thanking everybody on stage with him.
It didn’t seem presidential.
I don’t know what I wanted or what I even expected, I guess I just wanted more. I wanted him to give a powerful speech and change the negative attitude of Trump haters like myself. But he didn’t do that, he just thanked some people and said we needed to unite, with “The Donald,” consistent with his signature pompous attitude that I have come to detest.
Now we have the first president of the United States in history that never held a political office or served in the military previously.
That scares me.
Experience means everything in life, and to take over the U.S. with no political or military background seems like a tough task, to say the least. Clinton was a first lady, a senator and she has a ton of experience through years on the job, which was a comfort for me in a race with two candidates I didn’t want to begin with.
As Trump left his campaign headquarters in New York after 3 a.m. yesterday, I couldn’t help but think about what will happen next. Is Obamacare going away? Will he build a wall to block illegal immigration from Mexico? Is daily life going to change for me because of this? Probably not, but the what ifs surrounding his unknown policies and what Trump will try to implement scares the hell out of me.
If it wasn’t for illegal immigration, my family would have never made it to the United States. While most of my family is now legal, the few without citizenship now have to worry about being deported back to Mexico. I can’t help but think of the altered life of future families that will be subject to the policy of our new “leader.”
Los Angeles rapper YG said it best in his hit “Fuck Donald Trump” when he said, “Don’t let Donald Trump win, that nigga cancer. He too rich, he ain’t got the answers. He can’t make decisions for this country, he gon’ crash us.” As I drove around my neighborhood in South Hayward last night I heard five different cars playing that song. I went to Safeway to buy some bread and everybody in line was talking about it.
“We should hang our flags upside down and head for Canada,” Hayward resident John Sampson said. “We’re fucked.”
I’m going to have to follow the example set by our current President Barack Obama who addressed the media yesterday morning with Vice President Joe Biden by his side. It is not a time to argue or fight, it is a time to unite. One thing Obama reminded me of was that the sun would rise again and it did. Now it’s time to hold Trump accountable for all of the things he promised us that was going to make America great again.
