Society
As touched on already, racism is on the rise. It’s always been there, but now it seems Trump has ordained it. You’ve seen David Duke way more than you ever have. That’s one piece of evidence. There’s a rise in police shootings of unarmed African-Americans. That’s not new, but it’s getting worse. Even the NAACP issues a travel warning to minorities thinking of going to the entire state of Missouri. Yeah, that happened…I know. What is new and not just rising is a large group of angry white nationalists created organized protests. In Minnesota, they called it the “March Against Sharia.” Even several members of law enforcement, who are there to keep the peace, plainly identified themselves as being split as to which side they agreed with. As you probably guessed, a fight ensued, people got hurt, and the chasm has grown.
Interestingly, Trump’s views on women haven’t yet proliferated to the point of worsening the situation as much for women as for other minorities (FYI most of the states have more women!…get over it). Now, it’s gotten worse, but it seems that we haven’t seen the full effect of his misogyny just yet. However, I’m expecting more cases on sexual assault, unfair employment practices, a growing wage gap, a enforcement of gender roles.
What is definitely visible is the view that people with disabilities are inferior and that a physical disability implies that you are somehow less intelligent, which had been almost completely eradicated more than a couple decades ago. Additionally, mental illness is being marginalized. For example, depression being called weakness, anxiety is being called a lack of experience, and most other illnesses are being defined as crazy. They simply don’t care what’s wrong with you: they know you won’t be as effective at work as the next person so they cast you aside. They’re viewing disabilities as both a drain on the economy and a drain on federal funding. Betsy DeVos thinks funding programs that help students with disabilities is like babysitting and shouldn’t be part of a federal program.
Law Enforcement
Recently, Trump told law enforcement in Long Island, “please don’t be too nice” with the people you arrest. We already have issues with police brutality and false arrests and racial bias, and now Trump is telling police to be worse?! Just like most people are good people, there are some people in every group that aren’t so good. Some are absolutely horrible. The same can be said about law enforcement, as much as I respect them as a whole. The other day we saw an instance of what looked like Baltimore police planting evidence of a drug offense. Police are being very rough when subduing possible assailant, very often when the potential suspect isn’t even resisting. Trump also wants to turn the solution to the Opioid Epidemicinto a crime-and-punishment operation, hurting those who are addicted, and I’m sure he’ll insist police rough them up, too.
Oh, and then of course Trump said he wants Muslims to carry ID cards. Seriously! I don’t even want to comment on that, but the abuse of Muslims in this country has gotten out of control. 99.99% OF THEM ARE NOT TERRORISTS AND NEVER WILL BE AND NEVER WANT TO BE! DO YOU WANT ME TO ASSUME YOU’RE THE UNABOMBER?!