About Your Acceptance Speech Donald Trump
The 2016 presidential election cycle was long and tiring. For roughly two years we’ve been campaigned at by numerous hopefuls vying for our vote by extolling their vision of the United States with them behind the Resolute desk. Above all contenders, you, Donald Trump prevailed as the president-elect and recently gave your 15-minute acceptance speech in anticipation of becoming the 45th president of the United States of America.
Let’s talk about your acceptance speech. More specifically, let’s talk about something you said in the beginning of the speech.
“Now it is time for America to bind the wounds of division, have to get together. To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people.
It is time. I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be President for all of Americans, and this is so important to me. For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, of which there were a few people, I’m reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great country.” – Donald Trump
These words sound good – but no. Just no.
From the very announcement of your candidacy you were abusive, racist, xenophobic, and just nasty. All throughout the campaign you repeatedly and purposefully offended, insulted, and demeaned citizens of the United States and people in general. African-Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans, women, homosexuals, the disabled, Muslims, Asians, war veterans, and more were targets of your divisive, mean-spirited, and hateful rhetoric. You made, as a rule, false and misleading statements in an effort to tear down not only your opponents but anyone that dared to question you. The Trump twitter rants were so problematic that your campaign took away access to your own twitter account from you. Donald, you gleefully and carelessly encouraged violence and discrimination at your rallies and campaign stops.
So No!
No, you don’t get to tear this country apart at the seams for a year and a half and then try to wear the cape of hero. You don’t get to pick at the scabs of the worst wounds of our society and use them to whip up a frenzy of hatred, xenophobia, and bigotry and then lay claim to the title of uniter. You don’t get to create a national atmosphere so ripe with hate that it prompts racial attacks and the KKK’s David Duke to get back into politics and then get to be seen as someone for all Americans. The wounds of division that you say need to be bound were exploited by you for your own gains. You don’t get to stand atop the carnage you invoked, provoked, aroused, elicited, solicited, and seduced with no regard to the consequences and the lasting effects on the tenuous civility we’ve been experiencing and proclaim all must be healed under your name. You don’t get to help once again normalize and legitimize hateful speech in the public discourse that generations have fought to weed out and then take the role of peace maker. You don’t get to pour gasoline on the fire, fan the flames to watch it burn everything around you, then spit on it and call yourself a firefighter.
Political campaign rhetoric is already distasteful but you went too far. And then went even beyond that. You are not the hero here. You are the villain in this story. Your origin was written in bold with every ignorant, hurtful, and alienating comment you publicly made and that are readily accessible through any search engine on the Internet. Not media misquotes from a biased journalist but video of you speaking in your own words. You could have taken the tone from these few lines in the beginning of your campaign and cake walked through the whole election process. No, you chose the words you used and you will have to wear that.
You are not and will not be respected as the suture that closes the gaping hole you blustered through. That respect will go to the multitude of people who will now have to pick up the pieces you left behind, who will have to fight again to rebuild what you damaged, who will have to reclaim the civility and decency you wiped yourself with.
But not to you.
No.
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/09/politics/donald-trump-victory-speech/index.html
http://time.com/3923128/donald-trump-announcement-speech/
https://www.yahoo.com/news/new-york-times-publishes-2-page-spread-of-trump-twitter-insults-140020870.html
Jaylon Carter is a blogger, social media marketing consultant, former Congressional Campaign Media & Communications Director, national labor union vice block leader, and a Hip Hop artist who performs under the stage name Timid (@timidmc).
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