A vote for evil does not make an evil heart

by Anonymous Student

Everyone has that friend on Facebook. They post a lot and I mean a LOT about whatever political party you hate. Whether your friend is a fascist Trump supporter or a liberal snowflake you have spent time posting articles and comments trying to convince them of how wrong they are. This is one of those articles. The 2016 election might have been the most divisive since Lincoln vs Breckinridge in 1860, which led to the civil war. It seems that both sides have no desire to understand where the other side is coming from.  In an effort not to succeed from my friends and keep my social circle whole, I write this to explain that Donald Trump is not the business savvy savior come to drain the swamp you want him to be, but a manipulative narcissist with dreams of authoritarian rule. The danger of his presidency harms not just our democratic society, but also our planet with his short sighted and ignorant stance on climate change.

What Trump supporters often preach is how he is not a political insider and will “drain the swamp” of lobbyist and special interest groups that control Washington D.C. No matter how many times he repeats this phrase, it still rings hallow in the face of his cabinet appointees.  Rex Tillerson, Trump’s appointment to Secretary of State was the CEO of ExxonMobil the third largest oil company in the world. This is not draining the swamp, it’s a lobbyist oil leak of Exxon Valdez proportions. This man wasn’t just a lobbyist he was the General of a lobbyist army of special interest that marched all over Washington.  The impact of hiring a known opponent of environmentalism for Secretary of State is potentially catastrophic. From his position, Tillerson can make his fossil fuel centric view a foreign policy. For all the rhetoric that Hillary Clinton was a puppet of the banking industry, Trump gave the position of Secretary of Treasury to Steven Mnuchin. This man is the epitome of evil bankers. As a former employee of Goldman Sachs and One West Bank during the foreclosure crisis, he violated the Service Members Civil Relief Act by foreclosing on active-duty military families. That is how the Donald supports his troops. Both of these influential positions are being filled with special interest group figure heads.

Trumps draconian efforts to essentially shut down the EPA are startling to any one concerned about truth and the environment. By firing all previous scientists and hiring new ones that are in agreement with climate change deniers, the President has silenced the opposition. When there can be only one opinion, that is authoritarianism. This authoritarian regime is dedicated to sacrificing our precious Earth on the alter of corporate greed. To ignore what is a strongly held belief by the majority of your citizens shows the disdain President Trump has for our democratic society. Unfortunately, our environment does not have the 4 or 8 years it will take to remove the standing President. With Trump pulling us out of the Paris Accords it not only encourages American polluters, but weakens the global conservation movement. America was once a beacon for independent ideas, is now a garbage fire of ignorant pollution.

Democracy and the environment are something all of us care about. No one woke up on November 8th and said, “I want to vote down intellectual freedom and usher in a new era of environmental poisoning,” yet that is what happened. I understand you are mad at an often times ineffectual government that may not seem to be focused on your specific concerns. I felt the same way, I just wanted someone who seemed like they actually cared about me or what type of life I may be able to live on this planet. The stakes are too high to be proud and admit this is not what you wanted. Be mad that your voice is heard even less and the soap box you stand on will probably be an oil rig. It is not your imagination; these are darker times what with all the unchecked smog blackening the skies. Stand up use the same anger you channeled in voting for Trump to demand a better future, not a more dystopian one.

Image: President Barack Obama casts his ballot during early voting at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in Chicago, Ill., Oct. 25, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)