Opening the door to prejudice

We need to have a talk. I’ve seen a number of people talking about how liberals are not being tolerant of Trump and his supporters. I admit, yesterday I called Trump a human dumpster fire. That was wrong. I apologize for that. It came from a place of pain. What I meant to say is that I think Donald Trump is a bad person. I think he’s a bad person because of his words and his actions. Tolerance is generally applied to situations in which a stranger's views are different or hard to understand, but not necessarily bad or evil. (Liberals are not tolerant of terrorists, despite what some on the right claim, because obviously terrorists are immoral and evil.)

Trump’s views are not hard to understand. It’s easy to see that he’s a bad person. What makes him a bad person you ask? I could write a thousand pages on that topic, but I want to focus on one issue, which is (arguably) the biggest issue to liberals. Trump disparages people based on the color of their skin, their gender, their country of origin, and their religion. Those are what “liberals” consider to be a protected class, which is a characteristic of a person that cannot be targeted for discrimination. When we’re born, we don’t have control over the color of our skin, our gender, or our country of origin. (Religion, yes and no, but that’s a different topic.)

It’s not fair to disparage or denigrate someone based on one of those protected classes. Doing so is what’s commonly referred to as racism, sexism, and prejudice. If you talk to someone, and you learn something about that person, and after getting to know that person you think, hey, that guy’s a real asshole, then by all means denigrate away. But if you denigrate someone without knowing about that person’s character, simply based on the color of their skin, their gender, their religion, their country of origin, or their sexual orientation, then what you’re doing is wrong. Liberals will stand up for that belief. Notice I threw sexual orientation in there. Yes, you can be born gay, deal with it.

Anyway, back to Trump. Trump doesn’t believe in the concept of a protected class. And again, I’m basing this on his words and actions. Just to throw out one example, Trump uses hand gestures that imply a person is disabled when he's mocking someone. Disabled people are often born that way, or even if not, they certainly didn't choose to be disabled. Mocking someone for being disabled (or mocking an able-bodied person as disabled) makes you a bad person in the eyes of liberals, because disability is a protected class. The alt-right movement doesn’t believe in the concept of a protected class, and Donald Trump was their candidate. When you hear people railing against “political correctness”, that’s a not-so-thinly-veiled message to the alt-right that we shouldn’t have protected classes. What they’re saying is that every characteristic about a person should be fair game, even the ones we have no control over like skin color.

During the presidential campaign, I would often click on the Facebook comments of Trump supporters to see what kind of things they were sharing on Facebook. At least half the time, I would see something racist, or sexist, or prejudiced. A lot of them were memes expressing a great distrust and hatred for President Obama. Obama is a Muslim. Obama is not legitimate. Obama is responsible for everything that’s wrong with this country. But they went far beyond that with easily recognizable racist symbolism. The worst racism was reserved for Michelle Obama. Memes calling her manly, not what a first lady should look like, comparing her to Harambe the gorilla.

Now, obviously, not all Trump supporters are racist, and sexist, and prejudiced. But just based on my observations, a lot of the most vocal Trump supporters undeniably were. What’s scaring the hell out of liberals, and why a lot of us were in mourning yesterday, is that now that Trump has won the election, that point of view has been legitimized. You, Trump voter, might not want to believe it, but that’s what happened. In the minds of the alt-right, this election was a referendum on "PC Culture" and the idea of a protected class. What you will start to see, and it’s happening already, is that hate crimes will increase. Harassment will increase. I’m talking about overt racism, and sexism, and prejudice. Trump winning this election will open a Pandora’s Box of vile behavior. It’s the kind of behavior that we, as a country, had thought (arguably) that we’d moved past.

Now you, reasonable Republican, may have voted for Trump. Maybe you always just vote for the Republican because you just identify as Republican. Maybe you believed him when he said he’ll bring back jobs. Maybe you wanted someone outside the political establishment. Maybe you didn’t like that Hillary used a private email server. Or maybe you didn’t think too much about it. Whatever the reason, we need you now to be our ally. We need you to stand with us and say that you believe in the concept of a protected class. We need you to speak up when your friend says that women shouldn’t be in positions of power. We need you to speak up when your uncle says that Muslims should go back to their country. We need you to speak up when your neighbor says that black people are lazy. We need you to speak up and say that it’s not fair to judge someone based on their gender, race, religion, color of their skin, or country of origin. We need you to stand up for what’s right.