By Jonathan Van Niel
President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet and policies spells doom for citizens worldwide
With President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet slowly being assembled, the prospects of his presidency are looking as divisive and destructive as many have feared.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, 867 post-election hate incidents have been reported as of Nov. 29.
It’s of no surprise that sexists, racists, xenophobes, homophobes and the like are celebrating Trump’s victory through savagery, considering he ran on a neofascist platform designed to prey upon the fears and insecurities of the electorate.
Trump advocates surveying Muslim communities and is open to having them registered within a database in order to “combat terrorism.” He has also pushed for the creation of a mass deportation force and the construction of a wall to prevent Mexico from “sending” their criminals over.
“(Mexicans) are bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists,” Trump said at a rally.
In addition to these damaging immigration policies, Trump has met with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.
While meeting with Trump, Kobach’s plans for the Department of Homeland Security were photographed by the press.
While the document has not been revealed in its entirety, some of Kobach’s measures outlined in it include tracking “all aliens from high-risk areas” and reducing the “intake of Syrian refugees to zero.”
To generalize any group of individuals—particularly Syrian refugees, majority of whom are women and children trying to escape a war-torn country—is insensitive, irresponsible, and frankly, un-American.
Sadly, Trump’s potential immigration policies are but one apparatus of dysfunction.
In regards to climate change, Trump believes it’s a hoax.
“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive,” Trump said in a tweet.
Trump’s blatant disregard for scientific research that proves the existence of climate change is alarming.
If Environmental Protection Agency’s head of transition team Myron Ebell—a fellow climate change denier—is any indication to what Trump’s presidential policies will look like, it seems that anyone who embraces climate science will have no voice in his administration.
This position poses immense danger to the environment, considering Trump has supported the continued use of coal opposed to transitioning to environmentally friendly alternatives.
In regards to reproductive rights, Trump vowed to overturn Roe v. Wade and wants to completely ban abortion, with exceptions only for rape, incest or when the life of the woman is in danger.
“I am for the exceptions. You have the three exceptions … There’s nothing wrong with that. You have to do it, in my opinion,” Trump said in an interview with Chris Cuomo on Aug. 11, 2015.
Trump also suggested in a sitdown interview with Chris Matthews on March 30 that there ought to be “some sort of punishment” for women who seek abortion if it were outlawed.
This position is further strengthened through Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s policies in Indiana, where a court sentenced a woman to 20 years in prison for feticide and child neglect—a sentence that was thankfully overturned.
By proposing these measures, Trump and his administration have demonstrated a lack of care for women’s rights.
Perhaps Trump’s most dangerous position, however, is regarding nuclear weaponry.
On April 3 during a Republican town hall hosted by Anderson Cooper, Trump suggested that unless foreign countries pay the United States more money for protection, they will have to develop their own nuclear programs to defend themselves.
Trump doesn’t seem to consider the nuclear armament of countries like Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Japan to be a threat.
“I’m not sure that would be such a bad thing for us,” Trump said in a telephone interview with the New York Times.
Furthermore, Trump believes that the U.S. should consider using nukes in conflicts.
“Why don’t we just use them?” Trump asked during private meetings with U.S. security experts.
A person that casually brings up nuclear warfare in private briefings and feels compelled to use such weaponry haphazardly is unfit to serve as president.
Yet here we are.
While the horrors of Trump’s presidency may not come to pass, we should all be concerned.
Trump is in the process of assembling a Cabinet that can best be described as the Legion of Doom, maintains the ability to appoint justices to the Supreme Court, and will soon gain access to the nuclear codes.
That is a terrifying amount of power for someone with Trump’s temperament to wield.
But we mustn’t cower. Now, more than ever, is the time to be loud. We must hold Trump’s administration accountable, and we must defend truth, justice and the American way.