Trump’s ethical supporters must give back to communities he threatens

Because I spent the good part of my summer and fall semesters this year working for the Hillary Clinton campaign, watching the election results with my team on Nov. 8 was particularly devastating.

When Trump was on the verge of winning Pennsylvania and I was on the verge of losing my mind, we shut off the television and went out to join the 300 people gathered outside, closing down Pitt’s streets at 1 a.m. to have our voices heard.

Aside from my sleep-deprived state, Nov. 9 seemed to be the gloomiest I had ever seen Pitt’s campus. The gray sky, the bowed heads and the occasional smirk from under a red hat only added to the effect. The results of this election came as a shock even to Trump himself, as he admitted during a “60 Minutes” interview that he was “breathless” watching the results.

My initial shock was quickly overcome by anger. The fear that my opinions diverge so much from those of 61 million people in our country disturbed me. It disturbed me that so many people would choose to elect a man who has not only openly talked about sexually assaulting women but has also degraded Islam, marginalized race after race, called climate change a hoax and hopes to fill the Supreme Court with justices willing to overturn abortion access across the country.  

I began to form my own belief that anyone who voted for Trump supported a racist, misogynist, homophobic, science-denying, all-around bigot and therefore also stood to be those things themselves. Anyone still carrying around “Make America Great Again” stickers and caps or proud to say they voted for Trump became tainted in my mind by those labels. Those individuals may not have earned that judgement, but they acted in a way that showed they were willing to bear it.

Though I believed I was right in outrightly labeling his supporters, I watched an interview with Jon Stewart on “CBS This Morning” that sparked a change of heart.

When asked for his thoughts on the election, Stewart explained, “In the liberal community, you hate the idea of creating people as a monolith … don’t look as Muslims as a monolith, they are individuals,” but he went on to say that the idea that “everyone who voted for Trump is a monolith, is a racist. That hypocrisy is also real in our country.”   

I began to feel that I was simply feeding into the idea of hypocrisy and hatred, fighting for the same idea of labelling and name-calling that I also fight against. My calling Trump supporters misogynists and racists did nothing more than create a divide between people who voted one way or the other.

Stewart’s point was that we cannot wage war against one another on false premises or generalizations. A lot of the people that voted did so on the basis that their wages have been stagnant for the past few years or that they are afraid of their insurance premiums going up or that they are pro-life. It is safe to say that not everyone agrees with 100 percent of what a candidate says and that voters often vote on only a few or even just one issue.

I can’t deny that the majority of Americans do not take the time to look fully into a candidate’s policies. Furthermore, mainstream news outlets have more and more begun to chase news that is meant to entertain viewers more than inform them. That’s why it is rare to see CNN, Fox News or any major network take the time to break down Trump’s tax plan or explain that Clinton did not, in fact, want to repeal the Second Amendment.

As much as I respect Jon Stewart, what he doesn’t account for is the fact that a vote stands for much more than just an opinion on one issue. When Trump’s supporters came out and voted for him on Nov. 8, it didn’t matter if they were voting for him on the basis of one issue — be it his tax plan or tightened immigration policy. Even if they had a single issue motivating their vote, that vote went into a pool collectively representing support for everything Trump claims to stand for.  

This same criticism applies to my case as well. Though Hillary Clinton is in favor of increased ground support in the fight against ISIS, I am not sure if I support that. Nevertheless, I have to own up to the fact that because I voted for Hillary Clinton, not only did I support the plethora of policies I agreed with, but I also tacitly supported the ones that I did not fully agree with.

The people that voted for Trump are not all misogynists, racists or homophobic, and it is wrong of me to label them as such. But we should still recognize that those voters gave their backing to someone who represents those qualities. Those voters are the reason why thousands of people have been in the streets protesting —  not because they disrespect the democratic process and believe the election was rigged but because they feel personally threatened by the results.

We accept the results in full, but it is time that Trump’s supporters recognize the impending consequences of their votes. They have to understand why people feel afraid that 61 million people could support someone so avidly against them — be it for their skin color, their religion or their sexual orientation. If you are one of his supporters and you feel comfortable with contributing to that fear, then you’ll probably continue standing by Trump and his words.

But if you are not comfortable aligning yourself with anti-Islamic, anti LGBTQ+ or anti-immigrant views and are not comfortable with the fact that people are fearful because of their identity, then now is the time to prove it.

Write your representatives in Congress. Or, like me, you could join a student organizations like FORGE, which works with local refugees families and students, helping them complete daily tasks and preparing their kids for post-high school life. Talk to members of the Black Action Society or Rainbow Alliance, and maybe attend a meeting. Even if you don’t align directly with some of these organizations, their main goal is simply to educate people about the importance of understanding underrepresented identities, something we can all take time to learn about.

I understand people may be unsatisfied with the current government and saw Trump as something new, and I’ve had the time to reflect on the gut reactions I had the night of Nov. 8.

But ignorance from either side of the political spectrum cannot be justified. Wake up, and lend your help during the next four years — we all need it.