I’ve lived my whole life wearing rose-colored glasses. I try to always see the good in people, even when that good is hidden, or handicapped, or hardly visible. I’m told this makes me naïve. Literature often looks down on the trusting, naïve “silly girl” – Isabella Linton, Marianne Dashwood, Lydia Bennett – all of whom follow their hearts right into unfortunate situations that the more levelheaded characters all seemed to have seen coming. I actually always liked seeing these characters, myself. They made me feel like I wasn’t the only one who saw the world, and everyone living in it, through rosy lenses.
The reason I’m sharing this character description of myself is to emphasize the following statement: I have looked, hard and on multiple occasions, through my rose-colored glasses and I have found nothing I could like, respect, or admire about newly inaugurated President Donald Trump. And that really scares me.
The thing that scares me most about Donald Trump is that he appears to have no consistent set of morals or values, or anything he stands for at all really. Throughout the campaign, it seemed as though he was willing to say anything to convince people to vote for him. Crowds at his rallies got really excited when he mentioned “the wall,” so that’s what he did. The crowds cheered when he insulted “the media,” so that’s what he did.
For the entirety of the presidential campaign, Trump and his surrogates continually insisted that “the media” wasn’t covering the campaign honestly. First of all, what does “the media” even mean in this context? Everything from the New York Times and CNN to every person with a Twitter account is technically media. There’s no way that all of those people are lying, especially journalists, whose careers are reliant upon their credibility and integrity.
Trump and his administration seem to have a very inaccurate view of what the press’s role in politics is. The White House Press Corps works every day to keep the president honest and to keep the American people informed as to what the administration is doing. This is clearly not the media attention Trump wants or is used to from his career as a businessman and reality TV personality. Journalists should ask tough questions and report on what the president says or does, whether or not it’s flattering.
The Trump administration has already shown itself to be threatened by honest media coverage, since in his first press briefing, new press secretary Sean Spicer lied about the size of the crowd who showed up to watch the inauguration. Senior adviser and former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway called this lie “alternate facts.”
I understand that there are some situations where two separate sets of facts can be true at the same time, but this isn’t one of them. The size of the inauguration crowd is one number, which can be verified. Yet instead of admitting that they exaggerated the size of the crowds to try to make themselves look more popular and well-liked than they are, the Trump administration stands by their lie and makes up the ludicrous concept of “alternate facts.”
A free press is a necessity to a functioning democracy: that’s why it’s in the First Amendment. Trump has already stopped the National Park Service from tweeting after they retweeted a set of photos comparing attendance of President Obama’s first inauguration to Trump’s, challenging the First Amendment on only his first full day in office. Who knows what he will try to do over the next four years??
A phrase I’ve thought (and tweeted) a lot over the past few days (read: since the inauguration) is “hope and love, always.” Remember to stay hopeful and to love each other, regardless of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or anything else this administration may use to try to alienate groups of people they don’t like. I can’t help but be filled with hope when I see peaceful protests like the Women’s March cover my Twitter feed, and I can see that people want to share love for their fellow citizens and that people are truly good at heart.
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