When Donald Trump first tarnished the seat of the presidency, I had no idea who he was or what this meant for my country. Politics weren’t my strong suit and I had grown up in this almost brainwashed belief that my beautiful country, the country of freedom and liberty could do no wrong.
Now, I find myself thousands of miles away with my concept of ‘home’ shattered and my resolve weakening.
And with the memory of January 6th living in my head, I am disgusted and appalled by the state of my country. I realised a while ago that a place that always meant opportunity for me is also a place of fear and hatred, where people who call themselves ‘patriots’ think they can storm the US Capitol and still call themselves American.
Their most considerable achievement manifested in the form of an orange man who likes to use insults and make up lies to manipulate the public and cheat his way to becoming the president. A man who deserves to be put into jail for the hand he had in riling his white supremacist mob to attack the very principle of American Democracy.
Most importantly, he is a man who will be cast out of the White House tomorrow with thousands upon thousands of military troops standing in defence of a peaceful transition of power.
Although he is set to step down (not nearly soon enough), the catastrophic consequences of his four years as president will not just cease to exist and the people who enabled him are not going anywhere. Just because he didn’t win this time around does not mean that he cannot continue to do damage in the years to come, or even worse, run again in 2024.
The only way to stop this from happening is for the Senate to finally do what is right and impeach him after he has left office for the way in which he has sullied and broken his oath to this country and to its people.
The politicians on both the Republican and Democratic sides must realize that what is happening is greater than any party politics. If Trump supporters feel comfortable storming the US Capitol, then the future does not bode well for the American people and it is their job, as elected officials, to put an end to the mass hysteria, violence, and death that has come about from having this man as our president for the last four years.
Though America has always had its fair shares of problems, even before it become a country, it is Donald Trump who used his platform to exacerbate them.
He is the essence of all that is wrong with America and is just as much to blame for this attack as the terrorists he calls his supporters, as the people he professed his love to on a national platform for having his back.
We have faced difficult and disparaging times, much more so in the last year than any time in recent history. We have had to watch, from far away, as our loved ones passed. We watched as police officers killed an innocent man by pinning him to the ground and stepping on his neck. We took to the streets and were tear-gassed for demanding justice. And still, we are struggling to have our voices be heard. We are struggling to survive, to live.
We won’t be able to progress effectively and start healing without addressing all of our problems.
This starts with ensuring that the soon to be previous President of the United States will never be allowed to disgrace our crumbling republic with his presence in person or on social media ever again.
Image: Ece Kucuk
