By Sandra Fernandez
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not reflect the views of Her Campus.
Throughout the campaign Donald Trump intensified fears for many minority groups. He ran a campaign based on fear-mongering, and appealed to a large group: white people who feel like they haven’t been heard since Mr. Obama’s election. His proposed ideologies threatened women’s rights, immigration, climate change, globalization and more. After winning the election, Trump showed his thin skin was there to stay, denouncing anybody that criticized him and attempting to tarnish their reputation with lies. He seemed to be home every night at 11:30pm ready to hate watch Alec Baldwin’s impersonation of him, so he could tweet (falsely) about how Saturday Night Live’s ratings are “so low.” They have at least one new viewer.
.@NBCNews is bad but Saturday Night Live is the worst of NBC. Not funny, cast is terrible, always a complete hit job. Really bad television!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2017
None of this has changed since Trump's move into the White House. My biggest fear about a Trump Presidency was that America’s democracy would be threatened. As Sean Spicer walked up to his podium on Saturday night and blatantly lied to all of America about the audience size of the inauguration, my fears had never felt more real. Under his boss' orders, Spicer “offered alternative facts” (aka lies) to an entire country and tried to make us question something everybody saw with their own eyes. While doing this, he also tried to make clear to the press that they were guests in the White House and this access can easily be revoked. This follows the pattern that was shown through the entirety of the campaign, Trump only cares about himself and has no qualms about threatening first amendment rights. We’ve elected a leader who feels the need to defend his actions or words that don't garner him praise, with lies and disrespect for others. Just as there were no repercussions for him not disclosing his tax returns, or admitting to sexually assaulting women, there have yet to be repercussions for lying to his entire country and threatening the freedom of the press. Republicans seem to be too concerned with taking advantage of this presidency to boost their own agenda to stand up for basic human rights. I’d like to see what would happen if Trump were threatening the right to bear arms instead of the right to free speech.
The day after his inauguration, Trump was rejected by an entire gender. The Women’s March demonstrated (worldwide) how many people are willing to stand up to fight for women’s rights and minority rights and fundamental civil rights that are at stake. What has Trump done since? He’s signed an executive order that stops all funding for our international development agencies to provide abortion services or counseling to women in underdeveloped countries. He signed another order that could allow the Keystone Pipeline to come to life, and another one officially removing the U.S. from the Trans Pacific Partnership.
It hasn’t even been a full week and this new administration has wasted no time in trying to keep the hateful promises that were brought up during the campaign. The most important thing to them is undoing all of Obama's legacy, good or bad. It’s only been a few days and the future looks bleak AF.