College Voices
The Two Sides of Donald J. Trump
Everyone has the power to see each other from different perspectives. In the case of Donald J. Trump, he is hated and loved by many.
Current eighteen-year old college student, who has chosen to remain anonymous, has been against Trump since the beginning of the 2016 election cycle.
“Trump has negatively affected many minority groups,” he claims. “As a practicing Muslim, the travel ban (from primarily Muslim countries) along with his rhetoric and hate speech of his supporters have concerned many people in my religious community.”
This Muslim student sees Trump’s twitter rants as a major problem.
Incompetent Hillary, despite the horrible attack in Brussels today, wants borders to be weak and open-and let the Muslims flow in. No way!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 23, 2016
“Trump’s incendiary rhetoric towards minority groups is promoting hate and bigotry towards the Muslim community. You can see this in the increased rate of hate crimes following his elections.”
This student believes that Trump continues to make poor choices for the country.
“His extreme unprofessionalism, along with his decision of pulling out of the Paris Climate agreement are just two of the many reasons why many people, including myself, disapprove of him.”
The goal of the Paris agreement is to reduce emissions so that global temperatures do not rise. By withdrawing from the agreement, “Trump clearly demonstrates that he does not believe in climate change, one of the greatest dangers our planet faces.”
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012
However, not everyone feels animosity towards the president. In fact, there are many people across America that support the president and are very happy with the administration so far.
Current nineteen-year- old Republican college student, who has also chosen to stay anonymous, supports President Trump. She believes the president is doing great things for her community.
“President Trump has started cracking down on criminals coming into our country illegally. Although some of them are, indeed, hard-working people, they should enter the country legally,” this student explained.
From her perspective, the current immigration system in the United States is broken and it needs to be fixed. “Many immigration policies have allowed gangs and violence to thrive.”
A major factor that has shaped this student’s views towards the country’s current immigrant policy is some of the most devastating past events.
“When Katie Steinle was murdered in California in 2015, she was shot by an illegal immigrant-who had been deported five times,” the student revealed. There are currently between 300,000 to 450,000 convicted criminal immigrants eligible for deportation.
The weak illegal immigration policies of the Obama Admin. allowed bad MS 13 gangs to form in cities across U.S. We are removing them fast!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 18, 2017
Another policy of Trump’s administration that this student strongly supports is their efforts to defund Planned Parenthood.
“PP is the nation’s largest abortion provider. It is a murder factory,” the student declares.
“It does not only deprive unborn babies the moral right to live but it also accounts, substantially, for the increase of maternal mortality.”
In her view, Trump’s executive actions to defund PP are beneficial for society.
From the withdrawal of the Paris agreement to the implementation of the Muslim ban, there is no doubt that millennials share different perspectives when it comes to key issues that affect the country. So why do these views matter? Because they give us an insight into the minds of Trump’s supporters and adversaries.
At the heart of the country’s debate on whether Trump is the right President or not, there is a far deeper embedded problem that comes to light: the fragmentation of American values.
As Americans, we have been taught from a young age to fight for our ideals, to voice our opinions and to resist against oppression. However, we haven’t really been taught to be good listeners.
At a time where the country is more divided than ever, it is imperative to listen. To listen with an “open” mind and stop jumping to conclusions without fully evaluating the scope of someone’s position. Only then, we will finally be able to find a common ground to work together and fix our broken system.