Dark. Bleak. Scary. Terrifying. To be honest, a lot of people feel this way about a future with Donald Trump as a significant world leader – the President of the United States. And yet somehow, he is winning a lot of votes; so much so that people are actually having to consider what will happen to their future, as it seems likely Trump will be in charge. So can he really be all bad if people are still voting for him?
Trump’s Stance
Donald Trump is a Republican and as part of his presidential campaign has discussed in great length the fact that one of the initial ‘problems’ he would tackle is illegal immigration. Other topics following close to this are military interventionism and free trade. Whilst some of these topics have been deemed a little controversial, they have actually made him hugely popular with a large portion of society. Namely, the ‘blue collars’. Blue Collars are usually people from the working class who work specifically in manual labour – and, stereotypically, these are the kinds of jobs that illegal immigrants manage to get themselves. This obviously means that Blue Collars lose their jobs, or can’t find jobs because, or so they feel, ‘immigrants’ have taken them all. The fact that Trump has run most of his campaign on “Make America Great Again” and linked this to getting rid of “immigrants” appeals to Blue Collars and so has helped him to obtain their vote.
A Racial Stir
However, this is incredibly dangerous. Inciting racial hatred towards any people of colour who come to the country to work and branding everyone with the same brush will more than likely lead to the level of racial hate crimes and incidents rising quite drastically. It could also take America right back to the days when segregation was a massive issue – think the Ku Klux Klan, public hangings, the events in To Kill A Mockingbird…Need we go on? To incite any kind of racial hatred is atrocious, but to link it to a) a presidential campaign and b) the tag line “Make America Great Again” is just so far from okay it’s unreal.
In addition to banning immigrants from the company, Trump has also spoken out about deporting all current ‘immigrants’, banning anyone of the Muslim faith from entering America and about building a wall between America and Mexico. Whilst some of these ideas have sounded brilliant to the very ‘white’ Americans (think the Southerners), these ideas aren’t proving very popular on a global scale, and that is what’s important.
Gender Equality
In addition to racial hatred, Trump has made several misogynistic, sexist and almost anti-women comments, both in his past career and now in his presidential campaign. Trump has said many notable and outrageous comments about women, such as “women are essentially aesthetically pleasing objects”, “sexual assault in the military is totally expected” and “pumping breast milk is disgusting”. Just to name but a mere few. Similar to the way he is taking a backwards view on race, he is taking a backwards view on gender equality too. Women have fought so hard to get to the position that they’re in today, and still there is only a portion of equality. If Trump eradicated that it would not only set the USA backwards but could also be damaging to women across the world if other countries chose to follow the actions of such a powerful country.
In regards to women, Trump also spoke on a fairly touchy subject – abortion. He stated that any women who underwent an abortion deserved to receive a kind of punishment, but that the men who helped to create this baby did not. It is one of the most outrageous things Trump has said throughout the entirety of his campaign.
The Future is Bleak
So what happens if Donald Trump becomes president then? It looks like America will be taken a step back in time, with the only people allowed to live a life of any decent standard being wealthy, white males. People of colour or any different ethnic background along with women will be subject to abuse and discrimination for the entire time Trump is in charge. And will this impact the rest of the world? We can hope not, but it seems likely that with the power the USA has over the globe, some countries may choose to follow his actions as a sign of “loyalty”.
All we can do is sit with baited breath and hope for otherwise. A future with Donald Trump as president would most certainly be a bleak one.
