Polls Polarize America

Protests from the North to South Pole

Polls+Polarize+America

Raymond Matthews

With the close of Barack Obama’s historic legacy as our nation’s 44th president and the dawn of Donald Trump’s term as the 45th, our nation finds itself suffocating in an atmosphere of stark stratification, blatant hostility and general confusion. Many find themselves extremely excited to witness Trump fulfill his many campaign promises, and yet many find themselves unable to support a man with such ostracizing ideals. However, the real question seems to be, can he deliver all that he has promised and what exactly is it that he’ll be delivering?

For starters, the White House official website has been a topic of great concern for many Americans, changed just hours after his election. Approximately three hours after his inauguration, the LGBTQIA rights page was removed from the website along with the web page concerning climate change. These two issues were ones which caused huge concerns throughout his campaign.

With a running mate who has openly advocated that all government funding directed toward HIV research be put toward gay conversion therapy and who strongly opposes gay marriage, he hasn’t exactly made allies in the gay community. The prompt removal of this web page certainly has not helped his popularity; it has only caused more panic amongst those who initially opposed him.

Perhaps the most alarming was the removal of the climate change web page from the White House’s website. 2016 has been confirmed to have been the hottest recorded year in history, and with a president who has denied the legitimacy of climate change time and time again, many find themselves worried for our planet’s future.

In spite of this, multiple citizens have shown an unwavering support for Donald Trump throughout his campaign and into his initial days as president. This was substantiated by his inaugural turnout, which has been roughly estimated to have been about 160,000.

However, crowd scientists have now announced that there were at least three times more people protesting his inauguration at the nationwide Women’s Marches the following day. Approximately 470,000 people gathered worldwide.

From Sacramento to Washington, to Australia, Africa and Antarctica, a resounding amount of the population chose to say that they saw this inauguration as a step backwards in the fight towards equality and social justice. However, this should not suggest that they do not support him.

The message behind the Women’s March, and the vast majority of Trump protests, has never been that protesters hate President Trump. These protests are a proclamation that as long as Trump supports those he has degraded and offended throughout his campaign, that those groups will support him.

For the sake of our nation’s future it is critical that this message be heard, because if President Trump does not support his critics in the same way he supports his fans, he will never be able to effectively lead the nation he fought so hard to govern.