“You’re a white, racist piece of shit.” I was both perplexed and infuriated when I realized someone was yelling that sentence to me as I wore a “Make America Great Again” hat. Someone who had never met me had made the assumption that I was a “white, racist piece of shit” because of a hat I had chosen to wear. How could a political figure be so polarizing and evoke so much hatred? I could admit that President Donald Trump wasn’t the most eloquent or the most politically correct, but in all honesty, that was part of his allure for me. As much as I hated to hear him speak at a juvenile level on the campaign trail, there was something oddly refreshing about his bluster. Trump’s tenets of fair trade, health care reform, infrastructure reform, education reform, fair immigration reform, blasé social policy and his anti-establishment persona drove 37 percent of millennials, including myself, to pull the lever for him. However, as the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20.
When Trump placed his hands over the Bible and took the oath of the highest office, a transformation was expected. I wrongly assumed Trump could change for the better, stop using his vapid fearmongering rhetoric and take a positive direction of reform on the integral issues all Americans can agree on. Instead, the United States received a host of shortsighted executive orders that set the tone for a divisive future. Nominally, his executive orders rolled back environmental protections and blew smoke over protecting the United States from “foreign threats.” His disregard for the environment and a perpetual habit of espousing xenophobia illustrate the tip of the iceberg of Trump’s incapacity to deliver on necessary reform, and why I, and many other millennials in similar circumstances, simply can no longer defend the outrageous billionaire-turned-U.S. president.
I am not alone in my beliefs. It appears as though many other Americans have changed their mind about Trump — his current approval rating stands at 34 percent, which is the lowest mark in history for a U.S. president in his first year. These low approval ratings can be attributed to his recent executive orders such as banning transgender patriots from the military via Twitter, his failure to denounce the neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups involved in the violence in Charlottesville and his affinity for beating the drum of war with North Korea and Venezuela. These actions are not on the promised track of peace and reform and were instead intended to retain the support of the fringes of the Republican Party.
I am an ex-Trump supporter and I know I am not the only one. I have yet to see Trump’s promised tax reform, constructive health care reform and a host of other reforms I was optimistic to see. However, what I have seen is the blustering Trump I cringed at, and if that’s the Trump we are going to have for the next three and a half years, then I’m off the train. I will no longer sit by and defend him, nor should any other former supporter who is now disappointed in him. It is obvious he is on a track that is indefensible and honestly not what I had hoped for; it takes a lot for people to admit they were wrong, and when it comes to a situation as important as this one, it is time millennials start stepping up to the plate. We have a responsibility to ensure that the future is free of bigoted rhetoric, especially on college campuses like Binghamton University. Trump needs to know he let a large swath of us down. He needs to know he is taking bounds and leaps in the wrong direction. And most importantly, he needs to admit when he’s wrong and learn from it, just like I did.
Gunnar Jurgensen is a junior majoring in political science.