‘Watching White Nationalists Celebrate While Innocent Americans Cry Tears of Fear Does Not Feel Like America’
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) issued some tough words for Donald Trump, urging the President-elect to reign in his machine of hate, bullying, and bigotry that has been unleashed in his name. Across the country there are innumerable reports of people, often young people, being verbally or even physically attacked by Donald Trump supporters and in his name, because they are LGBT, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Muslim, women, or members of other groups that Donald Trump has attacked.
Reid, never one to shy away from a fight, calls Donald Trump “a sexual predator who lost the popular vote and fueled his campaign with bigotry and hate,” and observes that the “election of Donald Trump has emboldened the forces of hate and bigotry in America.”
“White nationalists, Vladimir Putin and ISIS are celebrating Donald Trump’s victory, while innocent, law-abiding Americans are wracked with fear – especially African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Muslim Americans, LGBT Americans and Asian Americans. Watching white nationalists celebrate while innocent Americans cry tears of fear does not feel like America.”
Reid has definitely tapped into what is happening across the nation.
“I have heard more stories in the past 48 hours of Americans living in fear of their own government and their fellow Americans than I can remember hearing in five decades in politics,” he says, which is notable. “Hispanic Americans who fear their families will be torn apart, African Americans being heckled on the street, Muslim Americans afraid to wear a headscarf, gay and lesbian couples having slurs hurled at them and feeling afraid to walk down the street holding hands. American children waking up in the middle of the night crying, terrified that Trump will take their parents away. Young girls unable to understand why a man who brags about sexually assaulting women has been elected president.”
The 76-year old who began his political career in 1969 talks about his large family and how this has affected them, and him.
“I have one daughter and twelve granddaughters. The texts, emails and phone calls I have received from them have been filled with fear – fear for themselves, fear for their Hispanic and African American friends, for their Muslim and Jewish friends, for their LBGT friends, for their Asian friends. I’ve felt their tears and I’ve felt their fear.”
He calls their fear “legitimate” and “entirely rational, because Donald Trump has talked openly about doing terrible things to them.”
“Every news piece that breathlessly obsesses over inauguration preparations compounds their fear by normalizing a man who has threatened to tear families apart, who has bragged about sexually assaulting women and who has directed crowds of thousands to intimidate reporters and assault African Americans.”
“If this is going to be a time of healing, we must first put the responsibility for healing where it belongs: at the feet of Donald Trump, a sexual predator who lost the popular vote and fueled his campaign with bigotry and hate.”
“Winning the electoral college does not absolve Trump of the grave sins he committed against millions of Americans. Donald Trump may not possess the capacity to assuage those fears, but he owes it to this nation to try.”
“If Trump wants to roll back tide of hate he unleashed, he has a tremendous amount of work to do and he must begin immediately.”
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Image by Senate Democrats via Flickr and a CC licenseÂ