As a Gay Jewish Man, I Will Never Let Trump Win – pride source.com
Peter Rosenstein | Washington Blade
Courtesy of the National LGBT Media Association
Donald Trump and his friends are scary, but I will not sit back and let them win. My parents escaped Hitler, coming to the United States for a better life. My father’s parents were killed in Auschwitz. Until Trump became president, I never believed anything like that could happen here. While I still don’t, I now know it will take everyone speaking out and not acquiescing to him and his acolytes.
It is not only Jews and the LGBTQ+ community who are threatened. In the United States today all minorities and women are coming under fire. Our response must be not to only speak out, refuting hate every day, but working to see it doesn’t continue to threaten our lives. We must vote to ensure those who threaten our way of life never gain control.
Trump is a sexist, homophobic, racist pig. For four years he held a megaphone as president spreading hatred and enabling his followers to spread theirs in the public square. He capped four years with an attempted coup. He was stopped, but today he is trying to once again regain that megaphone. We cannot let him or anyone who supports him have it.
We must call out Trump and every one of his acolytes every time they do something like sit down to dinner with anti-Semites like Kanye West and his friend Nick Fuentes. Fuentes, a white supremacist and Holocaust denier, is a political commentator and live streamer banned from YouTube for his views. We cannot accept any excuses for such behavior. We must also call out those with the power to reach people like that, who don’t speak out. Those like Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. They are Jews, bringing their children up in the Jewish faith. Where are their voices? They must realize they and their children will not be spared if the likes of West and Fuentes take over our country.
There needs to be the outcry like there was when West first iterated his diatribe against the Jews forcing Adidas and others to cut their business ties with him.
Today we see movies and plays opening that speak to the horrors of racism and anti-Semitism. Movies like “Till,” about racism, and “Fabelmans,” the Steven Spielberg autobiographical movie about him facing anti-Semitism and bullying and the new Tom Stoppard play on Broadway, “Leopoldstadt.” Every day, and in every way, decent Americans must speak out and fight back; not with guns but with words, actions, and votes.
We are seeing gun violence climb in the United States, often based on hate. We shouldn’t be surprised with the easy access to guns, nearly 440 million in the hands of Americans, when someone’s hatred results in violent attacks on churches, synagogues, schools, movie theaters, or just on the streets in our neighborhoods. We see anger much too easily escalate into violence.
Again, whereas sexism, racism, homophobia are not new to American society, we worked for many years, and until Trump, managed to keep them somewhat under control. It was getting to a point where they were not acceptable to be spoken in the public square. Trump changed that. While we can fight the policies he proposed, like lowering taxes on the rich, or refusing to recognize climate change, the cultural changes he wrought will take decades to change. Putting the genie of hate back in the bottle will not be easy as we see in our country today. From his announcement for president to his comments on Charlottesville, where he said he could see good on both sides; one side being white supremacists and neo-Nazis, the other being those who opposed them, he allowed hatred to become acceptable.
Today we have not only Trump but the mini-Trumps who want to take over from him like Ron DeSantis in Florida and Glenn Youngkin in Virginia — those who cover their disgusting thoughts in a more acceptable public veneer, but who nonetheless end up working to advance the same goals as Trump, namely to marginalize every minority and allow them to be continuously threatened into submission.
But they will learn we will not be threatened without a response. We will not sit idly by while they ruin the country my parents, and so many others, came to seeking asylum and safety. We will fight for the country whose Declaration of Independence states: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” We will continue to fight to include women in those beautiful words.
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