Elias Atienza is a history student. The views expressed in letters to the editor do not necessarily reflect those of Mustang editorial.
Never Trump.
These are the words uttered by conservatives everywhere who will not vote for Trump no matter what. Never Trump is a movement. We recognize that Trump will do more harm than good as president.
This a man who espouses that an entire religion hates us because of our values, ostracizing the millions of Muslims who live here and the tens of thousands of Muslims who serve in our armed forces. He believes that the Islamic world — countries such as Tunisia, Indonesia, Turkey and the Kurdish minorities — hates us.
Make no mistake, radical Islam is a cancer and must be eradicated. But to say out loud that Islam itself — including the Muslims living here — hate us, is a slap to the face of people like Mohammed Shakur who served in the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq and Sultan Khan and died for our country.
It’s a slap to the face of the thousands of interpreters who risked their lives for us in Afghanistan and Iraq.
A slap to the face to the thousands upon thousands of Muslims who have died facing ISIS.
It’s a slap to the face of the Jordanians who watched their pilot burn to death on social media.
It’s a slap to the face to the Kurds who held the line against the ISIS advance two summers ago, who watched as the Iraqi Army melted away.
Trump wants to bring back water boarding and a “hell of a lot worse than water boarding,” despite it not working and violating human rights. Trump wants to bring back mass surveillance, despite it not working and violating our constitutional rights. But trust him, because he’s going to make torturing and violating the Constitution great.
This is a man who openly repudiates the First Amendment, promising to open up libel laws in order to sue the media for writing negative stories about him. He wants us all to be like Breitbart, an online conservative site whose founder would be ashamed of what his company has become.
This is a man who supports the violence of his supporters, saying that the protester who was punched probably deserved it. This man’s rhetoric is inflaming tensions to greater levels than they have been in years.
The Never Trump movement is weak, but is growing. Men like Senator Ben Sasse and Glenn Beck, principled men who I happen to disagree with on a host of issues, are leading the charge. Trump is strong, but not inevitable.
In the end, it is simple. I will never vote for a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot who wants to violate international law and constitutional rights. I will never vote for a man who condones violence against those who don’t share his “vision.”
In the end, these simple words espouse what I believe.
#NeverTrump
Author’s Note: Not a representative of Cal Poly College Republicans or Young Americans for Liberty. The opinions espoused here are my own.
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