Written by Dre’as Sanchez
Donald Trump is the “greatest” president. At least greatest in my life; I’m just a millennial.
I know what you’re thinking though; you can’t just say Donald J. Trump is the greatest president three years into his appointed role to run the country. You need some context, right? Well, let me break it down for you.
Trump has come a long way in the game of persuading people’s minds, ever since his placing of newspaper ads calling for the execution of five young black and Latino men accused of rape, who were later shown to be innocent. The Central Park 5 was an infamous documentary put on Netflix related to all of it.
In addition, Trump’s adamant conspiratorial nagging about President Barack Obama “not being born in America,” otherwise known as the term creatively named “birtherism.”
By “greatest,” I mean having the most effect for the good on people. A recent study in a Reuters/Ipsos polling of 4,436 adults in July revealed that “…people who rejected racial stereotypes were more interested in voting in the 2020 general election than those who expressed stronger levels of anti-black or anti-Hispanic biases.”
The report also showed that in 2016, this was the reverse. According to the report, “Trump’s narrow win came at a time when Americans with strong anti-black opinions were the more politically engaged group.”
The poll did not measure anti-Hispanic biases, but said that people who express those biases overlapped with other groups who show biases against other racial minority groups.
“This year’s poll found that among Americans who feel that blacks and whites are equal…82% expressed a strong interest in voting in 2020.”
In other words, more people are paying attention to politics than ever before, but one might expect that with a reality TV star like Donald J. Trump running the show. The congressional election in 2018 showed this as well.
That election saw the highest voter turnout since 1914, and the results were the most progressive members of congress the U.S. has ever seen. The most women were elected to congress at one time, the first Muslim woman was elected and in addition, the first openly gay governor and the first openly bisexual U.S. senator were elected.
I will confess I have never voted for a President before; I am 33 and a military veteran. I can say without a doubt, the people in my own life, including myself, are starting to feel like we absolutely have to vote. Most of this change in feeling is due to President Trump and his actions so far while being the President of the United States. People are over it and want a change.
We all have to thank Trump for igniting a movement that is creating more concerned citizens. One can only imagine concerned citizens raising children that are concerned citizens as well. Hopefully we have multiple generations to come of citizens who start caring about how our country is ran and where our taxpayer dollars are being spent.
Are you a concerned citizen or want to be one? The first step is awareness- maybe find a podcast like “Political Gabfest” or “The Michael Brooks Show” to play in the car on your way to class. The next step is to break the stereotype of “to taboo to talk about,” and start having more conversations about how our government functions and where our tax payer money is being spent: locally and at the national level.
