Sanders: What really will these anti-Trump protests change?

William Sanders III, IC Columnist

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The evening of Nov. 8 was a complete nail-biter as Americans waited to discover who the 45th president of the United States would be. Would it be the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton or the Republican candidate Donald J. Trump?

I was mesmerized that night — hoping that my own worst fears weren’t made real. In this election, I was completely neutral, pleading that neither candidate would win. Yet in reality I knew one of these candidates had to go home the victor.

I immediately got up the next morning guessing who probably won the election and, sure enough, I was correct in my original assumption. Trump is going to be America’s 45th president.

Truthfully, although my guess on the election outcome was spot-on, I was frightened about the idea that Mr. Trump is the victor. It’s because of his unleashing of toxic campaign rhetoric, which many have described as unprecedented in American history.

Yet, I was so stunned by the humility he showed in his victory speech that I began to re-evaluate some of my beliefs about the type of president Donald Trump will be. I think that America should give Trump a shot to prove us all wrong about him.

But that’s not how the events would unfold. The streets are filled with rioting and protesting individuals who think that Trump shouldn’t have won the election in the first place. They are concerned about the disparaging remarks that candidate Trump made about the LGBT community and women. They are also upset about his pronouncements on immigration and his views about the environment and climate change.

But, for me, what is more disappointing about the post-election period is not that Trump won; it’s how the protests easily turn into violent attacks and gun violence that have sent many people to the hospital.

I think these protests are good in communicating the beliefs of people to the government. It’s part of what makes democracy beautiful. But we need to understand that, at the end of the day, these protests will not necessarily overturn the outcome of the election. Barring any “highly-unlikely” decision by the Electoral College to refuse endorsing Mr. Trump on Dec. 19, Trump will still be America’s 45th president.

It’s almost futile to think that a gathering of about a thousand people can change this reality. All Americans should come together and help build to build the future of this country irrespective of who is at the helm of the presidency.

To a good measure, we have no idea what Trump is going to do when he takes office, but we should at least give him a chance to prove himself to the American people. Over time, this country has elected presidents that significant proportions of the population did not agree with, but that did not prevent us from allowing them to exercise the privilege of leadership which the electorates have conferred on them. We always have the opportunity to peacefully protest the actions he takes as president.

I think we can all agree that most of the misunderstandings or opinions about what we think president-elect Trump will do comes from his actions, utterances and even his utter display of misunderstanding of the American media. He established himself as an antagonistic figure.

I do not approve the means Mr. Trump used to achieve his victory in this election. Yet, I respect his intelligence and smartness and these are important qualities for a great president. He just needs to appoint people into his government who will respect the human values of love, kindness, compassion, respect for individual difference and uniting all Americans as one people with a common destiny. Let’s give Trump a chance.

William Sanders III is a second-year majoring in Communication.

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Sanders: What really will these anti-Trump protests change?