Opinion | We are in dire need of a restructure
Olivia Harden
Sophomore English major
This election season has been nothing short of bizarre. I can’t be the only one who originally thought that Donald Trump running for president was the title of an article by The Onion, but I was wrong. Trump running for president is very real. The punchline hasn’t dropped, and even if it was a joke, at this point it’s not funny.
The Republican nominee’s campaign has been disturbing, and has promoted widespread hatred toward Mexicans, Muslims, African Americans, et cetera. In the past week the infamous video was released in which Trump describes sexual assault and says he is able to get away with those actions because he is rich. After spending hours on the “Someone You Know” edition of The Panther last week, I couldn’t help but be sick to my stomach listening to the audio in the video released. There’s a discrepancy in the media coverage of the video. It’s just “locker room talk” after all, as Trump said in the presidential debate when questioned about it. Trump’s language is not locker room talk. It’s insulting to men everywhere to think that in locker rooms, they are all actively talking about sexually assaulting women. However, I think it brings to the forefront how deeply rooted rape culture is in our everyday lives. The language Trump used was foul and crude and I personally don’t want it used to describe my body, but the real issue is in the actions he was describing and the dismissal of the criticism he received.
About three dozen Republican candidates have pulled their endorsements for Trump, but why is this the last straw for the party? We’ve watched the violence that the candidate has promoted previously. We’ve heard him declare the need for a widespread ban on Muslims. We’ve heard him objectify women’s bodies. We’ve heard him blame Mexicans for crime and rape. Overall, he’s just not qualified to be president. The American people do vote and choose their primary nominee, but the Republican Party did nothing to stop this disaster from happening. There were a dozen GOP candidates in the primary, and somehow a racist man with no qualifications who spews bigotry reigns supreme? What does this say about our country? Why did Trump have to describe violence on the bodies of women to be seen as a dangerous threat?
Our political system is in dire need of a restructure. For the last eight years we’ve watched a majority Republican Congress fight President Obama every chance it gets. Just a few weeks ago, Congress decided to override Obama’s veto on the 9/11 bill, which allows the victims of 9/11 to sue Saudi Arabia, setting a dangerous precedent for others suing the U.S. Many Congress members “within hours of their vote, signed a letter expressing some reservations about the potential consequences of the law,” according to the New York Times.
Trump is able to thrive off of a party whose ultimate goal is to survive. The Republican Party has prioritized power over politics, beating the Democratic Party over stopping a man that otherizes minorities. The two-party system is a failure, our government is discombobulated and ultimately America will suffer because of it.