The internet has been Trumping for quite some time now. We all got Trumped: Latinos, Blacks, Asian, Muslims, poor and middle class. Latinos are rapists. Poor people are lazy. Muslims are terrorists. Even Bush had enough, and stated that Trump “will not insult his way into the presidency.”
…Or will he? The polls are booming with support for the most outrageous person on earth.
Come early morning on Monday, March 14th, the Internet was once again was blown away with millions of likes, shares and comments. This time it was not Trump who started the fire– it was Brandon Stanton. Stanton, the creator of Humans of New York, a journalist, historian, traveler, and a young man with a big heart, could not keep silent any longer. He wrote an open letter to Donald Trump condemning his actions and dangerous rhetoric.
The following day, in an interview with Kate Couric, Brandon stood his ground and spent several minutes describing the characters of Muslim people he met around the world. He described Muslim families as “more welcoming and warm and willing to talk me than any 100 people sample I talked to in New York.” He spoke of the dangers of drawing a circle around 1.6 billion people and claiming that every single one of them hates against U.S.
We can all agree that Brandon took a rather unpopular stand. After all, thousands of people are cheering otherwise at Trump rallies.
Why did a nonpolitical Facebook page decided to get mixed up in the dirty game of politics?
There are three main reasons why Brandon decided to write this letter.
First and foremost, the young journalist no longer saw condemning Trump as a political move, but a moral obligation.
“I started feeling the moral guilt. I saw a candidate injecting racism, injecting fear in America. I have been quite about it for political reasons. By staying silent I am making the wrong moral choice.”
Brandon continues by inviting those with power and influence to protect America by asking them to stand up and speak out against Trump’s dangerous rhetoric. He believes that this politician and his hateful rhetoric might be the reason for more violence and prejudice in America.
The second reason is that the world is too dangerous for this kind of divisiveness right now. Brandon says that “we are too armed, and the world is just too unstable” for a man like Trump to be in power of “the strongest army in the world,” pointing out that Trump displays a “…kind of impulsiveness and emphasis on victory and personal loyalty.” This would make him taking over the Presidential duties as Commander in Chief quite dangerous.
The world is a scary place today. Playing with people’s fears is an way to get the “scared ones” supporting you. Wait… Does that sound familiar? I think we saw it not too long ago…
Brandon points out that Trump also expresses the qualities of tyrants past. As a historian, Brandon was fascinated with the biographies of people who held immense amounts of power. He gave an example of the Nazi Germany and draws some parallels. Hitler emphasized violence, personal loyalty over ideas, and appealed to racism. Brandon adds that we do not want to take the chance of finding out if his theory that Trump has many characteristics in common with Hitler by choosing Donald Trump to be the next President of Unites States.
My grandfather went all the way from Kazakhstan to Berlin fighting Nazis in the 1940’s. He buried his friends one by one to open the gates of the concentration camps in Germany. He freed Jewish children with the blood of his friends and family. He told us many times that war is ugly and cruel. He did it so we, his children, will live in peace without hate.
Have we learned nothing?
