Since the results of the November 2016 election were released, I have had trouble putting the proverbial pen to paper, so to speak. I've had people tell me they feel the same way, that they don't know how we got to this point. Others have told me that I am overreacting, I am making a bigger deal of the situation than it actually is and that I need to give President-elect Donald Trump a chance. I have rarely been the person who doesn't try to see things from a different perspective. However, I cannot fathom how the results of this election spell out something legitimately positive, and for significant reasons.

During the second Republican nationally televised debate, Trump says he gives money to politicians and as a result, they owe him favors that they must make good on. This is an incredibly suspicious interaction, to which he asserts is broken and shows corruption, yet it is something he willingly participates in. As a result, I do not and cannot believe in his earnestness when he says it is a corrupt system, hinting that he would fix it if he were President. How do we as Americans know that Trump won't take MORE advantage of a corrupt system of bribes and favors as President? After all, he has already shown that he is willing to take advantage of corruption to suit his own ends. More importantly, how could Americans choose a President that has openly said he has bribed politicians. How can we trust him, and what does it really say about us? We willfully voted in a man who revels in corruption and laughs about it.

Another major reason? Racists feel empowered by Donald Trump's presidential victory. That says a lot about his overall presence and influence in the world stage. Since his win, attacks on Muslims, particularly Muslim women, have skyrocketed. Every other day, there is a headline in news reports saying, "Men attempt to pull off hijab on Muslim woman's head while shouting 'Donald Trump'". This is not a reaction electing a President should evoke. No positive action should have this kind of consequence. And yet, this is what is happening. Not only that, but Trump's catchphrase "Make america Great Again" has also been equated with the trending catchphrase "#MakeAmericaWhiteAgain". Donald Trump's win has been taken as a step to keep nonwhite people "step in line" and know their place as being inferior to Caucasians. This has been what us "minorities" have been hearing for the past month.

It's been over a year since Trump started his political run for the Presidency and up until now, I still don't know what his major policies are that he wants to implement. Apart from the obvious, insane rhetoric and policies against Mexicans, I don't know what he plans to do regarding education, or what he REALLY plans to do with taxes. His beliefs about healthcare look more like personal attacks specifically against Barack Obama (Obamacare) and Hillary Clinton (women's reproductive rights), and his discussion about trade has ethnocentric undertones to me. Moreover, I don't even know if I can even believe that HE believes what he is saying. So many people are saying that Trump is smart; he doesn't believe any of the rhetoric he has been saying his entire campaign, he is just catering to the community that has the most power to vote him in office. He is actually not so bad. If that is the case, that literally means that he pandered to the prejudiced, uninformed, and unintelligble because there are more of these kinds of people than any other group in America.

*Can anyone actually make sense of his logic?

Besides the fact he has shown himself to be crass with his personal attacks against people he regards as his enemy: the Clintons, the Bush family, other Republicans he was running against, and news reporters who have attempted to call him out, etc.,Trump has shown himself to be dangerous and more than willing to cause harm to get what he wants. A perfect example of is during one of his political rallies where he "jokingly" encourages his supporters to attempt to SHOOT Hillary Clinton to protect the second amendment, the right to bear arms. It is unprecedented that a presidential candidate would make such a public statement, let alone one with proven unstable supporters. It doesn't stop there, either. He then encouraged Russia to hack the Democratic National Party to expose Hillary, and that is exactly what happened. I believe what was exposed in the hacking regarding how the Democratic National Party viewed Bernie Sanders was a direct contribution to Clinton's loss. To those who were not fully paying attention to Trump's rhetoric, or worse, believe in it, the information released seemed to make Trump look legitimate. The main concept is that Trump was inciting violence in order to win, and it worked. Now, there is is a constant background of uneasiness in America. Is it a foretelling of what is to come? It is highly possible. It also begs the question, now that we have seen who Trump is and what is he willing to do to win, how much is he willing to drag America down in order to prove that somehow, somewhere, he is right in his "convictions"?

*CAN AMERICA REALLY TRUST WHAT THIS MAN SAYS???