One of the staples of the United States today is our quadrennial (every four years) electoral system, in which a single candidate from each political party is chosen to represent not only their own personal views but the views of their party, and in a broader sense the views of the state. Often, however, these candidates are simplified down to a list of stereotypes. The Republican party, for example, is painted as a group of inbred, gun-totting, unintellectual rednecks, while the Democratic Party consists of a bunch of tree-hugging, hyper-politically correct, pretentious snobs. While these stereotypes may pervade certain individuals, they are not representative of their parties, and moreover not representative of the country as a whole. With this in mind, Donald Trump is no way representative of anything to do with this country, but I fear that regardless, he is the lens through which the rest of the world is looking at us as of late.

For starters, it is clear Trump has no regard for any semblance of order or tradition, as he simply and proudly states whatever comes to his mind without any foresight or second thought. He exists in this blissfully duplicitous state in which he proclaims some horribly offensive or otherwise invalid statement and then goes on to say that whatever group he just marginalized is in love with him. For example, he has stated before that he “a great reputation with the blacks,” but in another interview, he was quoted saying he would rather have Jewish people counting his money than black people. Trump has also allegedly ascribed laziness to African Americans in general, saying that it simply pervades their very existence: that they are born lazy. This was in the early 90s, far before the general population knew him to be a horrible person seemingly bent on the destruction of the very nation he wants to make “great again."

At the same time that Trump has been running his mouth, the rest of the country, and the world, has been thrown into tepid waters, attempting to redefine what they stand for and how they perceive themselves. One of the most unfortunate facts of life is that in times of prosperity, praise is forwarded onto the largest number of people possible, but in times of strife, people try to narrow down the possible causes until there is either one group or one person responsible, and in terms of the disturbing plethora of mass shootings, President Obama has been defined as that single root of uneasiness and strife in this country. They blame him for not fixing all of the existing vices that were tightened around the nation by the previous administration and give him no credit for the work that he has done under all this subsequent pressure and criticism. Among all this nasty talk remains Donald Trump’s fiery and intellectually simple rhetoric, still not convinced that President Obama is even a U.S. citizen, completely disregarding the fact that before he even began to care about the president’s origin of birth, he had served as a senator for the state of Illinois.

Trump has no problem criticizing other people’s actions, either, especially in the case of Arizona senator John McCain. Trump criticized McCain for being a prisoner of war and thus stated he did not deserve any respect or praise, as he did not exactly “fight” in the war. He has even stated that if his daughter was not technically his, he would probably want to date her, which is reason enough to try to dissuade any ignorant American claiming to support this neo-fascist pig from being elected, or receiving any more attention whatsoever.

The bottom line is that Trump is only representative of himself and his own racist, xenophobic views. It is easy to understand that the majority of the U.S. does not want to ban all Muslims from the country. We understand that global warming is not something that was made up by the Chinese as an economic ruse to make us less competitive. We don’t think that there are a large number of “dopey” world leaders. But the rest of the world seems to slowly be thinking this: they are slowly associating Trump with America, or rather Trump as America. The Republican Party does not think this way because they are smart enough to form actual ideas and opinions, whereas Trump decides that he is handsome and then proclaims it as fact. Fortunately for him, he must not own a mirror for fear of having to clean up the glass, his shattered self-image, off of his exorbitantly-carpeted floor. We cannot succumb to these unfortunate appropriations.

Our first focus must be to silence Trump, because by trying to take down ISIS or solve the problems of gun control at this particular moment would be a mistake. There is a difference between being self-aware and self-centered, the former means that you look to yourself first and then continue on to look to others in order to aid them, should they need it. The latter means that you look to yourself and no one else, as you are the most important person in your life. It is not difficult to know which one Trump is, which is why America must strive to be the opposite, because if we pride ourselves so much on our liberty to speak freely, we cannot allow ourselves to be defined be those that do so poorly.