Over the past couple of days, it’s been rather difficult for me to keep my opinions to myself regarding the issues evidently going on around us. This isn’t a letter bashing anyone or their views, opposing or not. This isn’t a letter to sway anyone’s decision on why he or she chose to elect one candidate over the other. This also isn’t a letter reprimanding you on why you chose to (or not to) vote. This letter is a plight to the events that have recently occurred in our society, not to mention our world, as we know it. First and foremost, Donald Trump is our President-elect and just to lay it all out on the table right now: he is and never will be my first choice as a Presidential candidate, or my first choice anything. This isn’t because he is white or has anything to do with the color of his skin. My vote would never go towards President-elect Donald Trump because he is a mindless man with absolutely no conscience or moral compass regarding the majority of people he is about to lead as President in this “free world”.

This is a letter to the people in our society that have chosen not to exercise their right to vote and to this I say, how dare you. No matter how old you are or what you do or don’t know about the current events regarding the policies in our world, this presidential election was one of the biggest opportunities for you to come forward and give yourself that opportunity to educate yourself on what’s happening around you– around us all. Once you chose not to exercise that right, the choice to let down millions of women around you was also made. Being a young woman in college is one of the rarest and most precious times to be educated; to have the most radical and liberal views our world has ever heard or seen. Pure ignorance towards the current events isn’t a valid excuse anymore and idly sitting back has done neither harm nor good to anyone and choosing to completely isolate one to what’s been happening is both obtuse and inconsiderate.

This is a letter to the people in our society who have chosen to elect then nominee, Donald Trump, as our present day President-elected candidate. I am in no position to judge you for making the decision to have your own thoughts and beliefs and base it on your overall decision to submit your ballot for Donald Trump. With that being said, what I can voice my position on is the fact that by voting for Donald Trump (or not voting), you have voted to idly sit back while I wait for my Muslim Identification Card to come in the mail. By voting for Donald Trump, you have successfully voted for the “OK” to the attempt to “treat being gay” through the use of therapy. By voting Trump, you’ve voted for several of my uncles to never have the chance to call this country their home. By voting for Donald Trump, you’ve officially voted for a man who believed global warming “doesn’t exist”. By voting for Trump nation, you’ve agreed to “grab her by the p*ssy” all because our soon to be elected leader has done the same, repeatedly. By voting for the Trump card, you’ve voted for Mexican families to never see their loved ones in person. By voting for him, you’ve taken gigantic steps backwards and have attempted to pursue the stopping of birth control and contraception. “He won’t actually take away birth control, like he won’t actually do it” is one of the more scarier things I’ve ever had to hear in my 20 years of living and here’s why: he will take away your right to not to have children at this time in our lives. Like I said before, I don’t have a problem with your God given right to choose who you feel will best lead our country to greatness but the problem that arises for me, personally, is the fact that a man who chooses to stand on a platform based solely on the emotional, physical and mental humiliation of women, the LGBTQ community, and minorities as a whole, is absolutely not a man worth standing up for. He is not the kind of man that will safely and securely lead us to be the best nation possible but will eventually lead us to eternal damnation. Several years from now, I want to be able to tell my little girl that whatever I went through in my younger years leading up to her, were worth it. That the highs and lows I’ve been through have been for something meaningful and “something meaningful” doesn’t mean raising a child in a world where women were restricted from rising up in their career field and personal goals and aspirations. I desperately need this all to be for something and for the life of me, cannot have it all be put to a permanent stop because of a racist, misogynistic, homophobic and xenophobic man that’s been elected to lead our country once upon a time.

Not to say that everyone who has chosen to vote for Trump are all racist, misogynistic, homophobic, xenophobic, etc. but you are a group of people who have chosen to blatantly ignore all this to give him one more vote he did not deserve. This man has had the ability and courage to shut down every idea I, along with every other person victimized by this candidate, has had just by a string of loud-mouthed words. To all you non-voters who think you’ve somehow taken the high road to choose not to vote. To anyone that has chosen submit their ballot for Donald Trump and to those of you who have chosen to vote for Trump because you agree with some of his business ideas and plans: I sincerely hope you can sleep soundly at night knowing that he, Donald Trump, is now our President-elect. I sincerely hope he is just as important, or more important than, the safety and wellbeing of your fellow mothers, sisters, daughters, future daughters and friends of a minority. Hopefully you did well.