Ever since the lewd tape of Donald Trump has been released, this Republican candidate's campaign has suffered their biggest blow yet. Many of Trump's supporters have withdrawn from supporting him after this scandal, Trump himself has denied ever acting upon kissing or groping women, but was immediately met with backlash, not only from newscasters, late night TV shows and hosts, but from actual victims.
According to CNN, there has been officially eight women, that have accused Trump of sexual assault. Groping them, kissing them, all without consent. And what is most disturbing, despite with all of these accusations, is that Trump claims that none of these events ever happened, despite all of his accusers giving vivid details about how they met him, whether it was from knowing him for a long time, or just meeting him just minutes or seconds before the assault.
On Thursday October 13, while at a Hillary Clinton campaign in Manchester, New Hampshire, First Lady Michelle Obama gave a striking and powerful speech, defying the cruel and sick words of this year's Republican candidate.
She first shared how she learned about the struggles that most girls have when pursuing an education, from early marriage to cultural beliefs that girls don't have the right to learn. Countless girls and young women showed their hunger to learn to the First Lady. This was during a trip to Liberia and Morocco on Tuesday, October 11th, in recognition of International Day of the Girl and Let Girls Learn.
Then Michelle Obama shared her disbelief that a presidential candidate has repeatedly said belittling and horrible things about women, saying that this is not "locker-room talk" because it is an insult to real men, the ones that treat women with respect. She says that this behavior should not be allowed in the White House, even proving that a six-year-old knows that fact. And most importantly, she tells her spectators, with this presidential candidate's view towards women, thinking that they are only objects and could not bring any benefit to society, is wrong, thus receiving thunderous agreement. And as I heard of these events while going to college classes, worked on bettering myself through study, I thought long and hard about what they are trying to tell us as citizens, and I finally came to a conclusion.
Sexual assault is a true reality that we need to face. It is the number one unreported crime in America. One in five women and one in seventy-one men will be assaulted sometime during their life. One in four girls and one in six boys are sexually abused before they turn eighteen. Eight out of ten cases of rape, the victim knew their attacker.
These are statistics that need to drop and disappear entirely. Why does this relate to Michelle Obama's speech and the Republican candidate's behavior and comments? Everything that has to do with stopping rape culture. If Trump becomes the next United States president, not only will he segregate society again, isolate immigrants, and put our country in danger: If he is elected, as a country, we are telling the world, this is how we value our women and saying that we tolerate sexual assault. That is not right.
Donald Trump has proven himself to be the textbook example of a sexual assaulter. He forces himself on women because he is in power, and believes that because of that, he can get away with it. He does it just to prove that he can. And he admits to it! He openly admits that when owning different beauty pageants, he just goes into the contestants' dressing rooms without regarding their sense of security. And this isn't just limited to women in their twenties; he's done it when there were teens involved! And all this time, he has shown no remorse or guilt over his actions.
These recent events are trying to tell us as human beings that this is now the opportune moment to take a huge step towards rape culture. When Hilary Clinton is elected, and believe me she is going to be elected; as soon as that tape was released, the possibility of Trump being president was ended. When this monstrous election is finished, we need to take a stand against Trump and have him pay the consequences. I don't care if he's rich; it doesn't matter. He committed a crime of violating a person's sense of well-being multiple times in his life and he should face the hard truth of justice. I'm done talking.
My choice for this election is clear, and for those of you who still don't know what you are going to do when November 4th comes along, take a long look in the mirror and ask yourself what you value as a human being and what you want in order to better this country. Do you want love or hate? The world is watching; what do you want?
