Donald Trump’s presidency is coming to an end. When I was 13 years old, I could not have imagined what that would have looked like: what four years of Trump would bring to America; yet, here I am on President-Elect Joe Biden’s Inauguration Day.
At 13 years old, I didn’t really care much about politics. All I really knew about Trump before he was elected was that my parents didn’t like him, but when Trump was elected that’s when I forced myself to pay attention. For the first time, someone who directly clashed with my idea of what America should be was in office. I remember how angry I was when the Trump administration announced the “Muslim Ban;” it affected countries where my relatives lived, countries from where my own mother had emigrated. On Joe Biden’s first day in office he plans to end that ban.
I remember how angry I was when the Trump administration announced that the US would be pulling out of the Paris Climate Accords. I was learning about climate change in school; I knew it was an issue that we were running out of time to fix. Joe Biden plans on reentering the US into the agreement on his first day in office.
I could go on, and on about how the Trump administration’s policies have affected millions in harmful ways. However, the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will not be able to change it all. Donald Trump’s time in office will have an effect on the US for generations to come. I’ve often asked adults: Is this normal? Has there ever been a president like this before? Their responses are usually a unilateral no.
Donald Trump seems to be unlike anything in US history.
I believe over these past four years we have learned to get used to the oddities that is US politics, and many have convinced themselves that inauguration day will bring an end to it all. It won’t. Just look at what happened in the Capitol. Domestic terrorists stormed our nation’s capital with the intention of disrupting the electoral process. They were encouraged by fake news and the president of the United States. The president refused to acknowledge the fact that he lost the election to the point that it sparked deadly violence at the Capitol. The president and conspiracy theories online incited this violence. A sitting president has been essentially removed from the internet and impeached for a second time because he incited a terrorist attack. D.C. has been turned into a military occupation zone because the threat of violence is so high on inauguration day.
Four years ago, I was uncertain what a Trump presidency would look like, what it would do to America, and now I look to the future. What will be the aftermath of the Trump presidency? What will the next four years bring us?
