All people in their lifetime do or say things they do not necessarily want other people to remember. Most of the time, we do not want to judge people on their past and want to give them a second chance.
When considering a person in the highest political office in the United States, should we forget about his past and give him another chance to redeem himself?
President Trump — a man who’s been accused by more than 15 women of sexual harassment and assault in his past — has deemed April “Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month.”
The irony in that sentence cannot be ignored, nor can Trump’s predatory past.
No matter how hard he tries to counteract it, we will always remember the “locker-room talk” that caused an uproar during the presidential campaign.
The backlash against Trump’s declaration about April has been immense. Almost everyone seems to be in agreement that the idea that comes to mind when using Trump and sexual assault in the same sentence does not involve “awareness” and “prevention.”
With almost every other president before Trump, this type of thing would be applauded and thought of as a step in the right direction.
But coming from Trump, it just seems like a joke.
The idea of Trump creating a Sexual Assault Awareness Month goes together with the idea of the Ku Klux Klan advocating for the Black Lives Matter movement.
It basically demeans the entire idea of being aware of sexual assault because it’s being endorsed by a known sexual predator.
To keep up with his charade, Trump also recently tweeted that “Only by enlisting the full potential of women in our society will we be truly able to #MakeAmericaGreatAgain.” This and his declaration show us that he is trying his hardest to make us forget about his past.
It is not just Trump’s “Grab ‘em by the …” statement that is being brought back into the spotlight by this uproar.
His old tweets about Arianna Huffington, founder of Huffington Post and the CEO of Thrive Global, stating that Huffington was “unattractive both inside and out” and that Trump can “fully understand why her former husband left her for a man” have also come back to haunt him.
The real question is not when will the public let go of Trump’s past and let him do his job as president of our nation – It’s when will he own up to his past and stop trying to make it look like it never happened?
The truth is we will never forget your past, President Trump, no matter how many awareness months you declare or nice tweets you send out.
Mikala Turner is a sophomore social work major from Bruce.
