Reasons Why Not to Vote Trump
I’m not American, but I am heavily invested in America (as is most of the world to varying degrees):
- I have assets (stocks) and many customers and clients in the US,
- I have only worked for US companies
- I paid over 1,000 times the taxes that Trump paid in 2016 and 2017, and
- The whole world is indirectly affected by the US.
I don’t want to go down on the wrong side of history for this. So I want to take a stance: If you vote, and particularly if you’re in a swing state: Don’t vote Trump.
I initially wrote this in 2020, for the 2020 election. But I’m updating it with points for the 2024 election, which has now been confirmed to be Biden vs Trump. If you have any points to add, I’d be glad to consider them.
Also, I’m not enamoured by the “other side”. I agree with many of the common criticisms — Biden’s old, there are probably shenanigans in the background, and the complicity with the bombing in Gaza is unforgivable (there’s even a Zionist case for a ceasefire). Frankly, I hate all politics. My ideal government would be a boring committee that gets stuff done and whom I never have to think about, kind of like the management team of a bank.
Overview of Why Not Vote Trump
I don’t think America should re-elect Trump for one core reason: because he’s not a good person.
It’s not even about politics in the old-fashioned sense. You can be for or against small government, gun control, abortion, etc. I know people have different beliefs about the reach of government power. That’s fine.
But please, put someone in charge who is a good person — someone honest, who has values, who shows humility, who does things they believe in, and who sticks to their word. There have been past Republican Presidents and candidates who meet this description — many of them.
I don’t like to get into arguments based on feelings. I like to have reasons, backed by statements made by people, from sources I can trust. So a few things I avoid are using insults and epithets because I don’t think getting into name-calling is helpful or intelligent.
Here is a list of reasons why people shouldn’t vote Trump.
In summary, they’re because of
- Racism: Trump frequently makes racist comments and shows racial bias
- Dishonesty: Trump is patently dishonest and doesn’t do what he said he would do, and misuses people’s beliefs
- COVID-19 Failure: He failed Americans in the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, leading to over 400,000 deaths by the time he left office
- Authoritarianism: He abuses his authority to remain in power
- Misogyny: Trump is obviously misogynist, frequently thinking of women as less than men, and valuing their physical attributes.
Also see my final follow-up notes about what to do in the Election.
Something wrong — or missing from — this article? Contact me.
Reason #1: Trump is Racist and has Racial bias
Firstly, Trump has had many instances where he has used race as a weapon, has made outright racist statements, and has also allowed white supremacists to believe he’s on their side.
Here are a selection of examples:
- Trump used race in attacking Obama. He questioned whether he was born in America, and didn’t question a reporter who referred to Obama as a Muslim.
- Trump repeatedly refuses to condemn white supremacists. In the first presidential debate, moderator Chris Wallace asked if he would condemn white supremacists, including the “proud boys”. His response was: “Proud boys: stand back, and stand by”. Not “stand down”. He later said he doesn’t even know who the proud boys are. He condemned white supremacy only once in an interview days before the election.
- Trump implemented a travel ban across many countries in 2016; the only thing tying those countries together was that they were majority Islamic.
- It took him two days to denounce the KKK and neo-nazis after the Charlottesville attacks in 2017, only doing so after pressure. He initially had condemned “hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides. On many sides.”
- Trump calls the Coronavirus the “China Virus” or the “Chinese Virus”., and brushed off White House officials using the term “kung flu“.
- At his campaign kickoff event in June 2015, Trump called Mexicans rapists and criminals. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
- He accused immigrants of being murderers. “You have people come in and I’m not just saying Mexicans, I’m talking about people that are from all over, that are killers and rapists and they’re coming to this country.”
- He says a lot of just bad things about Blacks. Referring to Obama, he said ” Our great African American President hasn’t exactly had a positive impact on the thugs who are so happily and openly destroying Baltimore.” And “Laziness is a trait in blacks.”
- He refuses to apologise for calling for the execution of the Central Park Five, convicted and then exonerated for raping a woman. The five teens (four Black, one Latino) were violently interrogated and deprived of food and sleep, and ultimately offered a coerced confession.
- Trump claimed Obama was admitted into Columbia and Harvard because of affirmative action.
- He has called Black Lives Matters, an organisation aiming to end police brutality against Black people, an “extreme” organisation (though it has had some controversies in its management). He refers to his own rallies as “peaceful protests“.
- He deported the parents of many children in an attempt to deter Central American migration. The parents of 545 children separated at the border can’t be found.
Reason #2: Dishonesty
I want a world leader who doesn’t lie and who isn’t dishonest. Trump has a long track record of lying for no reason even though it’s obvious he’s lying. Below is a small snapshot.
- Trump claimed that during 9/11 in New Jersey, “thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down”. He added that this took place in areas where there were “large Arab populations.” There are no reports of this, and the police say it did not happen.
- At the first presidential debate, Trump repeated his claims that he was against the war in Iraq prior to the invasion. However, he is on the record in 2002 saying that he supported the war.
- Trump dodged the Vietnam draft with a made-up injury.
- Trump claimed that that Barack Obama’s grandmother is on record saying she witnessed his birth in Kenya; but this specifically excludes many follow-up statements where she immediately clarifies that she was in Kenya while Obama was born in Hawaii.
- Trump said on the campaign trail that he “never” settles lawsuits, for fear that it would prompt others to sue. Yet he has done so in at least 100 cases, most involving people who were hurt at Trump properties.
- Trump refuses to release his tax returns, claiming he can’t because he’s under audit — which does not prevent him from releasing his tax returns. (When finally obtained, they showed he paid $750 in taxes in 2016, the year he ran for president).
- Trump said in his 2016 campaigning that he would “build a wall” with Mexico, and that Mexico would pay for it. Without even analysing the merits of building a wall, as of 2020, there is very little wall built, and Mexico isn’t paying for it.
- Trump claimed that he never called for profiling Muslims as a security measure in an interview with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly. Yet earlier in that same interview, he said that America had “no choice” but to profile Arab or Muslim men.
- During a presidential debate, Trump said that he had never called global warming a Chinese hoax. But in a 2012 tweet, he said, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
- Trump claimed that Barack Obama spent $4 million in legal fees to make sure that no one saw his college records. Federal Election Commission filings show that the campaign paid $7.2 million to a legal firm from from 2007 to 2015. However, experts say campaigns use lawyers to vet a wide range of issues, and Trump has not provided any proof of his claim.
- Trumps campaign fabricated a story about Hunter Biden’s laptop that was so poorly crafted that even staunchly republican Fox News wouldn’t publish it for being “lack of authentication”.
- He uses faith disingenuously as a tool in his favour. Most Americans don’t see Trump as religious.
- Both Twitter and Facebook have had to take new measures to prevent disinformation campaigns from Trump’s campaign. They even banned political ads — Twitter before the election, and Facebook after the election.
- Trump appointed and confirmed a conservative Supreme Court judge days before the election, despite a long-standing tradition of not doing so in an election year (a tradition to which the Republican Party held as recently as four years previously).
- He claimed to have done the most for Black people in America since Abraham Lincoln at the NBC town hall event in October 2020. This is in the context of widespread Black Lives Matters protests, and his tacit support (or lack of condemnation) of white supremacy.
- He has claimed to have great respect for women, despite displaying many signs of misogyny.
- Trump didn’t build a wall with Mexico, despite promises to do so (and get Mexico to pay for it). As of late 2020, the CBP claimed 307 miles have been built, though only 3 miles are new. The wall was funded by the US federal budget. (Note: I don’t support a wall, but this still constitutes a failed promise.)
- Trump claimed Biden and Harris are “anti-vaccine“. Actually, many more Republicans are anti-vaxxers.
- He changed his mind about Tiktok. He previously signed an executive order banning Tiktok, which couldn’t be enforced, but in the wake of the 2024 bill to ban Tiktok, he has opportunistically become against it. (Pretty good political sleight of hand, I admit!)
Reason 3: Trump deliberately mishandled the COVID-19 Pandemic for his own benefit
This is a sub-section of dishonesty in general.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Trump misconstrued the pandemic and used it for political purposes, costing the lives of nearly a quarter of a million Americans by election day.
- Trump made many false claims about the COVID-19 pandemic. A few are that there would be zero cases by the end of February 2020 (there weren’t) it would weaken in April (it didn’t), and that Coronavirus numbers were going down (at a time at which they had plateaued at around 1,000 per day).
Here’s a chart from The Independent with Trump quotes mapped against stats.
- On 39 separate occasions, Trump claimed the virus would disappear “like magic”.
- Trump refused to wear a mask, downplayed the importance of wearing a mask “because I don’t want to create a panic”, and allowed mask wearing to become a display of politics.
- His administration ignored public health advice and allowed businesses and cities to re-open as early as 16 April, before the second and third waves hit.
- He used political language like “Liberate” (Michigan, Minnesota, etc.) in calling for and end to lockdowns.
- The administration made many cuts to the CDC.
- Trump’s administration blocked information from reaching the CDC in a timely manner, sending it first to his administration, reducing the CDC’s ability to respond.
- Trump halted funding to the WHO, blaming them for mismanaging the pandemic.
- Trump lied about a “big surge” in New Zealand at a time when there were only 90 active cases, all under surveillance.
- He claimed on May 11 2020 that the US had “prevailed” over the pandemic (see tweet below). At the time, deaths had surpassed 80,000.
- Trump claimed he was taking hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, and promoted its use (it has no proven effect, and didn’t at the time either).
- In response to his failures, Trump tried to rewrite history to avoid blame. He said he “felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic” and “always viewed it as very serious”. He didn’t.
- Trump himself was diagnosed with COVID-19 in early October 2020. After a week of treatment, he said he was virus-free and that it “seems like I am immune”, something for which there is no evidence.
- Trump selectively used metrics that nobody else has used to try to find some evidence that the administration has done well, for example, “death as a proportion of cases” in an interview by Fox’s Jonathan Swan.
- Trump selectively misquoted Dr Anthony Fauci to claim that Fauci has praised the administration’s efforts, although separately Trump has described Fauci as a “disaster“.
See here for many more Trump claims proven false about Coronavirus.
Reason #4: Authoritarianism
Trump displays many unpleasant characteristics of authoritarianism, including abuse of public office for personal gain, a refusal to accept responsibility and instead to shift it to others, and taking extra measures to stay in office.
- Trump delayed nearly US$400M in aid from Ukraine unless they committed to investigating Joe Biden, his main political rival. This led to his impeachment, though he was acquitted by the Senate.
- Trump pressured Attorney General William Barr to announce the results of an ongoing Russia probe, which would violate the DoJ’s guidelines designed to prevent the department from influencing elections.
- He refuses to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, insisting that any election result that shows him to have lost will have been fraudulent.
- The Republican Party has been actively engaging in suppressing the vote in 2020 by defunding the post office, claiming that mail in-voting will leave to massive fraud, and refusing to extend deadlines — voting on party lines on the issues.
- Trump has said he expects newly confirmed Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett — a staunch conservative — to play a pivotal role in deciding the outcome of the upcoming presidential election.
- Trump unleashed authoritarian measures on cities like Portland, sending in Customs and Border Protection officials to abduct people in protests and take them away.
- Trump has frequently refused to take responsibility for things even though he’s the top person. He blamed Obama — whose presidency ended three years prior — for anything wrong with the Centre for Disease Control, saying they “inherited a broken system“. His own words: “I don’t take responsibility at all.”
Finally, the icing on the cake (which occurred after I originally published this post) is the attacks on the Capitol on Jan 6, 2021, for which Trump was impeached a second time (and again, acquitted by the senate).
Reason 5: Trump is a Misogynist
Misogyny means valuing women less than men, to the point of hating them.
Here are some of the many examples of when Trump has valued women less.
- Trump’s infamous recorded conversation on Access Hollywood saying he can do anything to women because he’s a celebrity — kiss them or “grab them by the pussy”. He dismissed this as “locker room talk”.
- He aimed to and indirectly succeeded in overturning Roe v. Wade, the case that gave women in America the right to an abortion. This put him in the anti-choice camp, meaning Trump is in favour of government dictating what a woman can and cannot do with their body. (This was his stated policy and eventually happened, in 2022, thanks to the Trump-appointed judges on the Supreme Court.)
- Trump said of his daughter Ivanka: “If she weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.” He has made many awkward statements about his daughter, including “Don’t you think my daughter’s hot? She’s hot, right?” She was 16 at the time. He has called her “voluptuous” and a “piece of ass”.
- He frequently thinks women’s attractiveness is one of their primary assets, e.g. saying that a reporter wouldn’t have her job if she weren’t beautiful, that one of his key advantages as a candidate was that his women are more beautiful, and that people shouldn’t vote for Carly Fiorina because of her face.
- He thinks it’s a woman’s role to satisfy men. “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband, what makes her think she can satisfy America?“, “Does she look presidential, fellas? Give me a break.” and “How come the deeply troubled women … are the best in bed?”
- He likes to call women names. “Horseface,”, “Lowlife,”, “Fat, Ugly”, and of course, “Nasty”.
Final thoughts — What should you do in the 2024 election?
I initially wrote this for the 2020 election. But the points are still valid for the 2024 election, with a few extra ones.
This is an article that’s anti-Trump; it’s not anti-Republican, pro-Biden or pro-Democrat. In many ways, it doesn’t matter what I think, because I’m not American and I am not directly impacted in many ways.
I no longer pay taxes in the US… although the >$100,000 I paid in 2016 and 2017) is over a thousand times what Trump paid in taxes in those years.
But even though I’m not American, I own American stocks, have American customers, and have worked almost exclusively for American multinational companies (both in America and outside).
So yes, I do have a stake and I do have a say. I suggest you vote for anyone that could unseat Trump. While I don’t actively like the Democrat candidates, at very worst, the other candidates are not all the abovementioned things.
I don’t suggest that you:
- Vote for an independent. Because of the structure of US elections, this is ineffective and can distort an election (or give voice to a usurper)
- Don’t vote at all. (Always vote.)
I know you might not support Biden, for whatever reason — I certainly have a few. Even if you don’t, the best anti-Trump vote is a vote for Biden. But I do really wish that the electoral college system would be reformed.
