The great rabbi and scholar Abraham Joshua Heschel famously said, “To be is to stand for.” And so, I say to supporters of our president-elect that the time has come to prove that your vote was not an act in support of racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, ableism or anti-Semitism.
This is your moment to demonstrate that your call to unite this country behind our president-elect entails a repudiation of many things he said during the campaign and over the course of his career.
I believe that those of you who did vote for Donald Trump did so because you believe that he will bring economic opportunity to those who have been left behind by trade policies and outsourcing.
Though I cast my vote differently, I share the underlying aspiration with you. I do not come from old money. Whatever financial resources my family was able to provide me came from what they were able to scrimp from their middle-class paychecks over time.
For my grandparents and for my parents’ generation, education was made possible by the existence of city and state universities with low tuition, work-study programs, night school and federally subsidized student loans. But even these hard-won advantages came about because of the presence of opportunities in various forms.
I understand and condemn the shrunken access to opportunity for people across boundaries of race and geography, whether they live in cities or in rural communities, in suburbs or underserved townships. Taking the grandiose step of generalizing my experience to all Democratic voters, I would say that those of us in the blue sections of the map would readily advocate for the economic justice and increased opportunity for those in the red. I believe that, in this way, we are already united.
But, for the first time in my life, the fears of reprisal toward those who voted for the losing candidate seem real. Trump’s threat to prosecute Hillary Clinton and put her in jail, as he promised during the second debate, echoes the very real possibility that other rights until now guaranteed by the Constitution and the rule of law will be similarly repealed.
Transgender folk are concerned that their ability to pursue their livelihood without discrimination, to the extent this right was enacted by executive order, will be removed by President Trump’s stroke of the pen, as he has promised to reverse all of the executive orders of the Obama era.
Same-sex couples fear that their long awaited rights of marriage and child rearing will be reversed by a court to which President Trump will appoint justices that reflect the radical conservatism of his closest advisers and vice president.
People of color anticipate that candidate Trump’s calls to “law and order” will result in policies reflecting what this phrase has always implied, namely, the selective prosecution and targeted imprisonment of African-Americans and Latinos. And I haven’t even mentioned the fear among Latino communities, whether from those documented or not, to even leave their homes.
In the days since the election, President-elect Trump has already given tacit endorsement to the cruel and bigoted tide he has unleashed. As reported in The New York Times, women, students of color, and students who are or appear Muslim have been targeted for harassment on college campuses across the country.
In our own backyard on Mount Tom, spray-painted epithets of racism and swastikas find their counterparts all over the country. And despite these and many other documented acts of hatred, President-elect Trump has done nothing to denounce them. His weak response when pressed during a “60 Minutes” interview is a far cry from a principled call to respect human dignity and diversity.
He has not condemned the targeted intimidation of Muslims, Latinos, people of color, women and Jews contrary to the values of this nation. He has not explicitly disassociated himself from acts that have been perpetuated in his name. The only inference we may draw from lack of leadership is that he approves of these acts, and sees them opportunistically as advancing his goal to dismantle the structures of law and government that ensure our rights and protections. I hope and pray this is not the case.
But, although I do not have faith in Donald Trump, I do have faith in Trump supporters. I believe that, while some Trump supporters are using his rhetoric is cover for their expressions of hatred, most are decent and principled people who yearn for a future with opportunities that are better than those we have now.
If that is the case, you who voted for Donald Trump must prove it. Come out and denounce the acts of hatred. Promise us that you believe that the rule of law and the Constitution protect the most basic rights of safety, opportunity and community for all of us, regardless of race, creed or sexual and gender orientation. Otherwise, you will be a pawn in the ascendance of hate, the promotion of a nightmare rather than a revival of our deepest collective dreams.
Trump supporters, you can unify our nation with your decency. It is your moment, and we are all watching.
Justin David is the rabbi at Congregation B’nai Israel in Northampton.