2020 Election: Trump must not be reelected
2020 Election: Trump must not be reelected

(Emily Dembinski/Illustrations director)

By Editorial Board

October 12, 2020 at 3:13 p.m.

The current president has made a name for himself by reducing human beings to political props and playthings.

The editorial board is repulsed by the president and rejects his bid for reelection in the strongest possible terms.

The president cowers from his own fragility through lies and the dehumanization of critics. Rather than drawing attention to the president’s hollowness, this board urges its readers to reflect on the unimaginable losses endured under his lack of leadership.

Emmanuel Gomez. Gomez, an electrician at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, is the first UCLA community member that the Daily Bruin reported having died from COVID-19. He is survived by his wife and three sons.

Reporting shows the president knew the virus to be deadly as early as February, even as he decided to “play it down” and insist the pandemic was only flu-like to the American public. While other nations acted decisively to curb the public health crisis, the president prioritized his own reelection prospects over human lives. Only after he and many pertinent members of his cabinet tested positive is the virus being taken seriously at the administrative level.

Yet, for the rest of the country, all he has to show for his mishandling of the pandemic is Gomez and more than 200,000 Americans dead, the most lives lost to COVID-19 out of any country in the world.

Breonna Taylor. Police violence has disproportionately targeted Black Americans for generations. This year has seen renewed emphasis, whether it be through protest or petition, on pushing for a world where Black lives matter and criminal justice aligns a bit closer to justice.

But amid these cries for equality, the president has ironically tried to discredit the movement as “hate,” and argued police must be allowed to “choke under pressure” without consequence to preserve the status quo. His actions may not have directly killed Taylor, but his words certainly have not helped.

Charlie Morton. The firefighter lost his life to the El Dorado fire, one of several “once in a generation” wildfires in recent years.

Climate change is reshaping the landscape of the U.S. as we know it. The president is content to ignore the gold-standard evidence of imminent climate disaster at the expense of first-responders and at-risk citizens.

While no words or lists of wrongdoings can encapsulate the incredible amount of damage this presidency has inflicted among institutions and individuals, one principle remains true: The only way forward is to vote – and not for him.

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