Cartoon by: Stephanie Garrido

Cartoon by: Stephanie Garrido

Donald Trump has poisoned our national discourse, scapegoated Latinos and degenerated women.

No matter, Americans still made him president. Seems no one was listening.

In the final debate Trump reiterated his racist screed that migrants are rapists and drug dealers. He will likely continue to say whatever racially incendiary slur comes to mind in order to keep the redneck favor throughout his presidency.

Our nation has become divided by talk of Trump’s infamous wall, a tiresome drumbeat heard whenever he is in a right-wing rally. His racist rhetoric has plagued Southwestern College, too, as South Bay racists now feel empowered to show their hatred of Latinos, Muslims and African-Americans.

Copies of The SWC Sun and El Sol magazine have been defaced with racial slurs several times since the Republican Convention in June. Malicious words against African-Americans and Muslims were scribbled across the covers in bold black ink. Magazine covers featuring our talented Muslim ASO President were torn off. These hate crimes all have Trump in common as the vandals wrote his name across the faces of Mona Dibas and an African-American man photographed at an El Cajon rally.

“Vote for Trump” the assailant said to a witness after he was photographed holding the newspaper with a Black Lives Matter cover that he had written on.

“Blacks need to take responsibility for their actions,” he said to the witness, as he tried to not take responsibility for his actions. He also said that were he not on company time, he would show why it is essential that society take over and reform the Republican Party, which he said is too liberal.

Copies of El Sol magazine have been vandalized with pro-Trump propaganda or stolen. Nearly $3,000 worth of our ambitious and expensive July publication of El Sol were stolen at the same time others were destroyed or vandalized.

Brian Levin, a professor of criminal justice at CSU San Bernardino, wrote that hate crimes against Muslims have increased 78 percent within the last year.

“Additional data also revealed a severe increase in hate crime homicides in 2015, a level not seen in well over a decade, as fatal armed attacks by lone-wolf extremists become more deadly,” he wrote. “What all these offenders share is a reliance on a ‘printed circuit of stereotypes’ that label certain groups as inferior, violent, morally deficient, or a threat.”

He also said that the frequency of anti-Muslim violence appears to have increased immediately following racist Trump comments. Racism from one old man is conquerable, but Trump’s racially-inflaming behavior has yoked together a right-wing army of wing nuts who scapegoat everyone outside of their Anglo-Evangelical communities and threatened a fascist revolution if Secretary Hillary Clinton had won the presidency.

This disease is spreading to children.

“The Trump Effect” is a phenomenon recently coined by The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance Project, an association which works to remove prejudice from schools. Ethnic tensions have increased. Bullying has become more frequent.

“It’s producing an alarming level of fear and anxiety among children of color,” said Maureen Costello of the Teaching Tolerance Project. “Many students worry about being deported.”

Children of color are living in fear because of Donald Trump. This is a man who is going to preside over America for four years.

Transgender hate crimes have increased 40 percent within the last 12 months, which adds another faction of discrimination alongside ethnicity and religion. Trump said he supports HB2, a North Carolina House bill that discriminates against the LGBTQ community.

Conservatives, Trump supporters included, railed about transgender-friendly bathrooms by saying they were afraid women would be assaulted. When the Trump tapes were released, the same posse ironically brushed off the actual sexual assault he boasted of. Sexual assault was downgraded to “locker-room talk” by the The Donald and his minions.

Trump supporters say that his sexism, racism and xenophobia are “just words.” But words matter. They are the result of thought and the precursors of action.

Trump has given voice to the cowardly, the hateful and the racists. His team of deplorables will not fit in any basket. Trump has crisscrossed America turning over every rock and log he could find.

May God help us all, because our president is not going to.