I am not a Trump supporter and I was never with “her” either. My candidates of choice went out the window in the primaries and since then, I’ve sat back and watched the negative media about Trump and Clinton, but more so about Trump. When it came time to vote, I still did not know whom to vote for, but I did not want Trump.

My feelings against him were not as strong as others have felt, but I definitely was not voting for the guy. Most of my Trump aversion was rooted in his lack of humility and self-control, and his statements about women, and the way he pretty much grouped all immigrants together as violent or terrorists.

Back in March of 2016, I sat in Morrill with my boyfriend, a Trump supporter, as the primary votes came in and I was shocked that Trump was winning. Obviously he was excited. He supports Trump because it was a change. He saw Trump as the underdog who was being negated by the media, Hollywood and even those in his own party, and still came out on top. He wanted to see someone who wasn’t a typical politician connect with the American people and win.  

My boyfriend, one of the nicest people I know, is not homophobic or transphobic or racist. He respects women and in no way believes women should be stuck in the home just taking care of kids or cooking for her husband. He believes women should have access to birth control and abortions if that is what they choose. He believed in a candidate that represented a change, which is reasonable. But because it’s Trump, and the change he represents is not necessarily positive, it is not reasonable.

In the last week, I have seen so many stories about Trump and his executive orders, cabinet appointments and of course, tweets. I’ve watched him cut funding to programs whose budgets don’t drastically affect the national budget, such as programs for arts. I’ve watched as he reversed or talked about reversing countless executive orders made by President Obama.

I’ve seen his tweets whining about the small crowd at his inauguration, watched videos of his secretary of Education pick, Betsy DeVos, avoid answering questions and showing her lack of knowledge of educational programs and laws. I’ve watched him fill his cabinet with people who know little about the departments they are meant to run concerns me greatly.

I went to public schools, something DeVos didn’t do, so I guess I can run the department of education. I was part of FFA in high school and took some environmental studies classes so I could probably make major decisions about the USDA and EPA, right?

We need change, but this is not the right kind of change. This is reversing just about everything we’ve worked hard to reach. America is broken in so many non-Trump ways: violence, racism, terrorism etc., and Trump is focusing his energy in the wrong places so far.

We are one week in to this four to eight year journey, and I just hope eventually our president will focus his energy on improving education, healthcare, infrastructure, saving the environment and stopping violence.  But until then, I don’t understand why good, smart people, who do not support a majority of his policies, bothered to vote for Trump.