#NOTMYPRESIDENT

You defend yourselves, defend this man, defend your “opinions” and “Christian values” and your distrust of the government or whatever else you have to say.

Do not fool yourselves.

You are complicit in the violence inflicted upon innocent people in the streets.

Every time a girl or woman gets her hijab snatched in a parking lot, you are complicit. Every time a swastika is spray-painted on somebody’s car or house or in a school, you are complicit. Every single time a protester is attacked, you are complicit.

This is the America you wanted.

You voted for it.

Own it.

You heard a man admit to sexually assaulting women on TV, bragging about how his power and privilege made it easier for him to do so, and you said, “That’s the man I want.”

You heard a man admit to walking into dressing rooms where women and underage girls were undressing, bragging about how his power and privilege made it easier for him to do so, and you said, “That’s the man I want.”

You heard a man say, “I’d like to punch him in the face,” and you said, “That’s the man I want.”

You heard a man call women “fat pigs,” Mexicans “criminals” and “rapists,” a woman breastfeeding her daughter “disgusting,” and you said, “That’s the man I want.”

You saw and heard a man brag about the size of his dick during a presidential debate, and you said, “That’s the man I want.”

You heard a man brag about how he’s smart for not paying taxes, and you said, “That’s the man I want.”

You heard and saw this man incite violence against people of color at his rallies, call for a ban on Muslims, promise to build a wall to keep people out, and you said, “That’s the man I want.”

You heard this man ask why we cannot use nuclear weapons, and you said, “That’s the man I want.”

You heard this man call for the reinstatement of the death penalty and the execution of the Central Park Five, five innocent teenagers who were exonerated, and you said, “That’s the man I want.”

You heard this man urging our military to commit war crimes, like stealing another nation’s oil, and you said, “That’s the man I want.”

You heard this man say, “If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, I’d be dating her,” and call his own daughter a “great piece of ass,” and you said, “That’s the man I want.”

You read this man tweeting, “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America,” and you said, “That’s the man I want.”

You heard this man say, during a presidential debate, “I would bring back waterboarding, and I would bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding,” bragging about torture and war crimes, and you said, “That’s the man I want.”

You heard dozens of women say that this man sexually assaulted them, and you said, “That’s the man I want.”

You heard this man say, about a war hero, “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” And you said, “That’s the man I want.”

You heard and saw evidence that this man is being sued by a woman he raped when she was 13 years old, by people he conned, by people he refused to pay for their services, by employees he robbed of their wages, by people who were victims of housing discrimination, and you heard him admit to this housing discrimination during a presidential debate, and you said, “That’s the man I want.”

You heard this man mock and insult the parents of a Muslim American Army Captain who gave his life to and for this country, and you said, “That’s the man I want.”

You saw the evidence that the U.S. Justice Department was suing this man for discriminating against Black people, Puerto Ricans, and other people of color, and you said, “That’s the man I want.”

You heard this man condoning the beating of protesters and you said, “That’s the man I want.”

You heard this man condoning the beating of a homeless man, calling the attackers “passionate,” and you said, “That’s the man I want.”

You saw this man tweet anti-Semitic memes, and you said, “That’s the man I want.”

You saw and heard this man bully countless women, people with disabilities, and people of color, and you said, “That’s the man I want.”

You heard the KKK endorse this man, and you said, “That’s the man I want.”

You are complicit.

Do not tell me you are not racist.

Do not tell me you are not a misogynist, or a KKK-sympathizer.

You did this.

***

Jaquira Diaz is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Florida Individual Artist Fellowship, the Carl Djerassi Fiction Fellowship from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, and an NEA Fellowship to the Hambidge Center for the Arts. She’s been awarded fellowships or scholarships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, The MacDowell Colony, Summer Literary Seminars, the Tin House Summer Writers’ Workshop, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Her work is noted in The Best American Essays, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, and appears in The Guardian, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, The Sun, The Southern Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She is editor of 15 Views of Miami, a collection of linked short stories by fifteen different Miami authors.