Opinion: It’s immoral to vote for Trump/Vance in 2024

It’s immoral to vote for Trump/Vance in 2024. 

While morality is neither universal nor absolute, my Mexican immigrant parents (from the same group of people that Trump and Vance deride) taught me, as a kid, the basic difference between “right” and “wrong.” While attending Murchison Street Elementary in East Los Angeles’ Ramona Gardens public housing project (or Big Hazard projects), I was reminded by my Catholic parents to always do the right thing. Be nice. Treat others with respect. They also taught me (and my siblings) not to lie, name-call or bully. 

While I can’t honestly say that I always obeyed my parents, aside from the bullying lesson since I was too thin (to the present) to pick on anyone, I’m flabbergasted that millions of American voters support Donald Trump (convicted of 34 felony charges) and J.D. Vance (who sold his soul to be accepted by elite circles and Trump) over their immoral campaign to win the White House. I also wonder how millions of parents/guardians can teach their kids these same lessons that my parents taught me and simultaneously vote for Trump/Vance in 2024. 

After Trump’s infamous ride down his golden elevator with his immigrant wife Melania (oops, I named-called) on June 16, 2015, he went on a racist rant towards Mexican immigrants (my clan): “…When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists…” In fact, his anti-Mexican rhetoric continued during his many “Klan-like” rallies, where he lied to his MAGA followers and the American people that Mexico was going to pay for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Apparently, no one told the “voracious reader” that a wall already existed. Moreover, anti-Mexicanism has been an American pastime since the Yankees (not to be confused with the baseball team in the World Series) invaded Mexico in 1846 and, by 1848, annexed half of its territory to expand the American empire. 

According to the late historian Dr. Juan Gómez-Quiñones, in his classic 2017 essay, “Anti-Mexicanism in the United States is a race-premised set of historical and contemporary ascriptions, convictions and discriminatory practices inflicted on persons of Mexican descent. It has been long-standing and pervasive.” In this context, Trump’s anti-Mexican campaign helped him (and the complicit/immoral VP candidate Mike Pence) secure victory in 2016. 

Given his shocking victory in 2016, Trump, along with his lackey Vance (oops, I must stop with the name-calling), is doubling down with his xenophobia agenda to win in 2024. On December 16, 2023, according to the reporter Ginger Gibson of NBC News, Trump claimed in a rally in New Hampshire that immigrants are “…poisoning the blood of our country.” As reported by Gibson and other reporters/experts, this quote has been directly linked to Adolf Hitler’s manifesto, Mein Kampf, against individuals of the Jewish faith. 

Whenever Trump is challenged about his hateful language by serious reporters (outside the personalities of Fox News), like we say in Spanish, “se hace pendejo” / “he plays dumb.” It's sickening to think that millions of American voters continue to support Trump and his hateful rhetoric.

What about Trump’s reported comments, according to then-Chief of Staff (and retired General) John F. Kelly, that “Hitler did some good things”?  Immoral.

What about Trump’s reported comments, according to then-Chief of Staff (and retired General) John F. Kelly, that needed “German generals” like Hitler’s? Immoral. 

What about his inhumane plan, if elected in 2024, to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, mostly Mexican, like then-President Dwight Eisenhower deported millions of Mexicans during the mid-1950s and then-President Herbert Hoover during the early 1930s. Immoral. 

Let’s also not forget that Trump’s administration, starting in April 2018, led by his then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, was responsible for separating children from their parents/guardians and caging them along the U.S.-Mexico border. I wonder if Trump supporters found this “zero tolerance” immigration policy to be moral. 

It’s also cowardly for Trump to pick on vulnerable people, like Mexican immigrants, who can’t defend themselves. He’s like the bully in elementary school who has no friends and amuses himself by picking on the “weaker” kids on the playground! Not satisfied with picking on vulnerable Mexican immigrants, Trump, along with his sidekick Vance, has gone after Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. As widely reported by numerous media outlets, like CNN Politics, Trump and Vance have continuously lied about Haitian immigrants eating the pets (dogs, cats) of the other residents of Springfield. While debunked by elected officials and the police, Trump and Vance continue to repeat their lies, where Trump goes as far as saying, like usual, that he’s only “reporting” what he’s “hearing.”

On October 16, 2024, at a town hall hosted by Spanish-language TV Univision with Latina/o voters, Trump responded to a concerned Latino voter about this lie, where Trump saying that he’ll “take a look” and “give you a full report when I do.” In 2021, according to ABC News, isn’t that what Trump said about allegedly sending “investigators” to Hawaii to find President Barack Obama’s “true” birth certificate? In Spanish, we have a word for Trump and Vance, “sinvergüenzas” / “shameless.”

If Trump and Vance are sinvergüenzas, then what does that make the millions of American voters who support them? And that especially goes for naturalized American voters (like Melania), along with children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of immigrants!