The following is a statement from Frank Sharry, reacting to the prepared remarks of Donald Trump’s speech at the Republican National Convention:
“Donald Trump started his campaign by calling Mexicans rapists. Tonight, he accepted the Republican nomination by strongly implying that undocumented immigrants are murderers.
“Trump’s fearmongering, of course, is unmoored from the real facts. But that’s not his point. He stokes fear of immigrants as a core part of his larger storyline that America is under siege from scary people of color and only a strongman like him can protect you (read: white people). His strategies, once consigned to the fringes of the white nationalist movement and unpopular with the American people, would rip apart families and communities, constitute one of the darkest chapters in American history and put at risk the American experiment.
“At our best, we are a nation that aspires to live up to our ideals. We are the ‘permanently evolving nation,’ the ‘nation of all nations,’ and we strive to be an inclusive America where equal opportunity is extended to all. We want to be a people defined by character and contribution, not birthplace and background. We want to true up to our national motto E Pluribus Unum—Out of Many, One.
“Trump’s effort to define America as a weak nation under siege from ‘the other’ is nothing less than an ugly attempt to redefine who we are. America is great because we welcome ‘the other’ and become a stronger version of ‘us.’ Donald Trump and his enablers in the GOP don’t get it, and degrade our ideals in the process. Let us make sure he never has the chance to use the most powerful office in the world to put his dark view of America into practice.”
