Post-Trump Human Rights Round-up

Lauren Carasik, Director of the International Human Rights Clinic at Western New England School of Law has posted a sobering review of human rights at home and abroad during a Trump presidency.  According to Professor Carasik, 

“His victory has caused panic for many vulnerable groups: Muslims, African Americans, LGBTI people, women, immigrants and others in the US petrified of the fallout from the nationalism, xenophobia, misogyny and racism that he has unleashed. He will now govern a bitterly divided country that has completely lost sight of its founding ideals, exacerbate its existing troubles and imperil its very democracy.”

The silver lining, writes human rights lawyer Arsalan Iftikhar in the Washington Post, is that because so many groups are targeted as “other” under this new regime, “every minority demographic group in the United States must now feel a sense of collective urgency to mobilize together for the future of our multicultural society based on what we witnessed during this presidential election.”

Yet beyond our immediate borders, as the Washington Post editorial board warns, Trump’s election also jeopardizes human rights worldwide, giving aid and comfort to human rights violators that they can act with impunity on the world stage.

As we look to the next four years, US advocates have a unique and important role to play in ensuring that the voice for human rights at home and abroad is not drowned out in our domestic debates.  Our work may focus on strengthening local human rights initiatives — don’t forget, there are still many progressive local actors interested in creating human rights cities and looking for other ways of honoring and implementing human rights protections in the US.  Other advocates may strategically focus on coordinating across international lines to create international pressure on the US to pursue more humane policies.

Many activists are already moving ahead with great resolve, sharing reflections, ideas and strategies, and planning for the future.

As veteran organizer Gloria Steinem wrote in The Guardian last week, “we all will have to learn that the president can only hold a finger to the wind. We must become the wind.”