Thank God the presidency of Donald Trump is over. What happened on Jan. 6 was a violent insurrection and he was completely responsible. The man who created a cult following for his own selfish gains has been creating lot of havoc for last four years.
In his 1961 inaugural address John F. Kennedy said: “Ask not what your country can do for you — Ask what you can do for your country.” This is such a profound statement that we, especially all politicians, should reflect upon this time and again. Another thing we as American citizens need to know is that we may be registered as Republicans or Democrats, but we should vote for the candidate who will do the best job.
As a lifelong Muslim Republican, I did not vote for him either time but paid a heavy price due to his Muslim ban, which hurt us financially, in family relations, psychologically and in turn fueled Islamophobia throughout the world. This is just one example. He has done a lot of damage to humanity, especially all minority folks in this country and beyond.
Thanks to Mr. Trump, our new president was not able to take Amtrak to D.C. for his inaugural ceremony. The National Mall was closed, the whole area was caged in, National Guards took over our Capitol and many parts of DC to make sure all went well with the inauguration. What a shame. President Biden was not able to argue next day that he had more people than Trump at his inauguration like Trump did with President Obama. Trump spent all of his first full day as the president of the U.S.A on his self-inflicted crisis ( trying to prove how many more people attended his inauguration). We all know now Mr. Trump is only interested in putting himself first.
Mr. Trump has said so so many lies in the past four years that there is not enough time or space in this letter to go over them. One of his biggest lie was about Covid-19: The virus is equal to the flu, it is totally under control, it is a hoax, no masks are needed, it is disappearing, the vaccine will be available by November and at least 100 more lies on Covid-19 itself.
The recent historic vote by the House to impeach him for the second time in four years is in the right direction and I hope the Senate will now go along to convict him for a violent insurrection against the Capitol which has taken so far five lives. It really feels like we are living in a banana republic.
Right here on Long Island we have good public servants and some not so good. Recently Judi Bosworth, supervisor of the town of North Hempstead announced her retirement. I have followed her performance at the town. In short, I could say that she is a decent and caring public servant. She is the supervisor for all the folks of the town. Whereas we have Congressman Lee Zeldin, who is a blind follower of Mr. Trump in spite of the insurrection. So the burden is on regular folks like us to elect the right people for the right job irrespective of their party affiliations.
Habeeb U. Ahmed
Islamic Center of Long Island
835 Brush Hollow Rd
Westbury, NY 11590
Human Rights Commissioner
Nassau County
