By Maren Roeske ’18 | Staff Writer

Donald Trump is hailed as a political outsider. His supporters (and sometimes his critics,) praise Trump for being a businessman, a billionaire, an entrepreneur, a reality TV star, an anything-but-a politician. But that is not true of Trump anymore.

Maybe at the beginning of the primary season he was just another rich, populist persona in a field of republican candidates 17-strong. Now, Trump is the official nominee for the Republican Party, reaching the necessary delegate count in the start of June, to become president of the United States of America. That officially makes Trump a politician. This is something that he needs to start to do.

Trump must start being PC, or politically correct. I know it will be a hard thing for him, but it is a challenge he will have to bare as a politician. It is their duty to be PC.

Trump will have to stop going around spouting the bigoted nonsense that has gone unhindered thus far in the election. No more calling all Mexicans and immigrants in general “killers and rapists.” No more saying that “thousands” of Muslims were cheering on rooftops in New Jersey after the 9/11 attacks, or as he likes to call it “7/11.” No more insinuating women are objects or, for godsake, saying that “if Ivanka weren’t (his) daughter, perhaps (he’d) be dating her.”

There is a reason politicians go around being PC. It’s not only because they should to be nice. It is because they are the leading body of our nation. They represent the entire population –including the minority groups they are offending– and this representation is depicted not only across news programs here in America but across the world.

Already these statements and many, many more derogatory comments have done irreparable harm to our reputation and our nation.

Internationally, Trump makes a bad impression. The current and a handful of former Mexican presidents have come out in opposition of Trump. Anne Frank’s stepsister, a survivor of Auschwitz, compares Trump to Hitler. Arnab Goswami, India’s own notorious cable fearmonger, incited outcries over Trump’s racism and success. Many other countries, like Canada and Britain, view the election and Trump with second hand embarrassment and nervous laughter.      

And here at home, Trump’s volatile and so very un-PC actions have hurt our nation. His words divide us as a country, not unify the way a president or even presidential candidate’s words should.

A president or even presidential candidate should not call into question the patriotism and fairness of the court systems. Yet Trump claims that Judge Gonzalo Curiel is biased against him because Curiel is Latino.

A president or even presidential candidate should not call for a ban on an entire religion and surveillance of those who practice it. Yet, Trump time after time called for the closing down of mosques, exportation of Muslims from the US, going so far as to say that Muslims should carry ID card and calling for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” His words have causes riots, protests, violence and hatred to spread across America and polarize families, communities and our nation.

Trump belligerently ignores the guidelines set down for politicians, refusing so far to curb his comments and start being PC. He claims he doesn’t need to.  

“I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct,” Trump recently said in a debate. “I’ve been challenged by so many people and I don’t, frankly, have time for total political correctness.”

Trump doesn’t have time to uphold the age-old social norm that politicians, like him, follow to not offend or degrade the people of our nation. He is fostering exclusion with this childish refusal to simply start acting like the grown up, nominee for president that he is.

It is high time for Trump to acknowledge he is a politician and take on the responsibility that entails to be PC. He may have been thus far elected by likeminded individuals who support racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia and xenophobia, but he stands on the precipice of representing so many more than those who share his bigotry.

As president of the United States, Trumps constituents would consist of a diverse gathering of people and principles, with every one of the 318.9 million people he would represent being different.

Already the percent of that constituency Trump has managed to offend is high, and if he continues on his current path of slurs and off the cuff comments the number will be unbelievable come the end of the general elections unless Trump manages to start behaving PC.