The Indian-American Poet Laureate of Ohio said he is afraid of what a Trump presidency portends for Indian-Americans and other minorities of different faiths.
Amit Majmudar, one of the attendees at the Democratic Party presidential candidate Town Hall meeting held in Columbus, Ohio, March 13, questioned both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton during the two-hour debate over how they would tackle Donald Trump if he was the Republican Party nominee for the presidency. Republican Gov. John Kasich, a candidate for the presidential nomination, appointed Majmudar as the Poet Laureate of the state last December.
As part of a religious minority which forms barely 1 percent of the population, Majmudar indicated his family was worried about Trump taking the lead and asserted he would fight tooth and nail to prevent the billionaire from taking over the White House. His website shows Majmudar is a Hindu.
The poet laureate of Ohio, raised the discomfort level, fear and uncertainty that some immigrants are feeling over billionaire businessman Trump’s pronouncements during his presidential campaign. Madmudar, who is Hindu, according to his website, challenged the Democratic Party presidential contenders to give three specific points of their “anti-Trump game plan” if they were to face him in the November election.
First Sanders and then Clinton lit into Trump, the front-runner for the Republican Party nomination.
A multi-talented Ohio radiologist with three poetry volumes and two novels to his credit, Majmudar prefaced his question at the Columbus meeting saying that his American citizen parents were immigrants. “As a one per cent ethnic and religious minority, witnessing the rise of Donald Trump, for the first time, my family has started feeling a little uncomfortable here, and frankly, a little bit scared,” Majmudar said. “And I very much hope that he understands that in a democracy, people should be allowed to go to anybody’s rally, peacefully demonstrate without fear of being beaten up”.
Majmudar said his one mission at the ballot box was to stop Trump from reaching the White House.
Sanders, who answered the question first, said Trump can be exposed on many levels and one of them is that he is a billionaire who doesn’t want to raise the minimum wage over $7.25.
“This is a guy who believes that in defiance of all science that climate change is hoax,” Sanders said.
He also pointedly addressed new immigrants worried about Trump after his statements regarding banning Muslims from coming to the country “until we have figured things out” and making some xenophohic comments about rapists and criminals among Latino immigrants.
“On top of all that is the issue that you raised,” Sanders added directly addressing the concerns of immigrants. “Americans are not going to elect a president who insults Mexicans, Muslims, women, veterans- insulting virtually everybody who is not quite like Donald Trump. Thank God, most people are not quite like Donald Trump.”
Trump’s campaign rallies have also sparked debate with his statements that call for strong-arming protesters. He has also begun to directly accuse Sanders of sending his supporters to Trump rallies to disrupt them.
Invoking her foreign policy qualification as a former Secretary of State, Clinton took an international perspective on the Trump juggernaut, which according to latest polls, threatens to win Florida from U.S. Senator Marco Rubio who is trailing in his home state, and going head-to-head in Ohio against former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, both candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.
“I will really have an opportunity to focus on how dangerous a Donald Trump presidency would be for our standing, for our safety, for the peace of the world,” Clinton said. “And I think we can be successful doing that.”
Countries around the world, and some leaders, were voicing their concerns over a potential Trump presidency, she said. “I am already receiving messages from leaders. I am having foreign leaders asking me if they can endorse me to stop Donald Trump,” she said, generating applause and laughter from the largely Democratic audience which also contained some voters undecided about whether they would support Sanders or Clinton.
Taking an indirect jab at Sanders’ foreign policy experience and electoral chances, she said, ““I am not new to the national arena and I think whoever goes up against Donald Trump better be ready.” She added that she was best qualified to take on Trump because she was “the only candidate who has gotten more votes than Trump” in the separate primaries. (Real Clear Politics, which consolidates national opinion polls shows her ahead of Trump by 6.3 percentage points.)
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