Believe This: Donald Trump Is Who He Says He Is

Along the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton often quoted Maya Angelou: "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."

Donald Trump has shown us who he is. He has told us who he is.

He is not a closet moderate. Nor is he a man without an ideology. Going back to the 1970s, he was engaging in racist housing discrimination. Throughout his entire public career, he has engaged in overt misogyny.

Now that he is on the precipice of assuming the presidency, with a Republican Congressional majority and a Supreme Court vacancy, a number of commentators and politicians continue to urge us to "give him a chance" and to predict he will not fulfill his most chilling policy proposals and live up to his worst potential.

This is foolish advice.

When have you ever heard of Trump being given a chance, any time in his whole life, that he didn't use to abuse or exploit people?

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 15, 2016

When you have you ever heard of an abusive and exploitative person being given exponentially more power and becoming kinder and more decent?

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 15, 2016

If there is any hope of reigning in Trump, it is not by acquiescence and hoping for the best. To the absolute contrary, it is in treating him as though he will govern precisely the way he has threatened, with precisely the same bigotry with which he campaigned.

Throughout his entire candidacy, we were admonished to wait for a pivot that never came. And now we are in the same place yet again. There is no pivot. There is only Trump.

Every fresh chance he is given comes at the expense of the lives and safety of the people who will be most grievously harmed by his proposed policies.

Our focused compassion should be given to them, not to our president-elect who has not done a single thing to earn it.

We must believe him when he shows and tells us who he is—and respond accordingly.