Golden State Warriors veteran power forward David West is disappointed with the direction the United States is heading.
West spoke at length about the perils of life under 45th president Donald Trump during an appearance on the CSN Bay Area "Warriors Insider" Podcast.
"He brought out an element of our society that a lot of folks assumed was dead. A lot of folks assumed that that part of our country was no longer, based on the election of President Obama," West said as transcribed by Monte Poole of CSN Bay Area.
"But what Donald Trump did was, he reached for a demographic of people who responded to some of the most infantile, non-decent language that you could expect coming from a president candidate. Folks bit."
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West added: "All the tactics that he used to get elected are the very things that someone like me, who works with youth on a consistent basis, are the things that we try to talk our young folks out of being. We try to talk our young people out of being bullies. We try to talk our young men out of disrespecting women. We try to talk our young people into being accepting of other people’s opinions and other people’s walks of life.
"And he is the complete opposite of all of that."
West said the country needs to brace for an unpredictable four years to come, and hopes that the constitution's checks and balances can limit the scope of Trump's agenda.
"We’re just in for a very different type of administration, where we’ve got to brace for a different type of leadership, unlike anything this country has ever seen," he said.
"For a lot of folks, they’re just trying to see what he’s going to do next. What’s going to happen? Some of the things he’s said, the things that he’s backed up, the things he’s projected of himself out onto the world, I don’t think anybody expected him to be able to get elected to such a prestigious and powerful seat in this country.
"I don’t know how you balance it. We all have to just wait and see. Folks inside the political system, who are tasked with the job of keeping him in check and keeping him under control, we’ve got to hold their feet to the fire."
