This Muslim Registry Pledge Is A Clever Protest

Over the past week, following a shocking electoral college upset victory for real estate magnate Donald Trump, some of his most inflammatory, outrageously offensive, and likely unconstitutional proposals have been taking turns under a harsh spotlight. And now, some people are pledging to respond to one of the worst ones with a defiant, solidarity-minded act of protest. If you're wondering how you can protest Trump's Muslim registry proposal, here's one way to pledge your support ahead of time.

To be clear, if you're an opponent of Trump's proposal to require Muslims in the United States to be entered into a database ― a far more dire infringement of freedom of religion than many issues the Republican Party has portrayed as such over the past several years ― then you still have time to try to stop it. In short, you should be calling your congressional representatives and senators to state your case, because Trump won't be president for a full two more months. This means there's still time for a groundswell of Americans to voice their opposition, and hopefully influence the national conversation.

But there's one particular form of preemptive protest that's going around on social media, and it might suit you too. Namely, Register Us, a website where you can pledge to register as Muslim, regardless of your actual faith, if such a system is ever put into place.

Here's the pledge, as the website puts forth:

Donald Trump has said he would "absolutely" require all Muslims to register in a database. This is just one of Trump’s racist and Islamophobic proposals that threaten our ideals of freedom and equality. We must come together and fight back before he takes these dangerous, hateful and unconstitutional ideas any further.We pledge to stand together with Muslims across the country, and around the world. Because when we stand as one, no American can be singled out by their race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation.

At the time of this writing, the pledge has only been taken by nearly 500 people, but if you want to make this show of solidarity, you could be the next. It's important to note, however, that everyone registering themselves on Trump's Muslims list isn't necessary if the list never happens at all. As such, if you oppose anti-Muslim discrimination and targeting, you should probably be devoting the bulk of your time and attention to preventing the registry from coming into effect in the first place.