An Open Letter to Mr. Trump

 

Dear Mr. Trump,

No, I'm not addressing you as "President-Elect Trump".

You couldn't know this, but I'm actually demonstrating enormous restraint and practicing generosity of spirit in calling you "Mr. Trump."

My mama taught me well.  She was one of those first generation immigrant "dreamers" who worked hard and sacrificed to make America great.

So was my father. He was a purple-heart veteran of WWII - Pacific front, but, I must say, as generous as he could be, he'd never have given his purple heart to you. He got it the old fashioned way. He earned it.

Sometime, I'll tell you about the sleepless nights we all had as kids when my father would scream out from some war scene he was relieving. I can even tell you the name of one of the Japanese soldiers he killed. My brother still has his Japanese helmet with a picture of that soldier in uniform, standing proudly with his wife by his side. My father never met the man he killed when he was alive. Never spoke his name when he was alive. But, he certainly called it out enough times in the middle of the night, begging God for forgiveness.

Both my parents and my grandparents and aunts and uncles were all very active in the labor union organizing movement. They fought hard at the bargaining table and on the strike lines for things like safety in their work environment and fair wages and decent benefit packages.

Immigrants! We get the job done!

Well, you did try to tell us that "the system is rigged" but we thought you were just setting yourself up to be the sore loser (and, turns out, sore winner) you really are because we all thought there was no chance in hell that you'd win.

Even you. And, it's been said in not-fake-news sources, so did the Russians.

Turns out, you were right. But, you were talking about "voter fraud" - which is not really the accurate term.  It's really "voter suppression" which is when a political party practices voter fraud.

You were just "exaggerating the truth" again. One of your favorite things to do. 

The fact is that the GOP has long practiced voter suppression in all sort and manner of deception: purging voter lists, gerrymandering districts, and fear-mongering, chief among them.

Of course, this was done following the GOP principle of "little government" because we don't want the Government messing around in our private lives.

Oh, no, not that! Unless, of course, it has to do with the privacy of women's reproductive lives, but that's another story for another time.

I've been pinning desperate hopes here and there that you would forever remain "President-Elect" and not ever make it to the Oval Office. I've signed petitions for recount and hoped against hope that if there weren't enough miscounted ballots to turn the election, perhaps some voter fraud would be uncovered.

At the very least, it might prove to be embarrassing to you, and we all know how you HATE that. 

I've also been praying that there might be thirty-seven patriots - 37 "faithless electors" - in the Electoral College who would not caste their vote for you. Thirty-seven votes is all we'd need to bring the Electoral College vote to 269 and you would not have won the popular or electoral college vote.

Oh, the GOP would still be in control, but you're not really a Republican anyway. It would just serve to humiliate you in much the same way you have humiliated women and those who are disabled and those you say are not heroes because they were captured and those who are immigrants and those who are Muslim or Mexican or ..... anyone other than Caucasian, Christian, heterosexual and, of course, wealthy.

I know it won't happen, but the whiff of hope - the fumes of possibility - are enough to sustain me from now to December 19 when it will all be over but to watch you try to ruin this country with your fear-mongering and hate-speech and flat-out lies - most of it done in 140 character Tweets.

I know. I know. And, even YOU know - I think, though I'm quite sure you haven't read the Constitution or the Federalist Papers and even if you had you do not possess the intellect to understand them (Le sigh!) - that even if there were 37 patriots among the 538 members of the Electoral College they would ALL have to vote for Hillary Clinton.

They won't. They might vote for another Republican like Mitt Romney or Michael Bloomberg which would deny you the election, but it would also not be enough to elect Hillary Clinton. Which actually would be okay with me.

I know. I thought Mitt Romney would be the worst president ever. That's when he was running against President Obama. Now? Next to you? He looks great. What's your word? Terrific!

But, even 37 electoral votes would not be enough to elect Romney or anyone else President. But, you wouldn't have the Electoral College vote. 

If that happened - if neither you nor Madame Secretary Clinton didn't get the vote, or the vote were somehow a tie, the election would still go to the Republican Party.

Well, it would go to Congress and you know they would vote for you. Because they think they can control you. Because, right now, and at least for the next two years, they control Congress.

And, as we all know, they are the highest paid, best compensated jackasses in the world. Well, next to you. And, members of your cabinet. In fact, you're counting on that, aren't you?

So, while I don't think there is a "Hail Mary pass" to save us from you, I can promise you this:

You may become "the" President of the United States, but you will NEVER by "my" president.

First of all, you are an admitted sexual predator who has said horribly disgusting and repulsive things about women, the disabled, Mexicans, Muslims, veterans who were captured as prisoner of war, and even The Pope, for God's sake! And, and, AND....your closest advisors are White Supremacists.

You are the antithesis of a "statesman" who has absolutely no experience in government or governing and you seem neither to have the capacity to understand how government works nor the inclination to learn how to govern properly.

You spit on carefully constructed diplomatic protocol.

You claim you want to "drain the swamp" but your cabinet is filled with the very old billionaire cronies, Wall Street corporate giants and east coast elites you said you wanted to kick out of D.C.
 
And, just for good measure, they are just as inexperienced and incompetent as you are in terms of government and governing.

As it turns out, by refusing to set up your companies in a "blind trust" you are guilty of the same "pay for play" influence-peddling schemes you accused the Clinton Foundation of having.

The only hope in that is you will mess up badly in the next few years and be impeached and sent away from the Oval Office in disgrace, leaving your party in total disarray.

And, and, AND.... it turns out that "fake news" - which is the only "news" your base apparently trusts, thanks to your insistence that the media in this country is "dishonest" (as if you're the paragon of virtue) - was manufactured in Russia.

We have Intelligence that proves this. But, you won't read it, so you can continue to deny it. Which is important because it would mean that your election would have been influenced by a foreign power. Which would disqualify you for election.

In your case, ignorance is not only bliss, it's how you got elected.

It will be absolutely delicious to see your arrogance get you impeached.

But, even more important than all of that, especially my personal opinions of you, the thing is this:

You do not have a mandate from "we the people" of these United States.

Turns out, the polls WERE right.

Hillary Clinton maintains more than 2.6 million vote margin over you.

That's about 2% majority of the vote.  Aside from the obviously corrupt election of 1876, no winning candidate in the two-party era has ever done even remotely as dismally in the popular vote as you have.

Oh, and I just want to point this out, only because it's so obvious you'll probably miss it:

Hillary Clinton is the first woman to be nominated by a major party as their candidate for President of the United States of America.

That' makes this record-breaking, historic popular vote one that was attained by a WOMAN.

Suck on THAT lemon for a minute or two.

So, you won by a peculiarity of our electoral system. It was something akin to a political slight of hand, just the way you've won everything else in your life.

That said, we don't even really know your net worth because, unlike any other candidate for the highest office in the land, we have never seen your tax returns - something you yourself would insist on if anyone else were being hired for a position of this level of trust and responsibility.

I know. I know. You'll never read this letter. It doesn't matter. I still had to write it.

I want you and the whole damn world to know that you will never be MY president.

I want you to know that I have already been in touch with the Democratic Party in my state as well as the DNC. I have written both to promise my time and energy and talent to a Democratic victory in Congress in two years.

Then, two years after that, we'll work to take back the White House, which should not be difficult to do once you are impeached.

And, I have no doubt you'll be impeached.

Even Allan Lichtman, the professor of political history at American University in D.C., who accurately predicted your win has predicted your impeachment. With your refusal to set up a "blind trust" for your many companies, you seem to be walking right into his hands.

Honestly? I couldn't be more delighted.

I also commit to making sure to identify "fake news" when I see it on social media and to publicly support all those courageous men and women of the Fourth Estate when they call you out as a liar whenever you tweet out your "exaggerated truths" (Read: Lies)

I'll be in D.C. for the Women's March on Washington, making sure that the glow from your inauguration party doesn't last longer than 24 hours.

More importantly, we want to make absolutely certain that you know that you do NOT have a mandate from 'we the people" - especially women and our right to keep the government off our bodies and out of our uterus.

And, even though you say you believe in God and even go to church "sometimes to eat the little cookie but never drink the wine," I believe that  the God I know and love and serve has lessons for us to learn that we couldn't learn any other way.

It's a bit like that story in the Bible. I know you know about the "two Corinthians" but, before that, in the First Book of Samuel, there's a story in Chapter 8 that brings me hope.

Samuel had ruled Israel with justice and the nation prospered. But, he was old and his two sons, Joel and Abijah, were deemed by the people unsuitable and unable to follow in their father's ways.

So, the leaders gathered at Ramah and said to Samuel, "appoint us a king to govern us like all the nations"! And, scripture says,

But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” And Samuel prayed to the Lord.  And the Lord said to Samuel, “Hearken to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them."

See, Mr. Trump (I almost wrote Donald. I have to remind myself to be polite to you.), it really isn't about you. That's the final insult, isn't it?

In this election, we didn't really elect you. The numbers show that clearly.

And, contrary to what your spin room is churning out, we did not reject President Obama. Neither did we reject Secretary Clinton.

Those who voted for you rejected God for the illusions of security you promised them after you scared them into believing your lies.

The people who voted for you chose their own sense of security, their own chance for prosperity over justice and truth, fairness and equality, liberty and freedom and the pursuit of happiness for ALL of God's children.

What really hurts me is knowing that there are women - 53% of white women - voted for you. The chances are pretty good that I know a white woman who voted for you. But, what hurts even more is that she'll never tell me she voted for you.

I'll work on forgiving her. I have to. I won't allow you to erode my trust. I have to believe she'll come to regret that vote for the rest of her life.

So, as God said to Samuel, "Let them have their king." (I Samuel 8:22).

See, here's something you don't know because you haven't read The Good Book - just the part about the Two Corinthians - and so you don't know how it ends.

Here's a hint: Love wins. That's how it begins. That's how it ends. Love wins.

It may not always look like it, but love always wins.

Even death can't destroy it. And, neither can you.

So, good luck, Mr. Trump.

History has its eyes on you. And, it will be as kind to you as you have to it. 

And, good luck, America.

I mean that. You - and we - will need it over the next two years. Until we take back Congress or you implode and are impeached - or both.

I and many millions of others will be working hard to blunt the damage you already have planned to "make American great again."

Those of us who know just how great America IS plan to provide you with undeniable, irrefutable, hard core evidence of that as we work with all the angels in heaven and all the saints - past, present and yet to come -  to make our government "of the people, by the people, for the people" work for "we the people".

All the people.

For, we are what makes America great. Right now.

Not you. 

Mr. Trump.