Dear President Trump,

Some people I talked with today were genuinely surprised you decided to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement. They thought you were going to come around and do the right thing. I think they were playing the same mind game I did on election night when by 10pm PST it was clear you were going to win but it hadn’t officially been called so I purposely went to bed to have a few more hours to hold onto the possibility it was all a mistake and the world wasn’t about to cave in because it hadn’t officially happened yet.

As far as the Paris agreement, I don’t think you actually fooled anyone the last few days when you pretended to seriously mull over whether to stay or go. Because people desperately wanted you to decide to stay, they let themselves believe that’s what was going to happen. I did hold out a tiny bit of hope too, but I never gave it more than a 1% chance because it would be too costly to you politically and personally. Politically it would have been fraught because the dark money masters who feed you would be most displeased with their puppet and Putin would almost certainly have let slip some of whatever he has on you. Personally it would have been a disaster because it would mean you were publicly admitting you were wrong about something. So even if you did realize what an idiotic, indefensible move it was to whine about the agreement being too costly for one of the richest countries on earth and the one that contributes the most to global warming, you couldn’t possibly have done the right thing in the version of reality you’ve backed yourself into.

I don’t quite know why I bother thinking about what you are doing and how you are feeling after you really piss me off but I’ve envisioned two scenarios for your evening. In the more likely one, you are having a lavish dinner with a bevy of climate change deniers boasting about your ballsy business savvy and mocking those of us who are upset by your decision. In the other, far less likely scenario I imagine you holing up by yourself watching old tape of campaign rallies trying to give yourself a pep talk about how you didn’t just damn the world to hell, deep down feeling horrified by your cowardice. Either way, I bet you are having two scoops.

In spite of my utter contempt for how you are governing, here is today’s blessing:

May you be safe.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May your life unfold and intersect peacefully.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson