Dear President Trump,

Wouldn’t it be amazing (and at this point, strange) if we had a whole day where there was no turmoil or consternation over something you said or did? I’m not sure any of us would know what to do with such an event. You have truly been outdoing yourself lately, coming out verbally swinging like a thug with brass knuckles to such an extent that pretty much all reputable news outlets are going ahead and finally calling you a racist. Out loud. They are saying the President of the United States is a racist. Along these lines, I got choked up when I read Senator Durbin’s lament about the utter tragedy that an American president would harbor such base, racist, divisive attitudes and express them in the Oval Office (or really, anywhere).

I am wondering why you are bothering to deny that you said what you said yesterday. Did you get feedback that you went just a shade too far for even your base? Did your little late night poll find that most of them, or at least those with money, prefer you express your racism more obliquely? I am also thinking you may have shot yourself in both feet with this one since you’ve now made abundantly clear that it isn’t immigration in general that troubles you, it’s immigration of black and brown people. This is going to make it much, much harder for you to put forward legislation that limits immigration since the courts can point to the racist bias underlying the proposed changes. Seems like your minders need to get back on the stick and figure out how to shut you up.

I went for my annual dental check-up and teeth cleaning today and found it surreal to interact with people about how great their 2017 was and their excitement for 2018 when there is so much gut wrenching scary, sad, infuriating stuff going on. I ventured a couple of comments and the dental hygienist understood, and probably the dentist too, but it seemed as though they’d been instructed not to get into political discussions with patients since others could overhear and be offended. I suppose I could treat such situations as forced breaks from all this, but since we are back to “hair on fire” shit going on, it’s really hard to park everything even for a little while. Have to keep breathing….

May you be safe to find your way to human decency.
May you be happy to make amends for dehumanizing people.
May you recognize that racism is not healthy.
May you step aside if you can’t do the three things above.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson