Dear President Trump,

We don’t hear from Robert Samuelson all that often, but he has an excellent opinion piece in the WP claiming that we’ve all lost the midterm elections. He correctly points out that the real looming issues we need to attend to, including the budget deficit, immigration, and global warming, were all pushed to the side or inappropriately used as bludgeons because the elections were reduced to a referendum on you. He also points out that these are hard issues, ones most of us would rather not grapple with because they don’t have clear or sure fixes. Another (mostly) correct point he makes is that these are all tough issues because they require short-term sacrifices to afford long-term gains. More accurately, I think we are really talking about averting disaster rather than making any gains.

Where I think Samuelson really misses, though, is in his closing paragraph:

“…. the fixation on Trump and his antics …. destroyed the prospects of anything resembling rational debate. Indeed, public opinion may be worse informed at the end of this campaign than at the beginning. In this sense, the campaign may have been wasted.”

Frankly, I think he is underestimating you. You didn’t waste the campaign at all; it helps you immensely for the public to be more ill informed on these major issues at the end of the midterms than before. You thrive when your base is riding on tribalistic emotions untethered from reality let alone compassion or generosity. So really, sadly, I think whichever way the chips fall tomorrow, you’ll come out ahead. You made it all about you, you, you. You further distracted us from the pressing issues and from all the crooked dealings going on behind the scene, outside the view of the Fact Checkers. You dumbed down the national conversation to the point that millions take your blow-hard statements as truth with a capital “T” so that we can’t even start from a rational basis in fact. You, and whoever is pulling your strings, have so debased the democratic process that even if the Democrats win majorities in the House and the Senate tomorrow, we’ll be shoveling shit into a maelstrom for years to come. So nice work, Mr. President.

May we be safe from nihilistic, self-serving sleazes.
May we willingly stand firm against evil doers who use division and distraction for their own ends.
May we work tirelessly to re-establish real focus on real issues.
May we work towards peace between us as if our lives depend on it.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson