Dear President Trump,

I don’t know what it is about being on the road on Sunday mornings, but it seems to be a prime time for seeing odd things. This morning’s sighting came early in the trip to church – on the freeway onramp I spotted something on the side of the road that looked curiously like a clown mask, one of the scary ones, and when I checked in my side-view mirror, I saw that it was indeed a scary clown mask lying face up on the pavement. Who knows why someone had it in the first place or how it came to be right there, but I’m going to pretend there’s some meaning associated with the scary clown nature of it, the mask-ness of it, and the fact that it was discarded on the side of the road. I’ll take it a step further and tell you I think it portends your absolute and complete unmasking any day now.

Along these lines, are you really showing Mattis the door early because someone tipped off the media that he arranged to be told before you were told if there was a potential nuclear situation so he could run interference and save the world? I would say that was an emasculating bit of unmasking, wouldn’t you? Personally, I try not to think about you with the nuclear codes, but to be honest, the horrifically terrifying reality of having a horrifically terrifyingly unqualified, unstable, idiot who is a f*cking pawn answering to a foreign adversary intent upon world domination does intrude several times a day. January 3^rd can’t come soon enough.

Maybe now the first order of business for the soon-to-be Democratically controlled House will be to introduce legislation limiting the president’s ability to initiate a nuclear attack. There are so many things you need to be checked on that it’s nearly impossible to list them all or to prioritize them cogently, but not letting you order a first strike seems like it really should be at the top of the list.

I seriously considered whether there was a way to stop and pick up the scary clown mask, but alas, there’s no way to safely stop on a narrow freeway onramp. I really wanted it both because I doubt anyone will believe it was actually there and because it would have been a way hold onto a physical thing that symbolizes this scary, creepy time. In the intervening hours I’ve managed to make my peace with the knowledge that the mask has been run over repeatedly since this morning and will be obliterated very, very soon.

May we be safe from scary clowns.
May we be happy to unmask them.
May we set healthy limits on presidential powers.
May we not take peace for granted.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson