Dear President Trump,

I ended up listening to the first two minutes of your Oval Office charade yesterday evening, but unlike Stephen Colbert’s prediction that I’d want to hurt myself, I just wanted to hurt you (which, of course I would never do – just for the record – no matter how much I want to). I yelled at the radio for a sec and then turned it off so I could focus on driving safely. I was going to get my hair cut and when I got there, the radio was tuned to you. Fortunately the woman who cuts my hair asked if I wanted to listen and was ok turning you off when I said ixnay to the broadcast. Of course we spent the next far too many minutes talking about you and your issues.

I was going to talk about something else today but the “your issues” phrasing reminded me of the first conversation I had yesterday after leaving the house. It was with another psychologist who works at the VA. I hadn’t seen her waiting to cross the street and I was doing my now customary (somewhat compulsive) trash gathering, which of course she commented on. I told her that it’s a concrete thing I can do to counteract some of the toxicity of you and your administration. She then shared that she’s made a New Year’s resolution to be kinder and then said she was thinking about writing to Senator Murray to let her know she thinks there’s something really wrong with you psychologically and can’t Murray do something about it. On the one hand, I was pretty floored that this is where she’s at when it comes to your issues as I think we are light years beyond the “hey, maybe there’s something wrong with this guy, I think he has some issues” take at this point. On the other hand, it was sort of refreshing that she’s not so steeped in the horridness of you that she’s thinking maybe Patty Murray sees it too and can do something.

Along these lines, did you see the list of the 48 (or maybe more now) Congress people, half Democrats and half Republicans, who’ve requested their pay be held in solidarity with federal workers affected by the government shutdown? Seems you might have over played this hand. Maybe there is hope that sooner rather than later enough of the GOP will leave the fool on the hill alone to blather to himself and his dwindling fan-base so they can help rebuild the country. We’ll see.

May we be safe from toxic leadership.
May we the people be willing to self-correct.
May we recognize that real leaders look out for the health and well-being of everyone.
May you not start a war when your wall-for-workers-gambit fails.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson