Dear President Trump,

Yesterday I had my first squirrel siting in over two weeks. The poor thing seemed kind of addled as it hopped in a sketchy zigzag line up the icy strip in the middle of the street. It’s still unusually cold here, but now it’s raining instead of snowing and we’re down to the ugly melty slush stage, which means we are heading back to semi-normal Northwest winter weather.

I have to tell you though, you are doing a fantabulous (I thought this was a silly exaggeration of “fabulous” but apparently it’s really a word) job brainwashing your peeps about climate change and global warming. The other day I was talking with someone who voted for you and in reference to the epic Seattle-are snow she glibly said “so much for global warming, ha!” I was quite proud of myself – I held my tongue, took a deep breath and just said there are paradoxical effects of climate change.

You know, this incredible dumbing down of large swaths of the citizenry is one of the most f*cked up, dangerous things you’ve done to us as a country. I realize you didn’t start it and that you’ve had plenty of help, but for our president to shrug and pretend he doesn’t believe in either climate change or in our collective role in causing it, is beyond reprehensible, it’s criminal. We should indict you on this – it’s putting way more people at risk than anything else you’re doing. Not only are we wasting precious time while you are president, but even when you’re finally gone, we’ll waste more precious time getting people unbrainwashed. It’s nuts. And it’s damn scary.

And yes, I meant to say “….pretend he doesn’t believe….” In a lot of ways it’s easier and less distressing to think you are just stupid and that you simply don’t understand the science or won’t apply yourself to learn it. Having a stupid, lazy president sucks, to be sure, but having a cynically malevolent president who insists that down is up and up is down with a straight face is a whole other deal. I am convinced you are purposely misleading your supporters on this topic (and dozens, if not hundreds of others) because it’s politically and financially expedient for you to do so.

You can’t be gone a moment too soon.

May we pull our collective heads out and focus on the planet’s safety.
May we make space for joy so that life doesn’t just become a grim exercise.
May we care about everyone’s health; not just that of the billionaire class.
May we not allow ourselves to be pitted against each other as our environment tanks.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson