Dear President Trump,

What does this WP headline conjure for you?

“Growing number of Republicans struggle to defend Trump on G-7 choice, Ukraine and Syria”

Frustration? Rage? Abject terror? Disdain? Confusion? Hurt?

All of the above? Do you even know this is the message the American public is getting now, or have your still-loyal minions shielded you from reality?

Well, the image that was conjured for me in response to this headline is that of cockroaches skittering across a kitchen floor when the light gets turned on in the middle of the night. I’ve not personally witnessed such a dramatic multitude-of-cockroaches scene, but living in Houston for a summer and then in Albuquerque for a long time, I did get familiar with cockroaches and their aversion to the light. Folks staying at your properties probably know the cockroach drill too (we know for sure that many an unfortunate Dorsal denizen is all too familiar with the scourge of bedbugs) and we are all getting treated to an interpretive dance version of this phenomena as GOP defectors scurry away from you now that the light is flipped on.

So what the f*ck is going on now that wasn’t happening before all this earnest-looking, desperate-feeling distancing from you started? Really, not much is truly different. The Mueller report details many, many things of the same ilk and we’ve witnessed for years (and years) foreign leaders and businessmen (haven’t heard of businesswomen doing it, but maybe there were some) currying favor by using your properties in violation of the emoluments clause. Your coarse, crooked self-dealing has been readily, painfully apparent from before Day 1, but until now you’ve had the GOP wrapped around your pinky because you enthralled their base and could, with a snap of your fingers, doom their political careers. (I still think there’s a good chance that Vladimir has dirt on a bunch of them that you and they know could suddenly burble up if they were to get out of line, but we’ll have to wait and see if anything ever comes of that particular control theory.)

What’s different now is that the transgressions are becoming ever bolder and we have clear indication that they are coming directly from you. We’ve been treated to rough transcripts of the Ukraine call that you released (supplemented by Mulvaney’s admission that there was quid pro quo), hearing you asking China for dirt on the Bidens, your own accounts of you green-lighting Turkey’s invasion of Syria, and now your decision to “award” the 2020 G-7 summit meeting to your own property.

Ok, ok, you might insist that none of this is out of line with what apparently passed the GOP-sniff test before, and you would be correct, except that more Americans than you thought are actually paying attention and are seriously taking issue with this latest wave of corruption. You flipped the kitchen light on yourself (maybe you really are sick of being president or maybe Vladimir thought this would so destabilize us and take the heat off of him that he ordered it – who the hell knows why you would be so incredibly self-destructive) and a whole bunch of Americans who were able to claim the darkness of ignorance before can no longer do so and are subsequently pushing their GOP lawmakers to step up.

It is critical to note, here, that those same GOP lawmakers cannot claim ignorance – they were not in the dark – they knew what you were doing and repeatedly gave you passes because it was expedient for them to do so. Thus, until they admit this and do something major (falling on their swords and resigning because they failed to uphold their pledge to the Constitution and betrayed the American people would be a good start), their recent decisions to move away from you cannot be seen as anything other than another form of political expediency. Yes, I want them to turn on you because we need you out of office as soon as possible, but they must and will be held accountable for allowing this situation in the first place. Late-in-the-game outrage over more-of-same Trumpian behavior is not going to cut it.

May we be safe from sleazy “leaders” who have allowed power to corrupt them absolutely.
May we be willing to hold those leaders to account.
May we recognize that we cannot whitewash this deal and let GOP props off the hook unless they truly step up, confess, and make amends (i.e., introduce and support bills that will not allow this shit to ever happen again….. and then resign).
May you not start another war.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson