Dear President Trump,

Happy Celtic New Year – it’s a new day dawning, isn’t it? A new day with oodles of new challenges ahead as you try to come up with new shade to throw now that we are into the open hearing era of this impeachment process. I’m sure you’ll be trying out new twists on the old saws that have kept your base enthralled.

For example, I bet in the next week there’ll be new distortions of both the numbers of asylum seekers (“illegal aliens”) and progress on “The Wall” (perhaps stated in inches?) to whip up the righteous fea-ger (my new word for the combination of fear and anger that you all have put so so so much stock in) and to pretend you’re coming through on your central campaign promise. Ok, that would be a good one.

Then maybe you’ll drop some tidbit about how you’ve gotten personal assurances from your BFF2, Kim Jong-Un, that he’s really been firing blanks for fun and has no intentions, whatsoever, of attacking anyone you like. You could put a neat bow on that empty package by adding in that the North Koreans have initiated a site study to pave the way for Disney NK (of course we’d all know you really mean Trump Towers NK, but given the current climate it would be pushing it, even for you, to go there).

Oh, and then there’s apparently talk about yet another massive tax cut that you all somehow think can be spun into goodwill gold that will bedazzle your base even though the first tax cut’s promise has fizzled and caused the economy to sputter (well, along with your asinine trade wars).

Basically, I think half your minions are coming up with new terrors to lob at us us while the other half are working around the clock to figure which old baubles to shine up so your props can claim the impeachment proceedings are distracting from “the real work” of government and to hook and distract the center/left. Sadly, those Demagogue’s Helpers will have lots to choose from.

Along with tarnished bauble shining, here’s what I think you’ll need to do to make it through the impeachment proceedings and avoid getting a “Go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200” card:

1. continue whatever mind-control tactics you’ve been using on the GOP, or really, behavior-control tactics since it appears that what they say (and presumably think) in private doesn’t exactly match their public actions and statements
2. continue to hew unwaveringly to the party line that the Ukraine call was “perfect”, that you and your henchpeople did nothing wrong, that it’s perfectly normal (and unimpeachable) to require favors of foreign governments that include political shakedowns of your opponents in exchange for already allocated aid
3. convince your base that the content laid out in #2 is actually true
4. convince your base that the GOP is ready and willing to work in a bipartisan fashion on the real problems facing America if only they didn’t have to worry their narrow little minds about all this impeachment nonsense (this will be a stretch, but I’m sure you are up for giving it a try)
5. make sure that none of the social media entities are allowed to remove political ads that contain lies/falsehoods/clearly misleading content – this is key – this is your all’s bread and butter and you have to keep it on the table
6. make sure that McConnell stays in line in by not allowing a vote on election reforms of any sort and do your level best to keep currently disenfranchised people from voting and to roll back the recent gains of people who were granted voting rights, say in Florida, your new home state – this will help take the wind out of many a sail and will help embitter key groups
7. make sure that plenty of dark, deep-shade money (domestic, foreign, real, not real) continues to flow into your murky Super Pacs to fuel the nonstop propaganda machines
8. do whatever you can to delay decisions on gerrymandering until “it’s too close to the election to make changes” and for those cases that have already been decided in favor of new boundaries, install enough contrarians to gum up the process so there are sufficiently long delays and 2020 will “have to” default to the good ol’ lines
9. keep whites and men sufficiently enamored with and feeling entitled to their privilege so that just enough of them (us) stay loyal to you and your regressive vision of America

For sure there’s more you can and probably should do to keep the lid on your things, but this list is a good start. I think where you’re most vulnerable is that a handful of GOP Senators, say three or four, might decide they can’t live with themselves and they end up breaking ranks by talking sense, like maybe pointing out how there’s no way in hell their party would let any Democratic President get away with any of the shit you’ve pulled. If this were to happen it could break your grip on lots of them, and thus on the whole messed up mess. And, if this were to happen, I’d fear for their lives.

May we all be safe to tell the truth.
May we be willing to keep pushing for accountability and reform.
May we stay healthy and strong through this flu and cold season in case we need to take to the streets (in peaceful protest).
May we have the courage to stay open to kindness.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson