Dear President Trump,

So I listened to the opening of the impeachment hearings yesterday on my way to work and oh my, were the GOP members an unruly bunch, butting in with parliamentary this and parliamentary that from the get go! The thing was just starting and they were already trying to stomp on people’s last nerves. Nunes picked up with more of same in his BS opening GOP statement, at which point I started thinking about boiling blood. I can’t even remember what tack he took and I sure as hell am not going to listen to it again, but I think he was mocking the undertaking and laying the groundwork for the case that there was nothing to see so this is all a waste of time. I can’t remember if he was the one (or Jordan?) who told Taylor and Kent they are starring in the B-movie version of the Democrats’ attempt to force you out of office. I think it was him, but you know how it is – rude disingenuous white men saying dumb shit are hard to tell apart anymore. Whoever said it, none of it was surprising; horrifying yes, but not surprising.

It did have a weird, bad movie quality to it. The Democrats were playing their serious roles seriously, trying to use clever, but not-too-clever lines of questioning to make various points (e.g., if attempted robbery is a crime then surely attempted extortion is a crime – duh!). They were wooden and not especially engaging (boring, some would and did say), but they were on point. Then the Republicans fussed that they didn’t like the script but wanted to make sure their protests were duly registered on camera. They then engaged in scattershot nonsense, trying to figure out what would play best to their base (and to you).

I actually really liked that Grisham and Don Jr. whined on Twitter about how the hearings were boring. Of course they were boring. This may be a House version of Survivor, but it’s not going to be executed like a TV drama, whose purpose is to benumb and dumb down its viewers while attempting to sell them things they don’t need or even want. Well, actually several of the GOP legislators did seem to think this was their mission. But anyway, throwing the “boring” dagger is choice – it’s implying that if the Democrats can’t come up with some super slick, super exciting, bombshell testimony their case is no good, as if the god damn transcript isn’t enough.

You all are amazing. What you did to Ukraine was horrible and what you are doing now to the American public is equally, if not more horrible. (What you’ve been doing to democracy all along is also beyond awful, but you know how I’ve felt about this all along.) I keep thinking about what your reaction, what the GOP’s reaction would have been had their been any question of impropriety on Obama’s part or on Clinton’s part, had she been elected instead of you. The hypocrisy is absolutely stunning.

Is there a word beyond shame? I just checked the synonym list and “ignominy” will do nicely (“public shame or disgrace”) if only you and yours would have the decency to embrace it.

The highlight of the day for me was reading the NPR article about Pelosi asserting that you engaged in bribery. The great part came at the very tail end when she threw serious shade at you. Here it is:

“If the president has anything that is exculpatory — Mr. President, that means you have anything that shows you are innocent — then he should make that known. And that’s part of the inquiry. So far we haven’t seen that. But that’s what an inquiry is all about.”

Dang, she’s good!

May we be safe from lying sacks.
May we be happy when our heroes give us some sweet shade.
May we all put the health of our democracy ahead of base, personal interest.
May we not make peace with the current state of affairs.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson