Dear President Trump,

Jennifer Rubin’s WP editorial today reminding us that democracy is not a meritocracy was a bittersweet read as it sinks in that Elizabeth Warren almost certainly doesn’t have a viable path to the nomination. Rubin clearly thinks Warren is meritorious, along with Klobuchar and Buttigieg. She notes that Steyer probably should have bowed out a lot sooner and she correctly calls out Bloomberg as the weakest one in the field (have you been getting his fancy cardstock ads in the mail every day touting his incredible environmental record? beyond idiotic). Ultimately, she arrives at the conclusion that it’s going to come down to Sanders and Biden.

For the record (and I’ll try to remember not to say this again because it is so f*cking obvious), both are much, much better options than you. However, they are both much closer to 80 than to 70 and Biden doesn’t seem especially cognitively nimble while Sanders doesn’t seem especially cognitively flexible (or pragmatic). But for reasons that are not clear to me, they both appeal to way more voters and caucus goers than the others, including Warren, who I continue to believe would be both the strongest person to go up against you and the person who could best help us turn around this mess we’ve made.

It wasn’t until I was doing the dishes about an hour after reading the editorial that I realized Rubin didn’t mention you at all. In the same instant, I realized that if she had tried to deal with the whole meritocracy thing with you in the picture, it would have been absolutely absurd. I laughed out loud at the thought. And then I felt ill. And sad. And disgusted. Apparently we’ve dropped even the most minimal of requirements for becoming POTUS – competence, intelligence, compassion, effectiveness, a strong moral compass, and a decent sense of humor (i.e., the ability not to take oneself too seriously is very, very important). Nope, instead one needs only to be male, white, rich, ruthless, and favored by Russia to be successful, which is not exactly a recipe for positive forward momentum or even for maintaining a reasonable status quo.

In a similar vein, Megan McArdle (WP again) challenged Democratic voters to think about which of the candidates we would most want in charge during a crisis, whether something like the current covid-19 situation, 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, or another sort of awful thing we can’t even imagine. Not surprisingly, since she’s quite conservative, she said she’d feel most comfortable with Bloomberg. However, she graciously allowed that most Democrats (she’s not one) would likely be picking someone else (here’s hoping) and she urged us to give this angle careful consideration since we need to feel good about our candidate being able (and willing) to come through for the country in the clutch.

Once again, my hands down pick for the person I’d most trust to lead wisely and well in a crisis is Warren. Her combination of smarts, collegiality, compassion, and grit would be infinitely more reassuring than what we have available to us now – basically she would be the opposite of what we have available to us now.

May we be safe from horrible leaders.
May we all be willing to give women credit and stop doubting their ability to lead.
May we care for everyone’s health.
May we make peace with whatever way we are called to serve.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson