President* Trump,

So I swear that the WP article drilling down on how the numbers of covid-19-related deaths and hospitalizations are only temporarily lagging behind the surging case numbers came out overnight, after I wrote yesterday’s letter to you (WP title: “Coronavirus Deaths Lag Behind Surging Infections But May Catch Up Soon”). As you can tell from the title, the authors unfortunately come to the same conclusion that I did – that even if part of what we are seeing in the case numbers is more young healthier people’s illnesses being detected, many of them will likely end up infecting older, less healthy people who we know are at greater risk of very bad outcomes. The article also talked about how Pence continues to try to put a shiny spin on the whole situation, attempting to gaslight the governors into a “hey, it’s not that bad” sort of mindset so they’ll go along with your economic agenda rather than appropriately safeguarding their people. Pro-life, my ass.

Then there was Kudlow’s asinine statement on Fox Business Network earlier today that the administration doesn’t anticipate a second wave of coronavirus infections and that Americans are just going to have to live with these “hotspots” cropping up. What a guy – so empathetic and thoughtful. And do you all not anticipate a second wave of infections because this first wave is just not going to end? It’s rather looking that way.

And in other, seemingly unrelated but related news, did someone in your orbit tell you you’ve already used up all your buddy pardons? Is this why you and Barr have come up with creative ways (highly creative it sounds like) for the DOJ to protect Stone and Flynn? Fortunately these machinations of your all’s still raise alarm bells and it looks as though Sullivan may hold firm and that there’s a strong possibility that the whole US District Appeals Court will be asked to review the case. However, it’s still disturbing how not surprising any of this feels.

Of course you are trying to protect your friends and thereby undermine the facts regarding Russia’s election interference and of course you and your minions are trying to undermine the facts regarding the covid-19 pandemic. There’s actually an endless list of such issues where you all are doing 1984-like mind-f*ck variations – ‘get this straight – down is now officially up and up is now officially down’ and I’m afraid that we are missing a lot of them.

I’ve been talking with more folks lately who’ve decided to stop tuning into the news or anything to do with politics. This was a coping strategy that a lot of people resorted to early on in your tenure, but then things seemed to shift and for a long time I didn’t hear this being such a go-to strategy. I guess as it feels more and more like you’re carrying the world off to hell in a hand basket, more among us have decided to work in our gardens and fit pieces into our 1,000 piece puzzles without Rachel Maddow or NPR in the background. I actually can’t blame people at all – they (we) know how they’ll vote, they (we) feel powerless to do anything other than vote, and their (our) mental health was suffering from exposure to all the grim shit you all are pulling so it’s probably good that at least some of us are opting for self-preservation.

I hope, though, that many of us will hold on and keep an eye on things as best we can because once you’re out of office, we need to have a sense of where all the bodies are buried, where the sneaky rule changes were made, and where you boobies laid traps. It’s like you’ve turned most of the government and much of the country into a series of toxic waste sites. Nice going. I bet your BFF Vladimir is really happy with your performance.

May we be safe from our POTUS, his masters, and his minions.
May we be willing to keep watch.
May we also make sure we take care of ourselves for the long haul.
May we accept that things are dire and we need to show up for one another.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson