President* Trump,

Just two weeks and two days before WA state mails out our General Election ballots! You may rest assured, your Lowness, that there will be no dilly-dallying in the Little/Simpson household this year – we will be filling those puppies out the day we get them and depositing them in a drop box forthwith. And from what I’m reading about how mail-in and early voting are going elsewhere in the country, we’ll be following in millions of righteous voters’ footsteps. Even as most of us continue to go about our (COVID-restricted) usual daily activities, there’s no mistaking the urgency around voting and doing what we can to get you the hell out of public office, you and your GOP toadies.

Last night during a masked, socially distanced visit with a friend, she mentioned hearing an MSNBC conversation between one of the regular hosts (she said who it was, but I’ve forgotten) and a young Black woman about the debacle. She remarked to the host that she and others in the Black community weren’t the least bit surprised by the spectacle of your rude performance Tuesday night. This led us to talk about how we weren’t really surprised either (after all, you are you), but that we still found it horrifying to see your naked desperate aggression.

What I’m going to proffer next may feel like another Tracy-stretch, but hear me out. It seems to me that watching your debacle performance and having your rude cruelty directly in our faces for 98 minutes, or for as long as we could stand it, is akin to seeing video footage of police killing Black people. When we’re confronted with the truth of the brutality by real footage (live or taped) that we can’t deny, it suddenly puts in much sharper focus what is and has been going on. When police are caught brutalizing and killing Black people on film we’re logically forced to realize there are countless such tragedies not caught on film. The tangible evidence provides a painful window into the reality of what it is to be Black in America, something most of us White people willfully ignored (and many still deny) until this past May when George Floyd was murdered.

The situation where we saw you being a relentless asshole to Wallace, Biden, and to the American people for 98 minutes on live television was painful in that it was in our faces, but really, it was just a glimpse into your own version of brutality. Basically it was nothing compared to all the shit you’ve done since you took office. You’ve hidden ruthless harms behind Executive Orders and choreographed official announcements including when you ordered children separated from their parents at the border and caged. You hid behind the veneer of “official actions” when you issued your various Muslim bans and when you pulled back restrictions on drilling in the Arctic and clean air and water measures. You stonewalled Congress during the impeachment hearings so we haven’t yet seen the extent of your treachery. And yes, some of us noticed some of these things and protested to some extent, but it seems to me that finally seeing you unhinged, flashing brass knuckles, and going for Biden’s jugular makes the ugliness of you more real, more tangible, harder to look away from or deny.

So personally, I hope the other two debacles do happen as scheduled. I know there’re national security concerns and I know we aren’t likely to hear anything useful on policy differences or governing generally. I get these arguments against putting you on stage like that again. But I think many of us need more full on exposure to you to drill home the point that you’re beyond dangerous, that another four years of you would almost certainly destroy us.

May we all be safe.
May we be willing to face all the unjust realities so many have been shouldering.
May we be strong and resolute in our commitment to a hard reset.
May we accept that democracy can’t defend itself and desperately needs us.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson