Dear President Trump, Rick Atkinson has an Opinions Essay in the WP wherein he summarizes the expansionism and attendant overreach of the British Empire. He is clear that there are myriad differences between Britain’s rise and fall and rise and fall and our own situation, but cautions that the apple (that is America) didn’t fall … Continue reading Gaslighting on steroids
Your Base
The dictator-magnet
Dear President Trump, You and Kim Jong Un have been doing some serious fawning over each other lately, touting your terrific relationship and how it’s bound to lead to wonderful things (or the more syllabically manageable “very good things” that you offered). Here are a couple of highlights I pulled out of the WP yesterday: … Continue reading The dictator-magnet
Oregon’s exclusion laws weren’t part of the state history curriculum
Dear President Trump, Have you ever been to Oregon? My brother told me the other day that you’re planning a rally there soon; he’d very much like to be in another state when you’re there. A cursory Google search using the words “Trump” and “Oregon” shows that you visited Oregon in 2016 and that you … Continue reading Oregon’s exclusion laws weren’t part of the state history curriculum
Scream out loud
Dear President Trump, Alexandra Petri is my hero of the day. Her WP editorial about your shameful comment that E. Jean Carroll is not your type is some kind of powerful. I’m sure you haven’t read it so I will briefly summarize her approach and will then quote her last two paragraphs directly. She starts … Continue reading Scream out loud
Patently unfit
Dear President Trump, Yesterday, not two hours after teasing about today’s letter including unicorns, Laura and I went and got pedicures at a new salon where the décor is dominated by unicorns. Seriously. They have large pictures of white, sparkly unicorns prancing in fantastical super-saturated colorful settings adorning the walls of the salon. It was … Continue reading Patently unfit
Plausible ignorance
Dear President Trump, I just looked up “plausible deniability” again because I can’t keep the concept straight in my head and wanted to see if it might be a way of understanding what you said the other day about happily taking opposition information from foreign sources. It isn’t. It almost certainly does apply to other … Continue reading Plausible ignorance
As long as the right people suffer and die, POTUS is good with it
Dear President Trump, This morning the emotions, including tears, were full on from the start – the very first headline of the very first WP article I saw got me going and I’ve been tremulous since. Here’s the headline (WP’s punctuation included): “An activist faced 20 years in prison for helping migrants. But jurors wouldn’t … Continue reading As long as the right people suffer and die, POTUS is good with it
Time is critical here
Dear President Trump, The other day I wrote in reference to you: “We’ve got to focus on damage control, removal, and renewal and we can’t do all this incredibly hard work if we exhaust ourselves worrying about dumb shit.” I still think this is correct, but after further consideration I’ve come to the conclusion that … Continue reading Time is critical here
Prejudice and Pride
Dear President Trump, The other day Laura texted our daughter to check in with her on the last day of their respective quarters to congratulate her on being almost finished with her first year of college and to see how she was feeling about finals. She texted back saying she’s feeling ok about how things … Continue reading Prejudice and Pride
“Don’t knock at my door, little child”
Dear President Trump, Remember how the other day I told you that Nichole Phillips’s next project is a book on black motherhood and mourning? Probably not. Ok, definitely not. I’m certain you don’t track what I tell you at all, which, if you were another sort of president I would think is fine because if … Continue reading “Don’t knock at my door, little child”
Daily Trump Letters 