Dear President Trump, You know, if I were still posting these letters only to your contact page and not adding them to my blog I’d almost certainly give myself a pass and not say a thing about having misspelled “Barack” yesterday. You would never know and your threat detection program (or person) wouldn’t have cared. … Continue reading Spelling lessons
Dignity
History lessons
Dear President Trump, In the midst of all my imagining of a democratic society that finally fully embraces empowerment for all of America’s diverse peoples, it occurred to me that I needed a better historical handle on what motivated White men to enfranchise Black men and then eventually men to enfranchise women. All I knew … Continue reading History lessons
Revolutionary evolution
Dear President Trump, The Poem-a-Day this morning is by Todd Fredson and is entitled [Erratum: Found Ecology Piece], the brackets being part of the title (you can read it here if you want: https://poets.org/poem-a-day/ for today’s date). It’s a short poem and seems simple enough, but it’s had me thinking hard all day. It’s nominally … Continue reading Revolutionary evolution
Kindness and calm
Dear President Trump, I hope you’re having a nice Thanksgiving visiting military people in Afghanistan. I really do hope this, both for your sake and for theirs. It was good of you to go and do that. There are other things I could say about you and the military, but for today I won’t pick … Continue reading Kindness and calm
Dignified, principled competence
Dear President Trump, I’ve got another “what gives” for you today. Here goes – what gives with Oversight America having been able to get those documents of Rudy’s (to include phone records and emails) linking him to Mike P. through the Freedom of Information Act when Congress couldn’t get them for the impeachment inquiry? Don’t … Continue reading Dignified, principled competence
Women’s anger is still being weaponized
Dear President Trump, All afternoon I’ve been thinking about anger and how it continues to be weaponized against women who express it. As I was trying to come up with a way into this vast, touchy topic, it occurred to me that it might be instructive to list reasons why men get angry. So what … Continue reading Women’s anger is still being weaponized
What did you do? What will you do?
Dear President Trump, Well, today marks the 1,000th consecutive day that your inbox has received a letter from me. Next Saturday will mark the 1,000th consecutive day that I kept copies of the letters, but I think today is the real anniversary. Would I have taken on this daily correspondence to you if I’d known … Continue reading What did you do? What will you do?
Fresh eyes and fresh beliefs
Dear President Trump, Sometimes the Twitter-verse does weird stuff with time like it did yesterday when Laura excitedly read me a Tweet about 19 African American women having been elected into judgeships in Harris County, Texas (Houston area) and how this means that now 25 of the 75 judges in that county are African American … Continue reading Fresh eyes and fresh beliefs
Language matters ~ a lot
Dear President Trump, The other day Laura played me a song from Brittany Howard’s new album Jaime. The song is “13th Century Metal” (see Genius Lyrics). It’s Howard’s riff on what we need to do to come out of our own 21st century Dark Age. She promises to think before she speaks and to be … Continue reading Language matters ~ a lot
Chain of command
Dear President Trump, I had another letter almost completely written this morning but the day’s events are too important to put on hold until tomorrow so the original letter will have to wait. I just read the opening statement that Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman will be reading when he testifies before the House Committees that … Continue reading Chain of command