To: The F*cking Lunatic in the Oval Office I closed my letter a couple of days ago with the idea that we need to accept that we have no idea where the bottom is and I don’t see any reason to revise it. Yes, yesterday I invoked righteous, courageous mere mortals who’re stepping up for … Continue reading Acting normal feels crazy
Willful Ignorance
Malign design
President* Trump, Even when they’re trashing you, editorialists don’t seem to be willing to push past the easy, semi-palatable gloss of chalking your misdeeds up to a lack of understanding or ignorance. The example I came across most recently (as in, I just finished reading it) is a WP op-ed by Garrett Graff entitled: The … Continue reading Malign design
Self-serving white myopia
President* Trump, Laura just let me know that your goons are here in Seattle and about a minute later the Seattle Times sent a breaking news alert email telling folks that the police declared that protestors in Capital Hill (home of the former CHOP) are rioting, which allows police to use flash-bang grenades against the … Continue reading Self-serving white myopia
It’s a new day in the People’s House
President* Trump, I’m so grateful the event that occasioned the unprecedented hour in the House of Representatives this morning calling out misogyny was not AOC’s murder by a crazed, bigoted misogynist (or Ayanna Pressley’s or Ilhan Omar’s or Pramila Jayapal’s or Rashida Tlaib’s or Debbie Wasserman Schulz’s or Barbara Lee’s or Nancy Pelosi’s) – so, … Continue reading It’s a new day in the People’s House
History keeps repeating itself; will we finally act this time?
President* Trump, I finished all of the material in the 10-minutes-a-day section recommended by the Justice in June website (https://justiceinjune.org/#10-minutes) and moved on to the first podcast recommended in the 25-minute section yesterday, “A Decade of Watching Black People Die” (https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/865261916/a-decade-of-watching-black-people-die). Ironically, I got interrupted about 10 minutes into it and didn’t come back to … Continue reading History keeps repeating itself; will we finally act this time?
Weaponizing mismanagement
President* Trump, The Worldometer shows the US as having added 61,848 new covid-19 cases today while another 890 of our inhabitants died from the disease today. Our total (known) covid death count is almost 135,000. Greg Sargent called you out this morning in his WP editorial saying that it’s simply not within the realm of … Continue reading Weaponizing mismanagement
Assuming the tyrannical mantle of “leader” and “guide”……to hell
“President” Trump, I just looked up how dictators prefer to be addressed and Wikipedia indicates that it’s a mix of variations on “leader” and “guide,” like “Supreme Leader,” “Great Leader,” “Dear Leader” or “Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution." I took German in high school (and one miserable year of it in college), but … Continue reading Assuming the tyrannical mantle of “leader” and “guide”……to hell
A possible remedy for the problem of large, round numbers
Dear President Trump, Right this minute at 7:18am the Worldometer says that 99,883 people in the US have died from covid-19. I’m going to try to not check the website compulsively throughout the day as we close in on 100,000, but I’m not making any promises. Why do you think it is that big round … Continue reading A possible remedy for the problem of large, round numbers
un-Cheeto lines in the sand
Dear President Trump, Let’s get real here, shall we? You didn’t wear the face mask in the Ford plant today because you didn’t want to have lines of white, un-Cheeto’d, skin showing when you took the mask off. Given that you had to make a speech and would have had to temporarily remove the mask … Continue reading un-Cheeto lines in the sand
Another essential element: empathy
Dear President Trump, I’ve got another essential element for our post-covid-19, post-you, better-culture-for-all; empathy. However, before I unpack it (again), I want to do something I don’t do very often (ever?), which is to thank you for being such an incredible foil. Most of the time it would make no sense whatsoever for me to … Continue reading Another essential element: empathy