July 12, 2025: Open Letters

 

An open letter to Donald Trump. Sir,

It's your economy now, baby, coming recession and all. They're your wars now, Cap'n, asked for or not. They're your failed negotiations, Boy-O, one by one by 99. They're your hurricanes and massive floods and shrinking shorelines now, Sunny Jim. They're your tariffs, all yours, Mister President, a surcharge on all of us to offset the tax breaks to the rich. And all your friends and allies have lost faith in you. What's left are sniveling sycophant henchmen who won't tell you when you got it wrong, not that you'd listen, and your army of ICE Warriors. How sad and lonely you must be in your self-fulfilling paranoid world. You may be the most hated human being in the Twenty-First Century.

And to the Rich, for whom you stand, I issue this warning. Please enjoy the funds you took away from programs designed to help your fellow Americans in crisis. You got your wish. But remember Proverbs and be careful. Remember the German industrialists thought they had Adolph Hitler under control in 1934. They got richer, for a while, until it all came crashing down.

And to the rest of us, for anyone who feels all alone in a world brimming with hate, remember that they are the ones yelling and screaming and threatening, but you are not alone. In the center of MAGA country my friend and co-worker Hannah has a bumper sticker on her car that says, “Trump-Putin 2024/Make ARussian Great Again.” It put me in mind of something Luna Lovegood told Harry Potter, to the effect that Harry was less of a threat if he thought he was all alone in opposing Lord Voldemort.

Donald Trump wants us scared. He wants us at each other's throats. Then we don't pay attention as he consolidates his power. But I have hope. I think we just might survive this existential threat we face when Hannah from Montana holds her own moral compass so tightly, while every politician across America has lost theirs. Hannah is not afraid to speak her mind. Or maybe she is, but does so anyway. In America in 2025, that is true courage. And she is far from alone.