An open letter to 45

Goodbye Donald,

I remember watching the election results in 2016, and it felt like watching the Titanic sink. I cried as I thought about all the people in my life who were not white wealthy men, and all the people who were going to suffer in the years to come because of your policies and beliefs, and I knew we were fucked as a nation. It felt like an alternate universe and it still does. I spent the next day in bed, crying, scrolling on social media. I saw post that said "we would be fine." I was told I was overreacting, I knew in my gut I was not.

"How bad can it really get?" Was the question hanging over every post, every conversation, every debate. And, four years later, your legacy speaks for itself. 381,000 human beings have died in the past year from COVID-19 and you have expressed no empathy. Your silence speaks volumes as your narcissism plagues our country. In January and February of 2020, you were warned repeatedly about the dangers of COVID-19 and instead of giving the public the information you needed, you chose to downplay the looming catastrophe, to operate under a false sense of calm that resulted in the greatest failure of any administration in our history. When it began to collapse, you spewed xenophobia and used Asian countries as the scapegoat for your inability to act.

Did you know that our brains are not wired to understand large numbers? We cannot fully compute or imagine the gravity of the death toll from COVID in the United States. We are simply unable to process. Even as I have tried to grapple with the enormous sense of loss of the past year, I still do not fully understand it. 381,000 human beings with dreams, ambitions, families, and friends. 381,000 people who- at the start of 2020- imagined what a new decade had in store for them. In addition, millions more will face long-term health consequences even after recovering. Lives and livelihoods have been destroyed. Entire generations are traumatized and forever changed.

You were warned and you actively chose to do nothing. You played golf, you posted on Twitter, but you gave zero fucks about the American people. Then the Black Lives Matter movement kicked into full gear following the horrendous murder of George Floyd, and you called them "thugs." You had peaceful protesters tear gassed in front of the White House, because you wanted a photo-op with a bible. You are the furthest thing from a Christian, even though your "followers" see you as their Messiah.

Let's be clear: you are, and will never be anything but, a self-serving white supremacist fascist who ran for office and then constantly looked for the country to serve you. There are not "very good people" on both sides of the movements and divisiveness you created. Your entire life has been spent spewing racist, xenophobic, and homophobic rhetoric.

The Muslim ban, children in cages, and the wall that Mexico will pay for are your legacy. When children in school are learning about this moment in history, you will be viewed as Hitler, Mussolini, and Napoleon are viewed. Children and historians in years to come will wonder how someone like you was able to come to power. How you, a colossal failure and outright racist in every respect, was democratically elected. The truth is that you are not an isolated ideology or evil: you are the physical embodiment of the very worst of human nature and of society. You represent the hate that existed in the United States years before your presidency, becoming a voice to those who had always been racist, homophobic, xenophobic, but were never emboldened until you gave them a platform. We will never look back fondly on people willing to vocalize their bigotry.

You are nothing more than a coward that hides behind social media, and has failed this country. You are not a leader. You are a dictator. You are cruel and a pathological liar.

One good thing that came from these past four years is that people showed their true colors, and I am fine without those people. I guess there really is a silver lining in everything. Ideas of "unity" have never felt so far out of reach, because there is no unifying with your bigoted following who are antithetical to everyone of my morals. I also decided I no longer want to be a Christian, because if being a Christian means not caring about others, that is not what I want to be associated with.

Understand, I voted for Obama both times, but if Senator McCain or Romney would have been elected our country would have been fine. You were the straw that broke the camel's back. You were the divide that destroyed this country. I guess my instincts about you all along were correct. May you reap what you sow, along with all of your minions.

"How bad can it really get?" Is so laughable in retrospect. We will suffer and we will struggle for years to come because of the division you perpetuated, the hate you spewed, the rhetoric you allowed to become mainstream. And everyday, black people, immigrants, Muslims, trans men and women, and other lgbt+ community members have to live with the hate you encourage. You've never respected women or any minority. And your vision of "Making America Great Again" was flawed in every respect: when were we ever great? When our very foundation was built on the genocide of indigenous communities and the enslavement of black people? When systemic racism was written into law with the Thirteenth Amendment, effectively allowing slave labor in prisons- setting us on the trajectory for a racist, broken criminal justice system that imprisons more individuals than any other country in the world, with black people being disproportionately incarcerated because laws written in the twentieth century were designed specifically to make that a reality? When women could not vote until the 1920s and black women until the 1960s? When we locked Japanese Americans in internment camps during the Second World War, but not German Americans? Racism, sexism, and xenophobia are interwoven into the story of the United States and that is the "greatness" you have so desperately wanted to celebrate.

Your love for America has always been tied to whiteness. Your nationalism is dangerous. Your presidency will forever be a dark chapter. When you lost the election- fairly and justly- it felt like I was taking my first breath in four years. We have so much work to do, but our first step had to be your removal. Enjoy your unemployment and your eviction. You never belonged in our house.

Disrespectfully,

We the People