Dear Donald, the party is over

Dear Donald

It's time for you to go. To be honest, I think you've already stayed too long. It might have been better if you never came at all.

I've always found when I've attended any party or celebration that it's essential to know when to leave. You don't want to leave too early, or it will seem like you never wanted to be there in the first place. You also don't want to linger too long, out-stay your welcome and be the cause of the hosts giving each other those sideways glances that say "I'm tired, is this asshole ever going to leave?!".

The one giving those sideways glances is usually the one who, exhausted from all the preparation, cleaning, cooking, hosting duties, making sure everyone has a drink and is having a good time, is ready for the party to be over about an hour in. But the other half of the hosting couple, whose only job was to show up to the party and have a good time, never wants the party to be over and wants to keep that thing going until morning, desperate to feel important, included and cool.

Your Presidential term has been like that party. Those who knew what kind of hatred and conflict and nonsense you would stir up are just plain tired and want the party to be over. Those who you have made feel important and included (in your bigoted, racist, sexist America) want the party to keep going so they can feel good about themselves a little while longer. They want to keep drinking the poison you feed them so that they don't have to wake up in the morning and look at the mess left behind. The empty cans and bottles all over the house, the red wine spilled on the carpet and the plates of spoiling food left on every surface. They don't want to acknowledge that underneath all the mess left behind was a house already falling apart.

If they keep the party going they don't have to look at the fact that nothing you have done has addressed the deeper problems facing America; poverty, homelessness, unaffordable healthcare, unemployment, institutionalised racism, rape culture, and lack of gun control. Its all been on the surface, all for show. The glitz and glamour you love so much. They don't have to acknowledge that you were so drunk on your own power and grandiosity that the stories you told were so full of lies and mistruths that they served no-one but yourself.

You preyed on their insecurities, their feelings of disenfranchisement, their feelings that no-one cared about them. You created an environment of 'us and them', othering anyone who didn't live up to your idea of what an American should be (women, people of colour, immigrants, anyone who disagrees with you). By creating an enemy to blame their pain on, they were distracted from the fact that you don't really care about them. You never did.

All you care about is you and how you can benefit from the false reality that you have created. Money, power and getting what you want. You want people to respect you, to love you. So you buy them, you manipulate them, you bully them. Sometimes I think you're so drunk on it all that you believe the lies you have told, the stories you have created and the reality you have conjured from nothing. Most days that makes me angry, but sometimes it makes me a little sad too.

In any case, no matter how hard you fought it, no matter how much you begged the hosts to let you stay, it's over. It's time for you to leave. You're probably hoping that will keep talking about you once you're gone, about how great you were, about how it's just not the same without you. And you're right, it won't be the same without you, it will be better. My hope is that no-one mentions you again. That you are starved of all the oxygen you need to fuel your fire and we can all get on with fixing the messy, broken house you left behind.