John Adams, Meet Donald Trump

To My MAGA Friends (are we still friends?),

You may think that after last week’s election I would be doing an end zone dance. I’m not. It’s not joy. Not jubilation. Not even a smile. It’s relief, and sadness, and anger. Relief that our long national nightmare may be ending. Sadness at the wrecking ball Trump took to the White House East Wing, so emblematic of his entire tenure as President. Anger with you, more of you that I ever would have imagined existed ten years ago, you who savored his election and Presidency even as he made us poorer, weaker and coarser.

As the first resident of the White House, John Adams wrote to Abigail, his wife, “May none but honest and wise Men ever rule under this roof.” John Adams, meet Donald Trump, a lousy human being if ever there was one. A cruel, vulgar, lawless, tax cheat, deadbeat, lazy, lying, unfaithful, pedophiliac, draft dodging, con man.

Someday some of you will deny your enthusiasm for Donald Trump and responsibility for the mess you have helped to create. You’ll say something like, “I never really liked Donald Trump, but I voted for his policies.” Bullshit. You like him because you and he hate the same people. Brown people. People with accents. People with pronouns. All those deadbeat allies.

I’m a reasonable Democrat, you might even say a “conservative Democrat,” (that’s a liberal with common sense). There are a lot of us. I got here because a long time ago I compared the two parties and came to this conclusion. The far right is filled with angry, selfish bigots. The far left, naive utopians in need of an economics class. And I decided to hang with the utopians because, dear MAGA, you are really unpleasant people.

The list of Trump’s transgressions is so long, and all along the way you applauded enthusiastically. You wanted to “get things done,” even if it meant breaking the law and countless unwritten rules of civility, in a tantrum like Connie's in The Godfather. She leaves behind a trail of broken china and crystal, but at least she had a good reason.

Does any of this make you uncomfortable?

• In the United States, the police do not wear masks, but they do wear identification. They don’t snatch people off of the streets without a warrant or probable cause, and then whisk them away in unmarked vehicles to unknown detention centers.
• In the United States, when a police officer does shoot someone, he does not walk away from the victim calling her a “fucking bitch,” as though she deserved her fate. Afterwards there will be an impartial investigation, and if merited criminal charges, and adjudicated by a group of people called a jury.
• In the United States, in the middle of a war, the President does not send thousands of petulant social media posts in the middle of the night, or preoccupy himself with the reflecting pool, or buildings named for former Presidents, or fantasized memorial arches, as if those were the most important thing a President can do with his time.
• In the United States, the President does not trade stocks based on inside knowledge of contracts that he, himself, will approve, or solicit untraceable contributions for private ventures such as his inauguration party, crypto currency, or presidential library.
• In the United States, the President does not debase himself, and thereby all Americans, by begging for a Peace Prize he doesn’t deserve, and then accepting someone else’s as if he did.
• In the United States, the President does not unilaterally impose taxes, or transfer money from programs authorized by Congress to his own pet projects. And he doesn’t hire private hit men to strip programs and departments, or fire their civil service employees.
• In the United States, the President does not use the Justice Department as his personal law firm, directing it to use its limited resources to harass perceived enemies, rather than to investigate real crimes.
• In the United States, Presidents do not evade or defy legally required disclosure of files related to a former friend’s heinous pedophilia, files in which he, himself, may be implicated.
• In the United States, the President is a temporary occupant of the White House. He doesn’t own it and can’t make changes to it as cavalierly as rearranging the furniture.
• In the United States, the President does not align himself or our country with a murderous dictator, a dangerous adversary who, on the edge of Europe, invaded a democratic people who share our values.
• In the United States, Presidents do not threaten, sue or harass news organizations and journalists, or encourage violence against them (from people like you).

And then there’s the damage. The added costs of imported goods due to tariffs, an archaic form of taxation universally scorned by economists both left and right. The price of gas due to an ill-advised, unplanned war in the Middle East, a war we are losing. The loss of our allies’ respect and trust. The animosity we feel from you daily.

Regarding your boastful, red hat patriotism, David Frum, a Bush speechwriter and a conservative if ever there was one, put it this way: if you love your country, you love it as it is, not how you wish it to be. Not if only the people you don’t like were gone, not if only they worshipped the same God and in the same way, your way. I love America, even though you’re here, and as Americans go you’re not our best.

The man you helped to elect President is not a Republican, not a conservative, not a patriot. He is a megalomaniac who is systematically strangling the life out of our country. He has destroyed the Republican Party, founded in 1854, led by our greatest President through our most perilous moment. It’s gone, coopted by a small (but big enough) angry, white mob with which you affiliate, aid and abet.

If we’re lucky, the meaning of last week’s election is that the American people have broken MAGA’s back. Recovery will be difficult, some losses permanent. But of course, he still has enormous power. Who knows what he is capable of now that he is caged and cornered. And when he crosses the lines of legality and decency again, will you still applaud? Probably. Thank you so much.

God bless you, I suppose. That’s more than you would say for me.