“…(Former) President Trump has fueled a culture of fear, racism, and demonization as part of his efforts to resuscitate a culture of white Christian nationalism.” (Page 258 American Nightmare: Facing the Challenge of Fascism Henry A. Giroux)

Dear Vice-President, I could spend the rest of this essay stating the obvious, Donald Trump is a moron, a narcissist, a felon, a thief, and a danger to the modern ideal of what our Democracy should look like. I’ve written about him and his MAGA cult plenty of times. Yet, here we are a little less than three months out from the most critical election, I believe, in my seventy-five years, and that’s saying a lot.

Yet, even though the Orange Man with the “weird” ideas and a track record of one disastrous administration in full view of history and the American public, you and your vice-presidential pick, Governor Tim Walz, face an uphill battle (I’ll give you the recent increase in the polls) to stop Trump. It shouldn’t be this close, but it is still within the margin of error. How can that be? Has half the country gone completely mad or does it just reflect the madness of American history where citizens will always vote against their best interests if they can be convinced that there is a more pressing priority, the other. And, of course, we know who that is in these modern times.

The working class, the middle class, the suburban woman, the high school graduate, the college graduate, Black, White, Asian-American, Latinx,  Indigenous, every region of the country, all of us should be focused on how and why we became so mean, so joyless, so terrified of the other, willing to demonize each other, threaten each other, march through the streets shouting past each other…and then I step back and realize that this is the story of America. From its origins as outposts for European imperialism and colonialism straight through the confiscation of lands where people lived to the genocide that followed to the importation and exploitation of African people and those from Europe and Asia, our path has been marked by a record of ensuring that someone is exploited in the name of “progress.” And yet, even when there were rebellions, it was often those same lower-class, working-class people who were used to tamp down those rebellions, whether it was enslaved Black people, Indigenous people, or white workers on strike in the mills of Lowell, Massachusetts. In the meantime, the ruling elite hovered, using politicians to cover for them as they counted their blood money.

In my seventy-five years, I’ve seen this country undergo cataclysmic changes affecting every demographic of this country’s population, upholding and, in many cases, providing freedoms for people who were kept from them. My head spins when I hear talk and read screeds about how power should be used to halt that progress. That somehow, life sixty or seventy years ago was an America that was better than the America many of us fought to attain during the sixties onward. Hey, I’m the first person to admit that America was and is a work in progress and that progress has often met a speed bump and sometimes a wall of resistance, causing that progress to ricochet off that wall and thrown back ten, twenty, and even thirty years back (some might say more years than that).

However, that, again, is the history of this country. The difference this time is that a significant demographic of this country has grown up only knowing the excellent progress, with freedoms that they expect every day of their lives. They don’t know any other condition. They are shocked that some Americans want to take them back to the Stone Age. I can hear them scream, “Oh, hell no.”

So, you have three jobs over the next nearly three months. One is to continue to batter away at that fragile, narcissistic orange man who is clueless when it comes to public policy. All he knows about policy is what the manipulators behind him tell him to think. He thinks and talks with slogans, insults, memes, and name-calling. You will not receive from him a long-winded political and intellectual policy discussion. It doesn’t fit the requirements of a well-produced reality show where conflict and throw-down cat-fighting are the critical elements for a ratings-getter.

Second, forget about the idea that you are going to unite the country in less than three months. The MAGA, the progressives, the independents, and the moderates will all see the light and gather together and shout Kumbaya. Yeah, that ain’t going to happen. I’m sure your campaign strategists understand the mechanisms and paths to victory. You’re going to need to unite the Democratic base, the Republicans who have had enough of Trump, and the independents who are just looking for a reason not to vote. You must give them a damn good one, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll peel off enough of those folks who suddenly realize that America cannot go backward and that all that talk about the other is a tactic that should be relegated to the dustbin of history. I can only hope.

Lastly, and I know you understand this clearly from your own life experience, this nation went into a tailspin of racism and xenophobia when Barack Obama was elected. The Tea Party found its voice in his election. Now, here is a woman whose ancestry is Black and Indian, and you want us to believe that it is possible that even after the election of Donald Trump, America is ready for you? Even with a white guy at your side, that is one tall order. In the coming days and weeks, you’re going to need to unfrighten many people (OMG, if we elect her, that means more will follow. What’s next, a Black Asian Hispanic?), convince them that there are more pressing issues for all Americans that we must focus on, from education to labor rights to access to healthcare to reproductive rights to the environment and a longer list than I can print here.

The message must be reassuring yet firm, comforting but non-threatening, professional but human, and most importantly, we all want to be guaranteed that you and Tim can do the job better than the Orange Man, not only by pointing to his disastrous work experience but by pointing to your and Tim’s resume of experience and accomplishments. Breaking through the echo channels where disinformation and conspiracies live will be challenging. I want to believe that even in these lying times, the truth will always break through if we push enough, scream it loud enough, and bounce it off the walls enough.

I hope so…for the sake of all our futures as Americans.