Dear President Donald J. Trump,

What the hell are you thinking? Look, it’s no secret that I am not a fan of yours. I didn’t vote for you in 2016 or 2024. I was shocked but not surprised by the January 6 rebellion. Since I know quite a bit about your personal and professional background (I’m an ex-New Yorker), and having been mentored by Roy Marcus Cohn, I understand why you are the way you are. 

Don’t give an inch to your enemies. Enrich yourself at the expense of everyone else. Use hate and xenophobia to divide Americans while you loot the treasury, and to hell with the collateral damage.

I truly get it.

The right wing of the United States Supreme Court has allowed you to believe you can do whatever you like in pursuit of your mission. Hey, I might think the same. 

However, if I may offer a prediction from just another citizen of a Blue State and a lifelong Democrat (maybe not for much longer if they don’t grow some cojones): all this atmosphere of hatred, vitriol, power-mongering, and disinformation—both domestic and foreign—is pushing this nation into one of its worst times since the Civil War.

I hear you. You don’t care.

As an aside, to give you some context, please read recent essays, The Ministry of Lies and A Mob of Sheep.

Yes, I am baffled that we as a nation have reached this point as we prepare to celebrate the 250^th birthday of the call for independence next year. We, well at least some of us, are concerned about the future of democracy, or at least what we think is democracy. Mister President (can I call you Donnie?), you are the most significant obstacle to that effort. 

You and the one percent who think you are actually going to look out for their interests.

What really bothers me is that, in the effort to stop you, I have to defend an economic system that has gone out of control, creating a wealth gap so huge that even conservative commentator Bret Stephens admits it in his column, “How Capitalism Went Off the Rails.” 

Seriously, yes, we save democracy, but at what cost? Who cares if all we end up with is the same democracy, the same unequal economic system, and a country where people are at each other’s throats?

Crazy, man.

I admit, I’m part of the problem. One moment, I will advocate for rational dialogue with people who want to send me back to where I came from (I don’t want to go back to the South Bronx, though I hear it’s gentrifying nicely these days). The next moment, I’m not above calling down a swarm of locusts and meteors on those same folks. 

They want me gone, and I want them to leave.

Somehow, some way, we need to step back and acknowledge that, while many Americans are fighting each other thanks to you, threatening to wipe each other out in an orgy of violence and political strife, the real beneficiaries of this conflict are sitting back and waiting for the perfect moment to swoop in and claim their prize. 

(I’m talking about you if you haven’t figured this out yet.)

The power-hungry, Wall Street merchants, K Street loyalists, multi-national corporations, ultra-rich eager for another tax break that benefits them, and others who will gloat over the carcass left when we finish tearing each other apart. 

I know it sounds like a crazy, paranoid, conspiracy-filled rant, but take a step back and think this through. Even your feeble mind can answer the question, “Who will be the real winners of a coming civil war?” 

It will not be the weak, the poor, the working-class folks, or members of the vast dispossessed classes who are struggling for that ten-cent off coupon and kneeling in prayer for that lotto ticket that’s been burning a hole in their pocket for days to suddenly soar into the stratosphere and reward them with millions in bucks, only to have half taken away by the IRS, state, and local governments to fund tax credits for downtown developments that will only benefit some crony developer who gave just the right amount of political donation to the right candidate for the right political office. 

This depressing, critical view of our political landscape has left me wondering, what the hell?

I know you’re proud of this, but the truth is that for many of us, this is a watershed moment in the last hundred years of history, when all the progressive struggles and advances are threatened by you, your House of Representatives, Senate, and Supreme Court. 

Vanishing before our eyes are the rights of all workers (regardless of color), women, and those being been battered by the economic winds of an out-of-control capitalist system.

If we could see the bigger picture—the forest for the trees, the pebbles in the desert sands, the one silent moment in history outside the noise of the shouting crowd—we would realize that the future can be different and that we have the power to change what we have taken for granted for too long.

(Most Americans Say There Is Too Much Economic Inequality in the U.S., but Fewer Than Half Call It a Top Priority).

We like to cling to the old story that we are a freedom-loving, patriotic, fair, and exceptional United States of America, where we are a community of equals looking out for each other. The truth (no, not your truth) is that the other 99% are being fooled into thinking that the rich and powerful will give them a hand, a dime, or a piece of the American Pie they promise in the Yankee Doodle Dandy Betsy Ross flag-waving star-spangled banner over America the Beautiful. 

Here’s my advice to that 99%: Stop dreaming. Please wake up, wake up, before we’re all through (a nod to The Last Poets). Because the revolution isn’t what you think it is, and we don’t have time for a civil war.

I know you don’t believe it, but there have been other times in our history that were just as dark, if not darker (though you might say this one’s the worst if not close to it), when people finally woke (yeah, woke) up and shouted Basta Ya, Enough. 

I wish you a long life so you can see the day you get your comeuppance.

Sincerely yours,

A lowly seventy-six-year-old brown American Citizen writer

P.S. I carry proof of my citizenship at all times.