An Open Letter to the President..

Dear President Trump,

I am not sure why I am writing you. I have a lot of concerns I’d like to share. I want you to know how afraid I am. How angry I am. I want you to know the things I care about and the things that matter to me – and to many, many other citizens in this nation you now lead. But I’m not sure why I’m writing you because I have had no indication that you listen to anyone other than whoever is flattering you and in the room at any given moment. I don’t trust your capacity to care about anything but yourself. I don’t trust in your ability to think in abstracts or to argue rationally from different points of view. But I’m writing you anyway.

I am writing like I am marching. And calling my senators and representatives. And demanding town hall meetings. Why am I doing this? Writing to you might not change anything, but all of us doing all these things together will. And because I think you and many who have been hired by the electorate have it all wrong. Being elected is not a sacred anointing. It is the collective body hiring a temp. You are not king or god or even patriarch. You are a flawed human being with a very large job to do and, frankly, you are doing it poorly.

The thing I am finding the most difficult to understand about you and about the GOP agenda in general is your obvious disregard for the health and wellbeing of the nation. Here are some questions I would really like an answer to:

How will reducing our access to healthcare make us better able to compete in the world market?

If you are going to privatize healthcare, why are you against raising the minimum wage to a living wage so that people have an outside chance of affording it?

How will privatizing education bring up the entire population, making us a better workforce and a better place to live, a better community, and a better able to innovate?

How will demonizing portions of the population bring us together as a nation? And how does that demonization reflect our values?

How does raping our environment protect our children, our food sources, our future? Is breathing clean air at all important to you? How about drinking uncontaminated water?

How is it that you only value the amazing gift of our public lands and national parks as unexploited business opportunities?

How is it that the forward movement of human rights and dignity, whose inception was the centerpiece of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, be refuted in favor of anti-Semitic, anti-people of color, anti-women, anti-LGBT, anti-disabled, anti-immigrant, anti-refugee factions that are a gross minority in this country? Why are you giving voice to hatred and division?

I want to know. Most of all I want to know how to stop you. I’m pretty sure you won’t tell me that but I’m pretty sure that I will. Me and millions of my friends. Because whether or not you to listen to me, the voting booth does. I only pray it is while we can still recognize ourselves.

Sincerely,

The Rev. Connie Tuttle