President Trump,
I wonder how much pain you’re willing to cause America.
Apparently, more than you already have.
It isn’t
enough that you have spent every waking moment of the past four years
manufacturing urgency for this nation, that you have continually
appealed to the very worst nature of your followers; weaponizing them
against their neighbors, friends, family members, and strangers.
It isn’t
enough that you have perpetually trafficked in lies, when the truth
would have been much simpler and much less fraught with suffering and
sickness; that you were almost habitually allergic to honesty even when
honesty would have greatly benefited you.
It isn’t
enough that you have steadily stoked the fires of racism, that you have
courted wild conspiracy, that you’ve never once taken the path of
maturity, compassion, and sober judgment in stewarding this nation.
It isn’t
enough that you have been so guilty of presidential malpractice, that
you have inexplicably made a public health crisis a partisan event,
allowing a quarter of a million Americans to die, many of them
needlessly—one that you are currently simply ignoring.
And now,
after all that, you’ve chosen to do something far worse as your swan
song: to go to war with the very bedrock of this nation: a free and fair
election by the people—simply because you cannot live with what they
are telling you.
You
are indicting a process that you spent months poisoning and polluting
and sabotaging, when even those unprecedented efforts to create chaos
and silence voters would not deter a record number of Americans from
telling you that you are not worthy to lead them.
You are revealing your character in these moments.
A decent man would honor the unequivocal and clear will of the people.
A decent man would concede with dignity immediately in order to allow calm to prevail.
A decent man would agree to a peaceful transfer of power, as every previous outgoing president has.
A decent man
would look at a nation ravaged by a pandemic, devastated by job loss,
and exhausted from internal strife—and decide to end his tenure here by
finally, for the first time, doing something selfless.
But you are not a decent man by any measurement, and that is simply not your way. You
are incapable of the elemental goodness that even the most malevolent
people are eventually able to tap into when called upon by moments of
gravity and consequence.
I should have known it would end this way.
This is
who you have always been: a man lacking a single noble instinct or
humane impulse; a completely parasitic presence who only takes from
things it attaches itself to, leaving them less healthy and less viable
than before.
Your ornamental America First rhetoric is burning up in the presence of your caustic conduct right now.
You have
never loved this nation or cared for its people, because if you had and
if you did, you would be an adult man and a true leader, and admit
defeat and allow this nation to begin to heal and recover. Instead
you incite violence and stir your unhinged base and speak reckless,
incendiary lies that will only serve to injure more people and try and
avoid your eventual departure.
And make no mistake, that departure is imminent.
You are leaving.
The American people have made that clear.
Every president before you has honored that.
And whether you like or not, you will, too.
It’s just really sad that you couldn’t take this moment and finally become a better version of yourself;
that instead
of being a source of stability and strength for this disaster-battered
nation, that you would make your final days here ones marked by
unnecessary suffering and manufactured sorrow;
that in one
more traitorous, belligerent salvo, you will assail the very heart of
democracy in order to defend your brittle, fragile ego.
History
is recording the truth: that you will have caused more injury to America
and its people than any of the men who have served the office you hold
and will shortly be removed from. You will have even done more destruction to our sovereignty and safety than any imagined foreign threat. That, you cannot spin or gaslight or lie your way out of.
Joe Biden is going to be our next president.
You will soon be leaving, Mr. President.
And sadly, it looks as though you will leave the way you have led and the way you have lived your entire life: disgracefully.
It’s
simply a national tragedy that all the previous damage you’ve done and
all the wounds you have inflicted on America and its people were not
enough for you.
John Pavlovitz, November 2020
