We Are So Sorry

Dear rest of the world,

Yes, many of the citizens of the United States are mortified — truly embarrassed — that Trump is our President. We did not vote him into office the way most democracies do: via popular vote. We have a really silly system that was intended to make sure that the smaller states “had a voice”, but has been corrupted by one party to draw areas that look like absurd jigsaw puzzle pieces so that they can win specific states and they can sway the system.

And, like many countries in the world, I’m sure you know, Russia got involved. They messed with messaging, creating false identities on social media that got to Aunt Jane, cousin Steve, and Uncle Bubba, gave inside information to the campaign, and did all kinds of things that we aren’t even sure about to make sure he got into office. We aren’t sure they didn’t actually mess with the vote count itself. His party also made sure that black people and other people of color did not get to vote. They did this by removing convenient voting places, unregistering voters without their knowing, and creating other laws intended to intimidate them.

But back to my point. We know that he’s an international embarrassment. Shoving other world leaders like a playground bully to get to stand in the front of the photo op was one thing, but pandering to authoritarian world leaders, and being manipulated by the same by mere flattery is just sad, particularly If they have nuclear weapons we want them to get rid of. We know they laugh at him behind his back. We see how he has divided our country into two groups: the America that still believes in the true dream of equality for all, and “the sky is the limit” for anyone who wants it, vs. “white people rule this place, and that’s all who matter (we work the hardest) — everyone else can shove it”. That last thing I wrote in parenthesis is ridiculous, but I had to write it, because you’d be surprised how often I read or hear a version of blaming people of color for being disadvantaged.

He also stokes hate against LGBTQ people, and isn’t actually religious, but pretends he’s Christian and stokes hate against non-Christians to get political favor.

He has actually also destabilized the world’s economy because of his racism and competitiveness with Obama, his predecessor. He removed almost all of the financial controls designed to prevent the kind of crisis we experienced in 2008. What he claims is economic success is riding the coattails of Obama, while dismantling the coat. It’s going to lead us into another disaster, and the economists are alarmed, to say the least.

We are currently mortified by his response to Covid-19. We know that he keeps changing the lie he tells about it, and is now just pretending it doesn’t exist, to the point of having dangerous gatherings with thousands of people, and discouraging them from wearing masks, but making them sign something that says he’s not responsible if they get sick or die. We have watched him do almost everything he could do to make this as bad as possible. He tried to line his pockets and let his friends’ profit, rather than take charge of the pandemic in America. So, our pandemic gets worse every day, and the most reasonable people are still hunkered down after about 100 days (the first day we realized how scary and serious this was).

We now know that we should have been in quarantine since February, and that our President decided to dismantle the organization that would have had the medical equipment and adequate amounts of protective gear for our medical workers to treat what was coming, and that all of this could have been managed so much better. We would be where much of Europe is now, had he done the right thing, instead of ignoring the experts.

We are sad that, unlike Angela Merkel, who is an actual scientist, he thinks that science is an opinion. Because, until there is a vaccine, we will be playing a silly game, in which the virus pops up all over the country, and people continue to die. As one of our infectious disease experts, Dr. Michael Osterholm, said recently, “I think this is more like a forest fire. I don’t think this is going to slow down. … I think that wherever there is wood to burn, this fire is going to burn, and right now we have a lot of susceptible people.” We know that we are not in a first or second wave, and we are terrified. We wear masks and don’t see people we love, up close.

We know our country looks ridiculous, and we are scared.