A letter to our president on Presidents’ Day

Yes, I am writing this Presidents’ Day letter to our current president. And yes, I recognize that this letter is the tiniest howl into the gale force wind of his evil and murderous regime. But I am writing this not to appeal to his humanity, which is in such short supply that I doubt I could find it. Instead I write to affirm my own humanity. I never want to resign myself to despair or accept that this is all our country’s leadership has to offer us. I never want to give up on holding this administration accountable to the harm it’s causing. And I want to speak up for the children who will bear the greatest brunt of this harm, and for those who are already bearing it. So here goes.

Dear President Trump,

I suspect you have entered into this Presidents’ Day thinking we should be celebrating you. After all, you cannot imagine a world where you are not the center of the universe, and in that universe everyone else exists solely as an extension of your own needs. And you sure are good at punishing anyone who doesn’t subscribe to that endlessly egocentric point of view. But it seems to me that a holiday marking public figures should be less about who those people are and more about what they have done. So, let’s talk a bit about what you have done. And let’s think about your accomplishments specifically as they impact our children — and our future. After all it was just this past November when you had the following to say at an event about foster children: “The Bible tells us that one of the measures of any society is how it cares for vulnerable children and orphans. So important and it is so big in the Bible.”

Sadly, it’s not been so big in your administration.

Let’s start with some of the policies that are already negatively impacting kids, though I can’t possibly cover them all — they are too numerous to count. There are the billions of dollars of cuts in spending to Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) through that big awful bill you passed last year, guaranteeing that more families will lose the ability to provide adequate health care to their children. And speaking of that big awful bill, those changes in SNAP eligibility you stuffed in there will cause around two million recipients to stop receiving food assistance, including kids aging out of foster care. You know, those foster children you vowed to protect at that November event? According to that bill of yours they apparently don’t need to eat once they age out of state care. Then there was the closing of Head Start offices in cities across the country, leaving 41 percent of Head Start grantees without a regional office to support their educational work with our youngest learners.

And there is so much more to cover. Your vow to protect vulnerable children is sure interesting given the cuts in funding to school lunches and school based mental health programs. You seem quite hell bent on dismantling the entire Department of Education too, and I’m not seeing how kids can thrive in the world without access to quality education. Then there’s the widespread disruption of grants that address the leading killer of children and teens: gun violence. And… let’s not get started on you unleashing RFK, Jr to attack every vaccine known to keep our children healthy, paving the way for measles outbreaks across the country. Because if I get started on all that, you might hear my primal scream travel all the way from Massachusetts to the partially demolished White House you occupy.

But it isn’t just the policies you champion, which prioritize the wallets of your cronies over the children of your country. It’s the example you set every time you open your mouth or your Truth Social account. It’s the way you show our youth that you can lie with abandon and abuse without consequence. How you demonstrate that bullying is a go to behavior and anger is a first emotion. How in your world it’s totally fine to classify the entirety of another country’s population as rapists (I stagger under the weight of that irony) or low IQ people, or that it’s okay to spread vile racist lies that immigrants are eating pets. That you can do any of these things and still hold a position of power, one that continues to give you immense power to hurt even more people. And of course, you once famously said you can do anything you want to women when you are a “star”, a statement even more horrifying now that you’ve been found liable for rape, and found in the Epstein files far more times than the number of days you’ve been president.

You are telling our young people to go ahead and be as abusive as they want. That you can do that and still have people fall over themselves to please you in a desperate attempt to stay out of the line of your fire. And you are also telling them that if they are the ones being abused that they shouldn’t expect any accountability. As someone who has spent many years teaching youth about what it means to have a healthy relationship, I see what you are modeling for our youth and I am horrified by it.

Then there are the opportunities you take from our youth. From the books your followers ban to the history lessons they erase, you are giving our kids a world that is narrower, more ignorant, and just downright meaner. You are teaching them that diversity is a weakness and difference is a threat. You are showing our kids that “me” is always more important than “we”, and I fear that we the people will be all the worse for it. You do not realize — or care to realize — that diversity is an opportunity: for growth; for learning; and for the broadening of horizons. It’s an opportunity to experience a range of cultures and food, music and traditions, and experiences one would never have in an insular existence. How very sad that you are trying to take this all away from our future generations.

I am not done yet, President Trump. I have to talk about the children you have already actively hurt. The trans kids you demonize, giving the transphobic bullies a wink and nod while taking away the life saving health care they need. The alarming number of kids becoming homeless under your watch. And the children you have abducted, detained, and deported — separating them from their communities and caging them in hellish conditions. Kids like five year old Liam Conejo Ramos, who wakes up screaming after his experience being in ICE custody. Kids who run from their school bus because of ICE and kids who wonder if their disappeared parents will ever return home. You may not like these kids. You may actually despise kids who are trans or poor or from immigrant families. But that doesn’t change the fact that they are kids in need of our protection and care. But under your wrathful regime, they are instead made way more vulnerable. They live in fear, wondering what will happen to them here in the land of the “free”. And I bet you don’t know — or care — much about the impact of constant fear on a developing brain. It’s devastating. Devastating and tragic when you also know that it’s preventable.

And President Trump, here’s the thing. None of this has to be this way. You don’t have to terrorize these kids. You don’t have to show them at every turn what it’s like to be an abuser and what it’s like to feel abused. It really doesn’t have to be like this.

But I know you’re not going to change. You’re demonstrably not capable of it. You clearly missed those lessons parents teach their kids about not hurting others and apologizing if you do hurt someone. And I am under no illusion that you are going to ever see my diatribe, or that you’d care about its contents if you did. I’m not writing this for you. I am writing this with some hope that maybe, just maybe, someone who still supports you might see this and rethink their support. Also super unlikely, so here’s another hope. Maybe someone who used to support you might see this and feel validated in their choice to turn away from you. Or maybe someone who has been sitting on the sidelines thinking politics isn’t their thing will see that your politics are killing our kids and feel inspired to get involved. More likely, the folks who already well understand the impact of your pervasive hate will consume my words and feel motivated to keep fighting the fight. Or know that I am fighting with them.

I am not writing this for you. Ultimately, I am writing this for me. To discharge my rage at what you are doing — my rage at you. To confront your inhumanity while grounded in my own humanity. To remind myself why I get up every single day committed to building a world that you are desperately trying to tear down.

I write and I rage at you, President Trump, on this day that is somehow meant to inspire me to celebrate our past presidents. I will not celebrate. I will commemorate and remember. I will honor the kids you have harmed and do my damdest to protect them from future harm. And I will commit myself to building a world that is safer and more just for my children, and for everyone else’s children too.

Which, when you think of it, really is what a president should do. I cannot think of any part of your job that is more important than building a country that is safe and just for our children. All of our children. That should be a core value and a guiding principle. What a damn shame that will never be the case for you.