The Open Letter Denouncing Trump You’re Going to Read on Facebook for the Next Four Months

As a tech executive/low-level Republican staffer/former head of a neutral-sounding government agency/sports writer, I can no longer stay silent as Donald Trump's campaign for the Office of the President of the United States of America devolves into a self-promotional farce—which is why I need everyone to pay attention to me. For I am doing the best thing anyone in my position could conceivably do: I'm writing an open letter to nobody in particular saying that Donald Trump is bad. And I'm posting it on my personal blog that no one has ever read, or hadn't until you clicked on this post that someone's aunt shared on Facebook. I hope you find the minimalist design to your liking.

I will begin by establishing my bona fides, so that you know I'm a measured and thoughtful individual—not some partisan Democrat—because, otherwise, why would you care? I've supported Republicans in the past and hope to do so in the future. I believe in small but vigorous government, not one of those big, lethargic governments like they have in Venezuela or Canada. I empathize with rural conservatives who feel left behind by the global economy as a way to humblebrag about how poor my dad was. I even built a modest wall around my house (it's a picket fence, but still). In short, I need you to understand that I'm one of those socially liberal, fiscally conservative types—the kind of person who really should be voting Republican. But not (wait for it) this time.

Before I really get going here, I should make it clear that I don't mean to demonize Trump supporters for being on the side of this person whom I have been moved to vehemently denounce. After all, Trump has tapped into righteous anger, which is the best kind of anger because it's someone else's fault. I don't think it's going too far to say that we've all learned a valuable lesson about everyday Americans facing troubled times—a vague lesson that also applies to Brexit, but I'm not going to get into how these things are similar. I just felt obligated to mention Brexit.

In a bold move, I blame the élites. If they didn't want Trump, they should have simply solved all of everyone's problems already.

Alas, with the weariness of a man who climbed Everest, forgot his phone on the summit, and so climbed it again only to find the phone in his pocket, I must now list Donald Trump's offenses in a way designed to make it crystal clear that I get that it's bad when Donald Trump says that Mexicans are rapists or that they can't be judges or hockey players or whatever. And I must punctuate this list with opinions stated in the first person plural, because Donald Trump doesn't represent what "we" believe as Americans.

I ruefully continue now, with a combination of hyperbole and starkly overly simplistic statements designed to stop you in your tracks. Donald Trump is the worst thing to happen to democracy since ... I mean, I know I shouldn't make comparisons to Weimar Germany, but it's not not different. Donald Trump is a greed-monster of doom, doing everything he can to destroy the institutions that our fine country was built on.

Donald Trump isn't just a bad candidate, he's an existential threat to the United States.

Donald Trump is a racist thug.

Yeah, that's right. I said it.

I bet that putting those sentences in their own paragraphs drew your attention to the brutal truth bombs I just dropped on you. Any of them would make a pretty good pull quote for any blog posts that you might write about this blog post.

That's correct, I have now nearly finished a letter in which I called Donald Trump a "racist thug" and an "existential threat." I hope that, in concert with my reputation as a smart, thoughtful person who has no history of saying that sort of thing, it really goes to show how I am taking the Trump threat very seriously by saying that sort of thing.

I must end with something along the lines of: I normally would not get involved in political discourse, but Trump is different. So different that he made me—me!—feel the need to say something. And that's a really, really big deal. Which, I guess, means that I'm a really big deal, if you think about it.


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