Dear President-Elect Trump,
You’ve always fancied yourself as a straight-shooter so I’ll shoot straight with you: I’m not your biggest fan.
For the past year I’ve made my concerns about the person you are, the campaign you ran, and the threat I believed you’d be to our country if elected, abundantly clear. But the Electoral Collage has awarded you the title you sought, and soon you will be in the highest position of leadership in my country.
And I don’t want you to blow it.
A mere two days after the election, you’ve already taken to Twitter to lament the “unfairness” of those protesting against you.
And this is what concerns me: not that the soon-to-be Leader of the Free World would be tweeting his personal knee-jerk thoughts to the nation like a frustrated, attention-seeking ninth grader (though this would be alarming for most rational people.) It’s that in the face of widely documented cases of young children, teenagers, women, and men being subjecting to violence, harassment, and bullying at their schools, homes, places of business, and while simply going about their day, by those whose bigotry has been directly fanned by your words and your campaign—you are stunningly silent.
No statements.
No bold diatribes.
No emotional Tweets.
Nothing.
You have already spoken out against a perceived slight against your own feelings, about a hit to your ego, and completely ignored the tangible suffering of the American people happening in your name this very minute. You’re already using your power and position to imagine yourself the victim while nurturing national resentment toward a segment of the population already grieving and feeling voiceless.
And this is the fear of more than half the country and the reason those people did not vote for you. It’s the reason I did not. I don’t believe that you’ll protect us. I think you will leave a great portion of our people vulnerable and exposed and without defense.
While you may love America as some lofty, elusive idea in your mind—I don’t think you love all Americans. I believe you have disregard for many of us. I believe you have contempt for many of us. I believe you will actively and willfully do damage to us.
And here’s the thing Mr. President-Elect: I so want to be wrong about you.
Nothing would give me greater joy than to look back on these next four years, and to realize that despite your terrible history with women, and despite your incredibly harmful rhetoric during the campaign, and despite every vicious and irresponsible statement you’ve made—that you surprised me with your maturity and dignity and compassion and restraint.
I want nothing more than to see you rise up to the moment, and become someone who right now I don’t think you can be.
So the question I have for you, President-Elect is: Will you prove me wrong?
Will you protect all Americans?
Will you openly condemn the acts of violence and intimidation against people of color, the gay community, Transgender individuals, the Muslim community, and against women that are taking place right now?
Will you disavow racist graffiti made in your name?
Is taunting of Hispanic school children unacceptable to you?
Is threatening black teenagers with slavery, what you meant by making America great?
Is bullying based on someone’s gender identity and sexual orientation acceptable?
Will you reassure those who are afraid right now, that you will not do them harm?
Will you state, with as much candor and directness and repetition as you have about so many other things—that you will not tolerate hatred by Americans toward their neighbors?
I’m a Christian. (It’s been reported that you are too, though again I am not sure about that either based on what I can see from a distance.) My faith compels me to try and see the best in people, to look for the image of God within them, to remember their inherent goodness despite all appearances to the contrary.
I’m trying really hard to do that right now with you, Mr. President-Elect.
I’m trying to do that with those who voted for you.
I’m trying to do that even for those who are using this moment in history as a reason to purge America of those who don’t look or talk or think or worship or love the way they do.
I’m relying on every fiber of that faith to give you a fair chance to be a leader, not just for white Americans, but for all Americans. I’m praying that you will become a man who deserves the title you have received and the nation you’ve been entrusted with, and that you will embrace the full breadth of America’s diversity in ways you have not yet. I am praying that you will not let people of color or the LGBTQ community or the Muslim community or women or Jewish people become terrified of their own homeland. I’m praying that you become part of a really welcomed plot-twist for this country.
And that’s the beauty of all of this, Mr President-Elect: You get to choose now. You get to walk into the gravity of the moment and the magnitude of the office and you get to define your Presidency.
You get to prove those who are fearful now, wrong.
You get to prove those who feel they will be left without protection, wrong.
You get to prove the bigots and racists who believe they now have carte blanche to destroy their fellow Americans, wrong.
And you get to prove me wrong.
Please prove me wrong, Mr. President-Elect.
It would be the greatest and most life-giving surprise of my life to be wrong right now.
I don’t want you to make America great, I want you to contribute to its goodness. I want you to see and defend the goodness in all of its people.
I’ll be watching. History will be, too.
Your move.
