Dear…, ”began the three-page, double-spaced typewritten letter from the White House addressed to a person I know.
“I know you are someone I can count on to tell me the truth …
“That’s why I am reaching out directly to men and women like you to get your input and ask you to serve as part of our grassroots leadership team.
“So please don’t delay. Complete the enclosed Presidential Advisory Board State of the Nation Survey and return it to me with your contribution of $25, $50, $100, $250, $500 or even $1,000 to the Republican National Committee as soon as you can …
“The future of the Presidency, and our entire country, depends on the success of the RNC’s efforts to build our party and prepare for the next critical election.
“And we cannot afford to wait until next year to start fighting back against the aggressive, nasty attacks from the two dozen Democrats running for President, as well as the kooky socialist policy proposals put out by radical leftist Democrats in Congress
“The Democrats and their liberal special interest allies, with the help of their lapdogs in the biased media are trying to create a phony, negative “narrative” that our nation is headed in the wrong direction.
“And what do they base their accusations on? They quote the same “experts,” who worked for the Obama Administration, and the failed pollsters that wrote off my campaign that I never won the White House.
“Can you believe that? We can’t let them get away with it …
“Since I took the Oath of Office on January 20, 2017, I’ve been working incredibly hard to bring accountability to the federal government and to get the bureaucrats out of the way so our economy can grow and create jobs.
“For too long the federal government and the people who work for it forgot that THEY work for you, not the other way around. Not anymore.
“I ran for President to fight for the American people. My victories are your victories.
“So many BIG WINS for America.”
“But liberal Democrats in Washington, D.C., Iike Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, aren’t happy, and their pals in the liberal media don’t even acknowledge our strong expanding economy, and the positive impact my policies …
“Rather than cheering for America’s victories, they grow more and more angry and aggressive every day.
“I’ve tried to reach out to Democrat leaders to ask for cooperation on issue after issue, and all I get in return are attacks on my Administration, my family, and me. They do not care at all about issues that need addressing, such as health care, border security and infrastructure.
“They are blinded by power, envy. They put politics before country. It is a disgrace.
“I cannot work with them when all they want is to accuse, investigate and interrogate. No President should have to deal with endless bitter, phony, politically-motivated attacks …
“I urgently need you to stand with me today.
“So please, send the enclosed survey along with your generous contribution . . . in the pre-addressed envelope provided. Your feedback will let me know how you feel – unfiltered by the Fake News and their biased polls.
“Thank you in advance for your steadfast support of my leadership and my agenda.’’
Sincerely
Donald J. Trump President of the United States.
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It is just as well that this letter, which reflects none too subtly the most disagreeable aspects of the Trump persona: his compulsive lying, his intolerance of dissent, his visceral disdain for anything associated, however tangentially, with his predecessor Barack Obama, his reading the darkest motives into the conduct of his opponents, his predilection for infantile name-calling, etc; etc, was not addressed directly to me.
If Trump suggests that you are someone he can count on to tell him the truth, you should ask your attorneys to explore the possibility of filing a defamation lawsuit against him. He is saying, in effect, that you are, or that he regards you as, a fellow-traveller for whom lying is a way of life. You do not need a Washington DC or New York lawyer billing $1,000 an hour to win the case.
The least I can do now is to try to respond to the letter, at least in part.
With the Donald, it is always about money. Hardly had he established his bonafides than he asked for donations to pursue his agenda – an agenda that will for all practical purposes do great harm to the person he is importuning, and for whom he has not the least regard anyway. If Trump had his way, he would whisk the person to the nearest detention camp, pending deportation.
Trump talks blithely about “the truth.” He urges his correspondent to tell him the truth. In Trumpworld, the truth is forever shifting. What he presents as the truth on a given day is most likely the precise opposite of what he had presented as the truth the previous day and will bear no resemblance still to what he will present as the truth the next day. It is a constant stream of lies, lies and more lies; lies big and small, lies vile and hurtful, disingenuous lies that would diminish even the local dog-catcher.
Trump lies about his finances, his academic record, his officials, the state of the economy, his golf game, his meetings with other world leaders and about his achievements that have in two years dwarfed the combined achievements of all previous U.S. presidents; he lies about the weather. Before Trump (BT), it was all darkness. After Trump (AT) it has been all light and sweetness and will continue to as long as he remains in charge.
And Trump goes about this marathon mendacity with a straight face, without remorse and without a twinge of conscience. He knows no other way. It has carried him to the pinnacle of wealth and power and influence. So, why bother? Why reconsider a way of life that has brought him to such dizzying heights, Leader of the Free World no less, this arch apostle of unfreedom?
Only those ignorant of the Trump’s record will sympathise with his claim that he has tried to reach out to Democrat leaders to ask for cooperation on issue after issue and that all he gets in return are attacks on his Administration, his family, and himself.
Cooperation with the Trump Administration on health care would require the Democrats to abandon the Affordable Health Care Act – President Barack Obama’s signature achievement which, with all its imperfections, made health insurance coverage available to more than 34 million previously uninsured persons.
Cooperation in the face of Trump’s serial law-breaking and contempt for the rule of law and due process would be subversive of the system of checks and balances that is the heart and soul of the Constitution of the United States.
This is a president who would rather believe Vladimir Putin’s denials than iron-clad evidence that Russian intelligence intervened in ways subversive of the American electoral process. And he did not even require any help from Senate Majority Leader Mitch “Moscow Mitch” McConnell to pull it off.
When he promotes a return to coal to please his wealthy donors than invest in clean energy, when he lowers or abolishes outright air and water pollution benchmarks set by his predecessors yet accuses them of putting politics before the country, you have to wonder whether he is not practically unconscious.
When I got to the part where Trump says: “Since I took the Oath of Office on January 20, 2017, I’ve been working incredibly hard to bring accountability to the federal government,” I had to go over his text again and again to be sure it was not a misprint.
Accountability, as in blockading his tax returns and records of his financial dealings and every document under subpoena, refusing to testify and preventing others from testifying, harassing court officials, and asserting absolute privilege over executive actions, harassing judges, The Donald is too far gone in his chicanery to pause and reflect.
And, by the way, who launched his Presidency two years ago on the narrative that the United States was mired in the vortex of a dystopia?
