Trump it is. (Or, Hillbillies Need No Elegy, but America as We Know it Might.)

Dear Friend,

You’re feeling a lot better than I am today, so I figure it might not be the worst time to ask you for a favor or two. It might also be a good time to remember that bridge-building is sometimes messy work, and that kindness does not preclude anger and heartache, both of which I’m feeling today. In your celebratory state, I will trust you to hold my fear and anger lovingly, even if it makes you feel somewhat angry in return. One of the central tenets of this project is that we do NOT shy away from the real or the hard. There is no other way.

So, firstly. In addition to CNN and MSNBC, I watched Fox News last night as the returns came in. The thing I kept hearing on Fox was that this was a particularly sweet victory for Donald Trump and the Republicans (“karma,” someone said) for reasons having to do with the “witch hunt,” and the ways in which Democrats and left-leaning people like me spent years dragging Donald Trump over the coals in ways that were unjust and unfair.

There are times when I fail to listen, to be sure. But this is one instance in which my friends on the right are failing to hear me about this: In much the same way I think Bill Clinton committed an impeachable offense all those years ago, I feel very strongly that Donald Trump committed not one but two impeachable offenses while in office. I feel similarly about the lawsuits brought against him, all of which I have taken great pains to follow and understand. (Hello, Lawfare.) President Trump, like President Clinton once upon a time, was the most powerful man in the world. The President of the United States must be held to the highest standard. Donald Trump abused his power and committed offenses that put our national security at risk in no uncertain terms, again and again. This, to me, is disqualifying.

You may not agree. But I beg you to stop dismissing my very real concerns as nothing more than a politically motivated and frivolous witch hunt. To have my concerns dismissed again and again is more discouraging than I can express.

Secondly. I’ve been writing to you for over a year now. I get messages and comments, some nasty, some nice, but I have yet to get a long form letter in return and, friend, now is the time. I need you.

I need you to help me to understand: why this man? There were so many potential Republican candidates who share your values and reflect your politics; candidates who would fight for the unborn (and who are, frankly, much more committed to that cause than Donald Trump has ever been) and who would work to secure the border. And yet, you chose this man who is, by any measure, particularly offensive. No one denies that Donald Trump plays fast and loose with the truth, or that he has trotted out the most damaging and explicitly racist trope in existence by suggesting that non-white immigrants have “bad genes.” It’s no secret that it is precisely this brand of racism that puts the lives of black and brown children at very real risk. So why him? Why not choose the candidate who wants to protect the unborn as well as our borders, but who does so minus the basest form of racism and dehumanization? Why? I have my theories, but need your help to flesh them out.

And finally, why, friend, why choose the man who tried to steal an election four years ago? Why choose the man who tried to topple our democracy? You must now know for sure: The Dems did not steal the election this year when they were already in power, and they surely didn’t steal the election in 2020 when they weren’t in power. Maybe, at the very least, we can put aside that bit of fiction once and for all, though it will be of little comfort now that you're faced with the reality I’ve been staring down all these years: If Biden didn’t try to steal the election, Trump obviously did. If there was no fraud, Trump, his henchmen, and the J6rs (including some good men and women who have been duped into thinking they were doing the right thing) tried to bully, coerce and threaten state reps and election officials, not to mention then Vice President Mike Pence, into breaking the law so they could stay in power. Four years ago, good men and women, most of them Republican, held the line for reasons having to do with patriotism and faith. Real patriots served as guardrails.

But the guardrails are gone. Who will save us now? If I were you, this alone would keep me up at night. I’ll keep you company.

I’m not sure where to go from here. While bridge-building will always be at the heart of my work, it is time now to prioritize other things. We must turn our attention to harm reduction. For whom?

1.      My children. This morning, I had to tell my beloved daughter that, in my opinion, she and her wife should stay in the UK, where they now live, to have their babies. God forbid they have a high-risk pregnancy in the US. They are safer there. I can’t begin to express my heartache around that conversation. And what of other women who don’t have that option? We must do what we can now to protect them.  

2.      Our gay and trans friends, who will now be pushed further to the margins and whose lives are more at risk than before due to the explicit bigotry that has been unleashed upon them. We must do what we can now to protect them.  

3.      Black, activist women. I’m sorry. I’m sorry the backlash is not over. We will keep fighting right beside you, and when you get tired we will pick up the slack.

4.      Young families, who will continue to suffer from the housing crisis. Wallstreet firms are now the country’s biggest landlords, and Harris’s plan to build three million new homes and rein them in will now never see the light of day.

5.      Our immigrant friends. The millions of immigrants Trump plans to cage and deport (both those who are here illegally and some who are not, if he is to be believed), are not nameless, faceless villains in some b rated, shoot ‘em up. They are real people – mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, who came here for a better life just as our ancestors did once upon a time. The vast majority of them are hardworking and extraordinarily family oriented, as I discovered firsthand when I wrote not one but two docudramas about immigrants in this country. Trump has willfully ignored the data and so successfully poisoned the image of the immigrant that millions of brown and black children are demonstratively less safe than they were before he set his malevolent sights on them. But his outright lies; his fear-mongering and racism cannot erase the goodness and light and economic benefit immigrants bring to our country. We must protect them now.

I just watched Kamala Harris’s concession speech. Her speech represents the America I want. So I will keep writing, keep fighting. What choice do we have?

And I’ll keep reaching across the divide, even when I’m scared and angry. I hope you will too. We’re going to need each other in the coming years.

Love,

Sara

PS. Write me back, whoever you are! A long letter, a quick note. I'd love to hear from you.

sarasharpelamance@gmail.com