Dear Mr. Trump, I do not hate you. In fact I can say that I truly don't hate anyone. I never was a huge fan of yours but I knew your name well enough that I was all excited to have you join the race.
You, I thought, represented the outsider. The one who would get down to business right away and fix the problems. On top of that you were the tabloid America. I was not much of a politics watcher but as soon as you joined in the fray, I was glued to the TV. I was on your side. I did not particularly like Hillary Clinton.
In fact I can be honest here and tell you that I disliked her for some reason. She just did not have an open and honest demeanor. I could not believe in anything she said or did. She was artificial and fake, I thought. I did not once think that my gender, my ethnicity, my race had anything of less value than the rest. You were the entertainer to me more than a business man. And I believed entertainer to be more open and far less judgemental than a seasoned politician.
Despite many views flying around me, despite the fact that I believed myself to be a democrat, I was all excited to vote for you. I told people to give you a chance. What did they have to lose, I told them. I, who rarely watched TV, now came home from work and was glued to the news channels. I did not like any of the other republicans in the primaries.
I did not even care what they said. They was all one, all politicians. And hence terrible. You were going to be different. At best he will make a change and at worst nothing will change, I told everyone. So why not vote for him? Because to me it was clear that with Hillary, nothing was going to change at all. So I sat glued to TV. Then one day you spoke about the Khan mother. Till the wall, I was all good. Wall should be made I thought. We have fenced border between India and Pakistan. So why not? So I was still with you while the people coming on TV were telling a different tale. I was still with you. I had come to this country legally. So do so many Indians for whom it is so tough to come here. Then why should anybody else be able to cross the border unnoticed?
So I rallied behind you. But then you spoke about a mother. A mother who was quiet not just because her son was dead but also because she was probably not as comfortable speaking publicly on a national stage. And by the way, how many times does Melania speak even one word when she is around you?
Mostly a Barbie doll by your side, she seems as nervous to speak as did that mother. I am not muslim. I am not afraid to speak my mind in a huge crowd. But I understand her. I understand her culture. I understand her emotions. I understand the partnership between the husband and wife that was displayed so beautifully between Khan parents.
But you spoke with doubt about her. My first ever recoil, I remember, came that day. I was confused. Why did you even have to mention her? What had she done to you? How was she relevant to you or your victory? I did not understand that at all. I was disappointed but still ready to forgive. I can not vote for Hillary. I don't like her. So I thought I am going to vote for trump. Win or not, why can't I vote for him. I just became a US citizen 2 years ago.
This would be my first year to vote in my lifetime. I came to this country at the age of 24 to do my residency in Internal Medicine. I came on a student visa. It took 19 long years to become a US citizen for me. I was not even sure how the voting process worked. But I was for you. And then came small blows. Sometimes tiny blows. I blew them off. But with each little erratic behavior of yours, I started feeling uncomfortable telling people that they should vote for Trump. Then came the big business loss of yours of 2015. And the absence of federal taxes in your tax return of last 18 some years. I was shocked. I had to pay hefty taxes and here he may have not paid it. But I heard that you did pay other taxes. So I wanted to still believe in you. And then came the first debate. The line that never left my head was When Hillary mentioned that you may have not paid taxes, you quipped in- that's being smart!! Smart?
You were smart because you did not pay federal tax. So by default that makes me dumb? I am dumb? So is everyone around me? How many people around me are dumb? Are we all dumb? I took that comment very seriously. A pattern soon started to emerge for me where you had absolutely no sense of what is ethical or unethical. That evening was the first time that I liked Hillary. I saw the perseverence of her in face of your constant bullying. Oh Dear Mr. Trump, I wish you had not shown your bully side in your first debate.
I wish you had controlled yourself and held all your bullish behavior for after the elections. Then you would have been able to keep my vote. I know you will say, you don't care for my vote. I know you will say I don't matter. I know you will call me names for being a brown skin or Hindu or whatever else you like to say to minorities or women. It will take one bomb to be exploded by an Indian Hindu before you will label all Indians as dangerous and terrorist. I am safe right now only because a fellow Hindu from india has not been misled by the extremists.
But I know such factions exist even in India, even among Hindus. But I do want to tell you Mr. Trump that despite being a physician, despite being a first generation immigrant, despite you hurling all accusations at Hispanics and Muslims, you still had my vote. You had not hurt me and my kind yet. I knew the things you had said about Rosie Odonell. I knew it was not right. But then all entertainers speak terribly about anybody they want to make a joke of in the name of comedy. Rosie was no saint either. So I was still going to vote for you. But that day on the first debate, you started to lose me. I could not wait for the second debate. I had to decide whom to vote for. After all I was neither a lifelong democrat or a republican. I was the swing vote. And then came this friday video. My rage on hearing the words- that you can grab a woman by her 'pussy' I can not even begin to describe you the depth and width of it. You are only one thing for me now- a groper. That's all.
I could have excused you if you had flirted even with a consenting woman in front of me. But I can not excuse a groper. You have used power and your star status to literally grope women. You have grabbed them by their pussy? So now I am not even a whole human being. All of us women are now mere pussies for you. Anyone who happens to be attractive you are going to grope them and plant your filthy lips on her without consent and start kissing her?
You are more than a bully to me. You are a groper. I don't care what Bill Clinton did. He is not going to be my president. I am not casting my ballot for him. I am not concerned how Hillary even tried to save her marriage by belittling the women who may have been her husband's sexual partners at some point. All I care about is that you did this all the time while you had no such excuse of saving your marriage or life. My daughter was groped at the tender age of 10 in India. And I put that guy in Jail myself.
I, this Indian woman who you may think is just culturally suppressed, held that man by his collar and held him so tight that he could not run and while no one on the streets helped me, I created enough noise that eventually in that chaos that is Bombay, the police did come and we took the groper to the police. Why was he in jail and why are you not in jail for groping? Is it because he was a poor street vendor with no star power and you are a smart tax evading reality TV business tycoon? Why is your groping woman any less of a crime than my daughter's groper in india? And don't tell me you did not do those things. Not once you spoke of it as a fantasy of yours. You spoke of it as your character trait that whenever you see an attractive woman of your definition, you can't help kissing her. You have done it and hence you were bragging about it. And then on debate stage you lost my vote yesterday.
You neither apologized nor spoke any truth. If Hillary represented Washington liars, you, to me represented the outsider who speaks as it is. But yesterday you again did not. You spoke a lie-that you did not do these things. I wish you could have owned it. I wish you could have shown that for you truth mattered more than this tape. Yes, there may be other gropers in Washington and in TV business, but I am not casting my vote for them. I don't mind you anymore on TV though I have a serious doubt I will even feel like watching your face at all on TV. All you remind me is of the fact that I have a pussy and you grab women's pussies. I have to run away from you as far as possible.
I was glad Hillary did not shake your filthy hands on debate stage at Wash U and I wish she had not shaken your hand after the debate either. Your lips and your hands have a different meaning for me now. Yes. While you see me only as a pussy, I see you now only as lips and hands and penis. I can't see you anymore as a whole presidential Candidate. I can't vote for you anymore. And I will do everything in my power to make sure you never get elected. And yes, I am voting for Hillary Clinton. I am happy for those republicans who have left you, Mr. trump. I do wish Mike Pence had become the top of the ticket after friday. I would then vote for him.
With light and love,
Anisha
