Dear President-Elect Trump,
I did not vote for you. I was pretty certain that I wouldn’t vote for you the minute that you rode down that elevator and my decision was confirmed again and again throughout your campaign as things that you said reflected a lack of empathy for other people that I still find disturbing – from supporting torture to gross generalizations about entire races and religions. Despite my misgivings, though, you won enough votes in enough places to become the president of these United States – my president.
In your victory speech you claimed that you would be a president for all Americans. You even asked for the help of those who didn’t vote for you – just a little over half of the population of our country. I sincerely hope that you meant that request. Even though I did not vote for you, I hope that you will be a great president. In that same speech, you mentioned that to truly be historic, you need to be great. I want to offer an additional requirement. To truly be historic, to truly be remembered as a revolutionary force in our history, you will need to govern in a way that begins to heal the deep, seemingly insurmountable divides that this year of campaigning have exposed and enflamed. Imagine, if you were able to achieve approval ratings above and beyond the 47% of the vote that you won! The entire world would take notice.
As a voter who disagrees with essentially every stance that you have championed in this campaign, this is the advice that I would give to help bridge that gap and make history:
First, do not appoint the sycophants who surround you to your cabinet. Many of them, as I am sure you know, flocked desperately to your coat tails to revive, continue, or enhance their own images and careers, and thus have very little to offer you in the way of serviceable advice on how to govern. They faded from favor long ago and have been using you to be relevant again. They may be good at pandering, but that part of the job is done. Take a lesson from Lincoln and surround yourself with a team of rivals who can offer you insights that you might not otherwise get through their differing perspectives. Be the bigger man, the powerful man, who is not intimated by dissenting opinions, but who strives to learn from other people’s experiences so that you are able to make the tough choices with all of the information while you are governing this great country. We are clearly a diverse nation with a variety of experiences, concerns, and values – this election certainly seems to prove that. Your governance will be most successful at uniting when it invites in the knowledge of all areas of the American experience.
Second, rise above the influence of big money in government. You made a point in your campaign of displaying how you were separate from the corrupt government lackeys that are usually in Washington, in large part because of your vast independent wealth. Despite that, many of your policy statements are the very ones that large companies with incredible lobbying networks fight for, to the detriment of the very people that you claim you are fighting for. Sure, you may have needed the support of the NRA and oil companies in order to get through the primary season, but you know that common sense gun control is needed in this country to fight the gun violence problems. As a successful business man, you are also beyond smart enough to know that over 200 scientists with the International Panel on Climate Change were not making up a hoax about the very real threats of the increasing average temperature of our atmosphere and its connection to the burning of fossil fuels. If you want any hope of uniting this country and indeed for some parts of this country just to continue to exist above water, you will need to recognize the very real warnings of the scientific community – which the US military is taking seriously as are local governments in many states that are expecting severe consequences in the next few decades. This is an issue that cannot be ignored, to do so puts the entire world in peril.
Finally, you should know that to bring this country together, you will need to address the toxic rhetoric of a minority of your supporters. I know that most your supporters are good people who are really voting for change, but some of your base has a more nefarious tone. While I have faith that you mean to be the president for all Americans, there is no doubt that some of your supporters would prefer that all Americans did not include people of color, people from the LGBT+ community, people who practice the Muslim faith, Jewish people, or anyone else who is deemed “other.” I take comfort in your professed support of the LGBT+ community at the convention, so I hope that this point will strike a chord for you. Despite your movements toward inclusivity, in the wake of your election, your name has been invoked by people attacking Muslim Americans in at least two incidents, people harassing young women at Wellesley, and in several hateful accounts of vandalism against people of color. Many of my friends, for myriad reasons, are genuinely afraid because of the behavior that many of your supporters have normalized. I have heard students in school worry about being deported, harassed, assaulted, and vilified by people who wear your hats. To help us heal as a nation, you have a responsibility to stand against that kind of destructive behavior, especially from your supporters – you now represent all of us, and we need your help condemn this attitude and behavior so that their hate does not contaminate your legacy and put the rest of us in danger.
I know that you have less than no reason to listen to the ramblings of just a single voter. But, I represent the feelings of over half of the population who voted against you. I just have a little more faith in you than many of them. I am taking you at your word that you sincerely wanted help from those of us who did not support you. As a ceaseless optimist who always tries to find the good in people, I had to try to reach out to you. You are not who I would have chosen, but you are my president elect. I desperately want you to succeed at this job, for the good of our country. Please consider the advice that I have offered here as a genuine attempt to help you to govern well and leave a stronger legacy than anyone thinks is possible; a legacy of healing the divisions, earning massive support beyond your base, and serving our country well. God bless the United States of America.
With Sincerest Hope,
A citizen, a teacher, a mother
