Dear W. and M.,
I’m troubled. In my small universe, I shouldn’t be. You two, along with your cousin J., light up my life. During these COVID-19 days, my mask hides my smiles. You don’t hear my thoughts as I listen to you talk about your day, your new skills, your whatever it is that fascinates you. Our souls are bound, and nothing will separate us, especially the color of our skins, J. and me a pale vanilla, you two a rich chocolate. You three are the dreams of a grandfather (or Bubba in your case). You remind me of what should be, what can be.
You possess the enthusiasm of youth supercharged by visions of tomorrows extending infinitely. It’s so much stronger than mine, which has waned. It does with age. In my somber moments, I see my tomorrows coming to an end. It sounds sad, but it isn’t. It outcrops from a long, happy life shared with your Nana, your father, your uncle, you two, J., your mom, and aunt. It’s jagged because nothing is perfectly smooth, but the joys of that life smooth the waves of disappointment, sorrow, and anxiety, leaving pacific memories.
In moments of tranquility, I see your tomorrows. There are two, the first dreamlike. You are smiling. You graduate from college. You marry a strong individual. You raise beautiful children. There’s laughter, smiles, and sometimes tears, but it’s a good life. The second frightens me.
I will be gone, but that is not what stirs the fear. I foresee an unchanged America where a sizeable portion of our society tramples your well-being. It will use your skin tone and gender to define you three. It will cripple your futures, restrain you, and keep you at bay as if you were its enemies. It cannot remember how people of your ilk fought for its freedom, enhanced its sciences, built its cities, enlivened its pop culture, broadened its literature, arts, and music.
Some may say I exaggerate. Tamp my points. Tame them. Restrain them. They hold. It’s in American politics, starting with our founding fathers and continuing with Donald Trump. By the time you are men and J. a women, he thankfully will be dead. His legacy will live, for he has incited the fallen angels of Americans. He sows seeds of distrust and hatred, and the plants they will yield will last for generations.
He lies with impunity, leaving a legacy endorsing half-truths and falsehoods as a legitimate means to an end. He has blessed the bullies of the right and sullied individuals with malignant tropes and stereotypes based on the illegitimate claims floating around social media. He loves the mob, and you see it when you study videos of his rallies. He reminds me of Emperor Augustus, who bribed the Roman mob with cheap wheat and free entertainment, or as Juvenal described it as “bread and circuses.” Adolf Hitler did more or less the same with his Nuremberg rallies. He bathes in the glory bestowed on him by his followers.
Like his political forebears, Trump’s passion for the mob shifts. Quickly. When people protest government policies he favors, he calls them anarchists. His bellicosity reflects his childishness, but his followers hear strength, their emperor squashing rebellion. They cheer as the Roman mob did in the coliseum when gladiators killed one another and as the Nazis did at Nuremberg.
He is reinventing America and its politics. He tortures truth, for he assumes everyone lies, and everyone makes up facts. He has put truth on the rack, stretched it, and torn it apart some 10,000 times. All is transactional, and so, he ravages relationships. The quid-pro-quo? Love me, and I’ll love you back. With this attitude, he has politicized most cabinet positions. He turned the once renowned Centers for Disease Control into a quasi-puppet and laughing stock that issues politically favorable statements only to remove them when they prove to be scientifically stupid. I would call US Attorney General William Barr Trump’s pit bull, but I am afraid I would insult a breed of dog already struggling with negative publicity. He appoints a new leader of the Postal Service, who slows delivery in time for the election.
He has created an atmosphere of political and judicial uncertainty. I have voted for 50 years. I never wondered if a candidate who lost would dismiss the results. Now I wonder if Trump will. He repeatedly questions the voting process's integrity, even though not one state secretary has produced evidence of fraud. Ironically, this same doubt will haunt Trump should he win.
There’s one mighty exception: America’s military. This unit of our government comprises thousands of men and women who have sworn an oath to protect America. They have fought our endless wars. They have risked their lives. They have lost limbs. But they didn’t pledge allegiance to the political and personal interests of Donald Trump. While at one moment, he takes credit for GI legislation initiated by the Obama administration, he insults the hallow traditions of the military. He discredits its leaders and the sacrifices of its foot soldiers and sailors.
No other individual has so insulted the nation’s integrity. Yet he rides a wave of support, and he imagines he’s glory bound, propelled by his ego and force of will. He teases out the idea of having his face carved on Mount Rushmore. He inserts a letter with his signature with the checks intended to help Americans during the COVID-19 lockdown. It’s inflated self-worth, a counterpoint to his flaccid ego that never seems erect. He’s fueled by greed, his own, and that of megadonors.
He drools over Vladimir Putin with his golden rooms and his additional terms of office—the glorioles of a true leader. Trump too yearns for the halo of an imperial presidency. I imagine him late at night, sitting in his bed imagining crowds cheering: Hail Donald, Hail Donald.
This is not the America I want to leave you. The three of you deserve better. You are individuals, and your worth should be measured based on your integrity, empathy, and talents. Your creeds, races, and genders are immaterial to your humanity.
I thought I would feel better writing this. I don’t. These issues will not vanish if Trump loses the election and if the Democrats take the Senate. A change in leadership will help. Evolution, the change I am talking about, does not come from the top down. It’s from the bottom up. Americans, particularly White Americans, must change. They must call for justice for all people, demand a greener America, disparage hypocrisy, and praise equity for all. This is the America I want for you three.
At this moment, I feel shame. My sentiments, frustrations, and anger are new to me. As painful as it is, it’s comparatively small. African American fathers and mothers feel this for a lifetime, and they are sentiments, frustrations, and anger repeated and reinforced for centuries. I feel that shame because it has taken almost a lifetime for me to recognize that pain.
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