A Letter to Donald Trump

(You have my solemn promise this blog won't become just about politics. I have plans to write about jobs and then about goofy b-movies next. I just...really need to get this out of my system.)

Dear Mr. Trump,

I have no illusions that you will read this. In fact, the word is that you're not a terribly avid reader, to say the least. That said, at this moment, there is a slight chance this might get even a blip in the world like me punished in some way, even sent to your outsourced concentration camp in El Salvador, where you aspire to send not only immigrants but U.S. citizens, according to your own statements.

Still, writers cope by writing. If I have to be a prisoner in a world made by people like you and those who have enabled you, then I will demand at least the privilege of having my say and sharing it with anyone who cares to read it. I'm sure you of all people understand the impulse.

I think I can offer you a unique perspective, honestly. I'm a historian, so I can do at least a passable job of predicting what your legacy will be. I know you must care about your legacy; people who name towers after themselves care deeply about that much. I'm also something of an expert in...let's say, for the sake of being diplomatic or "woke", unconventional leaders. Growing up, I loved reading the accounts of mad and tyrannical leaders: the classics, Caligula and Nero, of course, but also "Bloody" Mary I of England, King Erik XIV of Sweden (I suspect you'd like him) and Ivan "the Terrible." I even wrote a book about it. Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying you deserve to be categorized along with such names. But I can't help but presume you would agree with me that your presidency has been "unconventional", too.

You certainly exceeded my expectations, based on your first time as president. I knew you would go after PBS and NPR and have a hostile relationship to the media overall. What I didn't expect was that you would immediately seek to eviscerate our entire scientific and medical infrastructure, nor that you would pursue your bizarre yet poorly informed obsession with tariffs so far you would send the stock market into a death spiral. You've amazed both your enemies and allies alike by being an accelerationist who stepped right out of a Marxist podcaster's dreams.

When the PATRIOT Act passed and the Iraq War was launched, people like me on the leftier side of the spectrum feared that President George W. Bush would become a tyrant. Yet, he never had the boldness to try to deport a student for writing an op-ed your administration disagreed with or send another student with a pregnant wife to a Central American death camp for being a protestor. When President Bill Clinton's nominee to become Surgeon General, Joycelyn Elders, dared to suggest sexually frustrated teenagers should turn to masturbation rather than risk pregnancy with a partner, he quickly caved under pressure and dismissed her. So far, Mr. Trump, you have instead stood firmly behind your nominees, despite them being a rogues' gallery of lunatics, morons, and con-artists (and, in Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s case, all of the above). Given how your last administration unfolded, that may change shortly after I publish this. If you do not fire any of your nominees, then you stood firm against the woke media, the deep state, and the far-left Democrats. If instead you do fire one or even all of them, then it is proof that you will get rid of anyone who doesn't do enough to make your vision reality.

I'm certain you have wondered, how am I going to fit into history? How will I be remembered? I know you like to compare yourself to Andrew Jackson. Certainly there are similarities, and you may even in some ways surpass him—your Trail of Tears is on track to become even longer. However, I would compare you, at least as far as I can judge since your story hasn't been finished yet, to King Charles I of England and Scotland. He too had to blow the dust off ancient laws to get his way; he too was defied by a disobedient legislative body and activist judges. The only major difference is trivial: he actually loved his wife, never committed adultery, and seems to have liked all of his children. Just don't ask, if curiosity does strike you, what happened to him.

In the end, I think, or at least hope, your legacy will be similar to that of King Charles. In a sense, it's already been carved in stone. If you lose by, say, actually getting removed from office, you will not be remembered fondly. If you win by surviving until 2028 and getting at least half of your agenda enacted (half of the parts of your agenda that are actually coherent, to be precise), you will still not be remembered fondly. King Charles had many haters too, as you would say, but he did at least trigger a chain of events that, in the end, strengthened representative government and reduced the power of a hereditary monarchy. Maybe someday you will be written and spoken of as the proverbial darkness before the dawn, the catalyst that eventually brought down a bad system and forced people to genuinely fix it or even replace it with something better.

I'll be honest, Mr. Trump, I think giving up your original legacy of just being a pop culture icon representing gawdy fin-de-siècle tabloid decadence at worst and psychotic Gordon Gekko-esque business savvy at best was your least wise decision. And that's saying quite a bit, given your record with businesses, especially casinos. At this rate, you may be remembered as both the destroyer of casinos and of the first truly global power in history. So, really, a legacy as the Hoover to somebody else's Franklin D. Roosevelt is the best you—and all of us Americans—can hope for.