An Open Letter to:
Donald J. Trump
President of the United States
Re: San Francisco
Dear Mr President:
During the entire time of your tenure, you have referred to yourself in superlative terms. You are the “greatest” President possessing “great unmatched wisdom”. You have always placed your Presidency in the “best”, “greatest”, “smartest” categories. But after your denigration of my home, San Francisco, I feel you have earned another, less admirable, but notable superlative (hence the well-earned medal):
Forget your lame excuses:
...it’s a once-great city now in the hands of do-nothing liberals like Nancy Pelosi,
...it’s a Sanctuary City harboring killers and rapists
...it’s a godless, drug-infested blight on America that needs me to clean it up.
The real reason for your attacks is that even before your election, you considered San Francisco (indeed most of California) to be “enemy territory” and should be treated as such.
Ironically, it is you who are the enemy.
With your embarrassing demeanor, your divisive, violent rhetoric, your impulsive approach to major issues, your total ignorance of those issues, (indeed your overall ignorance) you have consistently and vindictively attacked citizens, communities and entire states by stifling government support and even going so far as to threaten to withhold disaster relief.
And above all, it is your unabashedly petty vindictiveness resulting from a thin-skinned nature that makes you the most un-Presidential, the most treasonous President.
I have been a proud resident of San Francisco for over 45 years* and while it has had the problems which many cities face, it has always approached them with intelligence, compassion and dignity; admirable human traits which you , in all honesty, lack.
In abundance.
San Francisco is a city that has had its lowest crime rate in years. In terms of pollution, it is a city that has been battling your administration's gutting of the Clean Air Act (as well as your bogus claim that needles are flowing into the ocean). It is a city that has weathered the Age of AIDS with unparalleled compassion and continues to fight for human rights.** It is a diverse city, immune to the kind of xenophobia you so enthusiastically spread. It is a cultural city, having the most art institutions per capita in the U.S. And above all, it is a proud city, a city that should never be as maligned as a “dangerous, disgusting slum” by a man who knows nothing about it, with one exception: it didn’t vote for him.
Be it against a country, a state or a city, (as one writer put it) you, are obsessed with revenge.
It’s called “Get Even.” Get even. This isn’t your typical business speech. Get even. What this is a real business speech. You know in all fairness to Wharton, I love ’em, but they teach you some stuff that’s a lot of bullshit. When you’re in business, you get even with people that screw you. And you screw them 15 times harder. And the reason is, the reason is, the reason is, not only, not only, because of the person that you’re after, but other people watch what’s happening. Other people see you or see you or see and they see how you react. - Donald Trump, Toronto 2007
Mr. President, even as you face numerous charges against you, it seems tragic that none of your most disgusting, treasonous traits are considered impeachable. Yet even more tragic: some of your ardent followers have even considered those traits admirable, or at least, electable.
But as you know, the citizens of San Francisco considered those traits impeachable long ago.
I suppose I should pity a man so insecure and thin-skinned that he wildly lashes out at the smallest criticisms, but when that insecurity manifests itself in a petty vindictiveness followed by treasonous words and deeds, pity is the last thing I can think of. And When it comes to your childish reactions to any form of criticism, I can only offer this advice:
Mr President, grow a pair.
But you won’t. You’ll continue to berate your perceived enemies via Twitter ad nauseum. You’ll continue to demean American citizens, American cities, American institutions, as relentlessly as you do entire (“shithole”) countries.
So with a President like you, who needs enemies?
Certainly not San Francisco.
*Originally from Chicago, another American city you have maligned And characteristically, another city that didn’t vote for you.
** a compassion never even approached by your stalwart Evangelical Right, many of whom forced People With AIDS (PWAs) to seek succor in San Francisco - so that they could die with dignity. I was a client intake volunteer for the AIDS Emergency Fund at the time and witnessed this compassion.
***Disclosure: I have been a community activist for much if those 45 years (please view my video profile) as well as the recipient of the Jefferson Award for Community Service for tutoring children in San Francisco’s Bayview district. Yes, I am a bit biased. The Bayview was, at the time, a place where I had to report gunshots twice a week, where our building was shot up twelve times by a high powered rifle (gang-related), and where there were 6 homicides in 5 years.
However, Mr. President, at the same time, the area was home to the kindest, most compassionate, most humanitarian people I’ve ever experienced in my life. They and my other friends helped and inspired me through my time there. While harrowing, it was a profoundly humanizing experience the likes of which you could have gone through to educate yourself about that part of America, but instead you opted for a life of exclusionary privilege and ignorance.
Currently, I am helping a worthwhile non profit (Demonstration Gardens) to teach environmental literacy to children and adults in SF’s Tenderloin, the district upon which you based your “tent city” tag.S
