First, please understand: You’re fired! You lost this election. Otherwise put, you are a loser.
Second, do not think that progressives are gloating over the outcome of this election. We are not. For many of us, Joe Biden was not our first choice to run against you. But we put aside our differences because (a) we place the integrity of our elections and the vitality of constitution-based government above partisanship and factionalism and (b) president-elect Biden is a decent person and you have amply demonstrated over the past four years that you are not.
Third, do not suppose we don’t care about the people who came to your rallies and voted for you. We trust that your supporters sincerely believe you were good for the country and that you care about them. Nothing could be further from the truth. The irony is that progressives by definition DO care about the working-class people who have always been the driving force behind our freedom and prosperity as a nation. We know they do not benefit fairly from the great wealth they create. We know that wealth and power have become more and more concentrated in the past half century. We want that to change and will continue to work to make that happen.
Fourth, please understand that you lost this election not because of your politics or your policies, however misguided, but because you lied incessantly, you tweeted insanely, you courted and coddled bigots at home and tyrants abroad, and you set a terrible example which will continue to plague us as a nation until your un-presidential persona has been expunged from our collective memory.
Fifth, a word of advice. Go quietly. Your bullying tactics won’t work now. You are a lame duck. You have effectively lost the power to take democracy down. If you continue to flail and fume and threaten, you will cause more harm to a nation already devastated by your reckless disregard for science and medicine and, in so doing, you will dig the deep hole you are in much, much deeper.
Sixth, you will likely ignore my advice because you don’t listen to advice. You think you already know everything you need to know. You’re a very stable genius. A born winner who has proven time and again he can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. You have always turned to lawyers to get you out of trouble with the law or your creditors (after all, you filed for bankruptcy four times). Spoiler alert: such shenanigans won’t work this time around. Being president is not the same as being heir to a family fortune and running a company your grandmother and father created almost a century ago. This time you will have to face the consequences of your actions not least because you can’t hide what you’ve said and done as president the way you’ve try to hide your taxes.
Seventh, do not think of president-elect Biden as your rival, opponent, or enemy. If you try to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power your opponent will be the American people who have spoken with ballots not bullets, and who have clearly said they want you to go. It has been evident during the run-up to this election that you think of the electorate as your enemy which is why the Republican party under your control actively sought to suppress the vote in the run-up to this election and why you didn’t want millions of votes counted. But you’re wrong. We are not your enemy, certainly not you’re worst enemy. Not yet anyway. You are your worst enemy.
Finally, understand that I do not want to give in to vengeance or vindictiveness. I do not want to wish that when you contracted COVID-19 you would have gotten deathly ill and been on a ventilator. But it isn’t easy being charitable toward you, sir. I blame you for that. Why? Because you have shown absolutely no compassion for the victims of this disease or the thousands and thousands of families who lost loved ones. With 4% of the world’s population the U.S. has well over a fifth of all the novel coronavirus deaths, far more than any other country on the planet. Nor in the face of this disastrous policy failure have you shown an ounce of remorse for your own responsibility.
Epilogue
In 2016, before the Iowa caucus, you told supporters in Sioux City, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I would not lose any voters, OK?” Nope, lame (Donald) duck, it’s not OK.
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