Four Years in One Night: A Letter to Donald Trump

Each state that was shaded with the piercing color red on the electoral map felt like the opening of a new wound. For a while, I thought you had won once again, but as fate would have it, the rising of the sun would awaken a map filled with blue. As much as I try not to let it get to me, every vote that was darkened next to your name fills me with fear and anger. I am scared to see the power of white supremacy you unleash, as it unfolds the advances people of color have made. This unravelling is the byproduct of your erroneous words that only breed hatred. Apart from fear, I am filled with rage at how your power goes unchecked. Your triumphs in life have been handed to you in the name of privilege, a certain kind of privilege that fails to be questioned. In a dictionary catered to you, repercussion would be omitted because your wealth and power shield against any real consequences to your actions. 

Will the broken system that granted you head of state ever change? The pandemic you tried so hard to underplay only worked to highlight how “we the people” are pawns in your game of maximizing profit. In the country you uphold as superior, being poor can easily be equated to a crime. Moreover, you brand healthcare as a prize to be won by citizens based on merit, leaving out the millions who cannot mold their way into your standards. You give life to the American values of individualism and competition, creating an exclusive race for those whose bank accounts resemble yours. If your presidency were made into a book, exclusion would be its central motif as your four years proudly illustrate that this democracy is only for certain kinds of people.

I wait for the day when those of us who do not live up to your white ideal will no longer have to unlearn the subtle messages that teach us we are less than. Your battle cry has always been “make America great again” but America can never be great until it values every life that inhabits its borders, whether that life is documented or not. It is time for a revolution that dismantles the notions of white supremacy and sexism so deeply embedded into all of our institutions. The president that will finally be able to tackle that is still hidden in the unknown, but one thing holds true, that president cannot be you.