Dear Donald

Donald, I confess that I do spend a lot of time thinking about you. But this is not a love letter.

Today I’ve focused on how you’d have turned out if you had been raised by my parents. You might have developed into a different kind of person!

My parents were really good people. They took politics seriously. You would have called them liberals. They were proud of that moniker. You see, Don, they loved this country very much. They were the essence of loyal Americans. Your own attempts to destroy the values they loved would have met with tremendous levels of sadness and disapproval. Tremendous! My parents gave a lot of energy to our country and they never would have missed an opportunity to vote. They clearly expected their votes to be counted. They would not have expected that any candidate for president in these United States might lose the election and then make an illegal attempt to overthrow the election results, as well as the very government that a president swears to uphold.

They were also the essence of proud Jews and Israelis. How lucky they were to have been able to live in and support the world’s two greatest democracies. They would, however, have been mortified to hear some of your comments about our people. They would have been scandalized to hear about your Kanye lunch and chat date. They would remember Charlottesville and the “good people on both sides.” And hey Don, did you forget you had those very valuable little ancient oil lamps that happen to belong to the State of Israel? Come on! You knew! Sure hope you gave them back, after repeatedly ignoring requests for their return.

How would Ida and Sam, my parents, have raised you? With principle, morals, and an absolute total intolerance for lies and fabrication. They would have hoped that with their guidance you would have evolved into a far better person than the individual you actually became.

As a member of our Litvak tribe, you could have become someone with honor. You could have shed the tawdry gilt, and more important, the well-deserved guilt, which I can only assume is your constant partner. Your biography is replete with your baseless accusations against innocent people, and continual protestations of your own innocence in myriad crimes. Even before you launched an unbelievable and unsustainable career in politics, you were outspoken in your malicious accusations against innocents. Remember the Central Park Five. Barack Obama. A Mexican judge. You have spawned innumerable false charges of guilt on numerous innocent people.

And to this day you continue the name-calling, a trait of small children, and not old men like you! Really Don, it’s so juvenile, so completely unsophisticated, this business of making up names for people you don’t like. Not at all clever. Rather embarrassing and totally non-presidential! Trust me, I can think of quite a number of pejoratives to pin on you!

We have all witnessed your criminality repeatedly. We’ve personally heard threatening, illegal phone calls, blackmailing the nation of Ukraine, seeking votes that you did not get from states like Georgia, and creating a coup attempt at the Capitol that resulted in seven deaths and massive destruction to one of our nation’s most sacred buildings.

We all saw the boxes of secret government-owned documents stuffed into toilets at Mar-a-Lago. Where was respect? Where was honor? Where was honesty? Where was decency?

Tens of millions of members of a de facto people’s jury, decent Americans, can swear to witnessing a huge array of your criminal acts. I stand amongst them. I am a member of your jury and I attest to your guilt. I have seen it and heard it.

Our country and our people have much to fear from you. History is a brilliant teacher. Throughout the centuries we’ve seen those who share your aspirations rise to power and foment endless tragedy. The parallels are so profound and obvious that I choose not to call those individuals by name and give them any credibility postmortem. Suffice to say, the lesson for you is that ultimately they have all been repudiated and their place in the history books is one of disdain and disgrace. You, Donald, will never rest in peace! You, who have learned from violent extremists, have the audacity to call our DOJ by the haunting and horrible sobriquet Nazis! That is clearly the height of ironic chutzpah!

Telling the truth was a major value in my parent’s home. We were always honest with one another. If only you had been brought up to respect the truth our world would be a better place. But that is clearly not your way. You build upon lies, lie after lie after lie. That will be your legacy.

Dad would never have tolerated your nasty habit of bullying. It’s just not what decent people do, but you do it incessantly. You have despicable names for anyone who challenges you. My father, who would never have contemplated being cruel to a fellow human, would have been unable to accept such an evil trait. I cannot possibly imagine how shocked he would have been if he had raised a child to be so vicious. Happily, he didn’t.

Mom would have never tolerated your illiteracy. Your spelling and grammatical skills are inadequate. They’re really poor. Mom was a perfectionist when it came to using language correctly. She would have noted your inability to correctly use capital letters and your elementary school level vocabulary. And it’s obvious to all of us who have been subjected to listening to you deliver a speech that your reading is on a grade school level, emphasizing the wrong words, ignoring commas and periods. I suppose it’s too late to send you back to elementary school, but as a former third grade teacher, I estimate that’s where you belong. If I were your teacher I’d want to know what your recreational reading consists of and I’d assign you challenging literature to bring you up to speed. No doubt I’d conclude that you do little to no reading for growth, learning, or pleasure.

I also don’t think you seek culture. I cannot imagine you discussing great literature or art or music. Or history or geography for that matter! I’m sure I’m guessing correctly on that. Ignorance is apparently your strong suit! I’ve never heard you say anything erudite, brilliant, or intellectual. You are inarticulate. You don’t impress me as an intelligent person at all. My parents would have been unhappy with such a child, a child who never tried to reach his potential.

On the other hand, you do impress me as being an experienced grifter. Mom and Dad would have realized that very quickly. Your goal is to get away with things. To steal things, both goods and services. How many unpaid vendors in your collection? Lawyers whom you’ve left holding the bag? You are the ultimate con man. That is no compliment!

Incidentally, I wonder what happened to the Great Wall of Donald Trump that Mexico was going to pay for. Where’s the finished wall? Where are the piles of pesos? Your insults to immigrants are legion, as if you were born on the Mayflower! And you, of all people, had the audacity to call the immigrant men sexual abusers. It must be true that it takes one to know one! Ultimately your efforts to deal with illegal immigrants was a failure, a destructive display of unbounded cruelty.

And let me tell you that as a woman of your own generation, you are an embarrassment, a misogynist. You are a depraved philanderer, a sexual abuser found guilty by a jury in a New York City court of law. I pity the poor women who have become your wives. Neither my father nor my husband, nor any man of value, would ever engage in what you call locker room talk and behavior. What gives you the right to disparage women, to put them down, to take away their dignity and be dragged through the mud by the likes of you? Any man who feels kinship with you is a man I’d be ashamed to know!

And finally, your criminal behavior and your outrageous disrespect for others is compounded mightily by your grievous attempts to overthrow our government on January 6.

I’d like you to know that this message, which I share with you now, has nothing to do with politics. This is not a witch hunt and I am not a witch! I am a woman of your generation, a wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, hoping to leave this world a better place for my progeny. I have voted for and supported numerous Republican candidates for high office. Think about people like McCain and Romney, among many others. But you have destroyed the Republican party and are shattering my dreams of making this nation great. Unlike you, I truly strive to make America great again!

Quite possibly, even with parents who sought higher ideals for you, you would have turned out pretty much as you are. Genes and instinct are important facets in human development. But perhaps with more demanding role models, parents like my own, you’d have had a better chance to succeed in life. If only…

Your comments are welcome. rosanne.skopp@gmail.com

Rosanne Skopp of West Orange is a wife, mother of four, grandmother of 14, and great-grandmother of three. She is a graduate of Rutgers University and a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. She is a lifelong blogger, writing blogs before anyone knew what a blog was!

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