Attn: Barack Obama
Dear Mr. President,
You have achieved so much in your life. Nobody can doubt you have taken the gifts God bequeathed and maximized them in service to your country. You never hesitated, were never paralyzed by self-doubts, never wavered in your pilgrimage to serve America at the highest level, to lead its forward progress and do everything you could to help us reach our full potential as a united country.
Your Presidency was a clinic in executive leadership. The Obama Administration inherited an economy in crisis, rocked by the worst collapse since the Great Depression. Eight years later you left us once again prosperous, back to near full employment with inflation under control, the stock market fully rebounded, and a host of industries, imperiled when you took office, back on their feet and moving forward with relative confidence.
Of course, as you never tired of saying, the work was far from done, but the American economy was restored on your watch. Moreover, your signature achievement, Obamacare, has stood the test of time, surviving the most extreme GOP efforts to kill it while providing millions with health services they otherwise would not have received.
But now the US calls on you once again for the full measure of your leadership. I wish to the almighty it wasn’t necessary to demand this, but becoming POTUS is like being made by the Mafia… it is for life. Your predecessor, whose own failed Presidency created most of the crises you had to confront, has completely abdicated his responsibilities. His contemptible silence has been a shocking desertion of his civic duties and permitted Trump and his MAGA minions a fully open playing field to consume the GOP he once led. His silence has been deafening. History will scowl at his refusal to engage.
Mr. President, you on the other hand have maintained a vibrant public presence, and rolled up your sleeves in two elections to help get Democrat candidates elected. The first campaign succeeded and likely saved the country. The second just failed and, sadly, tragically, the US has never been in more danger. Full fascism has arrived in America. Trump’s “inaugural address” confirmed what anyone already paying any attention knew, he is an enemy of constructive governance, an existential threat to national and global stability.
To wit, within hours of refusing to place his hand on a Bible and lying he would protect the Constitution, Trump: threatened Panama with military force if it didn’t agree to let the US gratuitously abrogate a treaty that’s been in place and unquestioned for almost 50 years; usurped the 14th Amendment to deny birthright citizenship, while pledging to mobilize the military to round up millions for expedited deportation; promised to impose reckless tariffs for no other reason than his certainty the world takes advantage of us and the falsehood they will balance our books; pardoned virtually every convicted J6 insurrectionist with a sweeping edict that lays waste to the rule of law; renaming the Gulf of Mexico, scapegoating transgender rights, again exiting from the critical Paris Climate Accords, the list goes on and on, each proclamation seemingly more inane and destructive than the last.
Mr. President, we are all in this together. Whatever you envisioned for your golden years is just as much at risk as what millions of us imagined for ourselves. No amount of wealth or privilege is going to provide a golden ticket to fully evade the cataclysm a second Trump Administration guarantees. Just like with the rest of us, there are three options for ingesting MAGA fascism: servile glee, denial and apathy, or sad but determined recognition and resistance. I’m sure you agree that routines won’t mean much when carried out under the cloud of nihilist totalitarianism. So how can you opt for anything but active opposition? Certainly your wife is more than up to that task, and provides exactly the right partner to help lead us out of this wilderness.
The forces at your disposal are many and elite, literally the best and brightest America offers. After all, ability and expertise don’t last long within MAGA, almost immediately garnering both envy and disdain from a membership fixated on servility instead of competence. Military, medical, law, finance, technology, media and the arts, the numbers available to draft into service of this cause are as limitless as they are diverse.
Generals Mark Milley and former Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly; Never Trump Republicans like Steve Schmidt and Rick Wilson, Liz Cheney and Adam Kitzinger; financial heavy hitters like Warren Buffet, Mark Cuban and Bill Gates; former NASA astronauts and Conservative judges like Michael Luttig; former GOP cabinet members like William Cohen and Christine Whitman; virtually every entertainment legend not fully self-absorbed; the pool of talent and prestige is enormous. We. Just. Need. A. Leader!
Mr. President, glory comes in all shapes and sizes. It can come from peaceful governance, it can come from a bloody battlefield. Events dictate where it is available to be achieved. And it is only available for those prepared to seize a moment in time before it spirals off to become just another lost opportunity. Perhaps better than anyone alive you understand this truism.
History has provided just such an instance. The stunning willingness yesterday of our full media landscape to pretend America was handing over the reins to someone with an agenda guided by the national interest, or any scintilla of commitment to embody the oath of office he was promising to abide, clarifies little time is left to protect and expand the space between truth and the horrific Fox/AM narrative most commentators accepted, even as Trump enthusiastically spewed his sedition. The situation is dire.
I understand your reticence. No doubt there are a plethora of pro and con arguments you have considered with regard to stepping forward. But if not you… then who? No matter how many times one considers our options it always circles back your way. Millions like me felt a sense of hopelessness yesterday, not so much because of the forces of ugliness we face, but because we have nobody who appears willing to face them.
The Presidency of the United States has always been as much about symbols as policy. We’ve always taken for granted White House good faith to unite us toward higher purpose. Now we have a felon intent on dividing us in line with overt efforts to destroy this democracy. So our hopes and expectations must turn elsewhere for guidance. We need you right now, Mr. President… all of your best, until this crisis has passed. The stakes could not be higher. Without your full participation government “of the people, by the people, for the people” may very well perish from this Earth. It’s an offer you can’t refuse. BC