From the Los Angeles Times.
Dear Person Whose Voice Was Heard:
Well, you got your way. The people have spoken. And your guy won. I mean, he won by attracting support from well below half of those who actually voted — long live the electoral college — but still. A win is a win. No shutting down of a freeway in protest is gonna change that. So congratulations.
I have never been more wrong in my life than I was in predicting this election. I didn't think there was a chance in holy heck that
Donald Trump could actually become president of the United States. Life will surprise you, though rarely like this.
It will probably come as little shock that I'm pretty upset about this whole thing. Actually, crushingly depressed is a better way to describe it. You know, I'm one of those arrogant liberal elites blinded inside my blue bubble who likes my presidents classy and competent. Crazy, right?
But I digress.
My purpose of this letter is merely to give you a heads up as to what exactly you have voted for here in going with your gut rather than your rational mind. To my mind, you have sided with unvarnished stupidity and hatred.
You've chosen a man who applied for a demanding job he knew nothing about and had never served in political office. Go back to when you were 16 working your first gig at Carl's Jr. and recall all of the mistakes you made. Now magnify that times 50 million in terms of pressure and difficulty and with the entire world watching. It's on-the-job training with the country serving as your shake machine.
Another thing you did is vote into office a person who flaunts without an ounce of self-awareness or irony the most buffoonish, disgusting trappings of American consumption and conspicuous wealth, a man who believes everything can be made exquisite if encrusted in solid gold. The world's enduring image of America is now Richie Rich.
While you can feel secure in the knowledge that you voted in lock-step with the evangelical community, it seems the purportedly devout have profoundly lowered their standards in backing a xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic, racist, fear-mongering, hate-spewing serial violator of women. But hey, nobody's perfect, right?
The thing is, you too knew all of this stuff and voted for Trump anyway. You rationalized it with every fiber of your being. You figured the media had it out for him and did everything it could to make him look bad. Plus, all of those women who accused him of sexual harassment and worse were making it up, weren't they?
Your guy may have said he could grab females by the you-know-where, but come on, can't a guy joke around? Anyone who objected was just being politically correct, which in this case meant overly supportive of diplomacy and decency.
You voted for a guy who promised to build walls rather than bridges and launch immigration squads to cleanse the United States of imaginary Muslim terrorists. Because there are already too many foreigners here anyhow, right? And they're taking our jobs, dammit!
So let's again just be clear about what you've elected: A middle-school bully with no respect for humanity or tolerance for anyone who isn't white. You chose to conveniently, willfully ignore — or perhaps applaud — Trump's belief that it's virtuous to use loopholes to avoid paying taxes and even more righteous to entirely shield your returns from public view.
Your choice for president was transparent in his embrace of a fascist dictator named
Vladimir Putin and supportive of Putin's influence on the election through hacking and leaks. And here is another news flash: If you're working class, your hero has no use for you. In fact, he thinks you're a sucker.
You know what you've done? You've rolled the dice and endangered all of the social progress we've made in this country over the past 50 years. Congratulations.
Sore loser? Oh you bet I'm a sore loser. The sorest loser ever. So let's get a few things straight:
I'm not interested in unifying for the good of the country any more than you were for President Obama.
I don't want to hear your complaints when your revolution flops on arrival, given how you've chosen the worst imaginable man to lead it.
Don't ask me to heal, accept, embrace, reassess or chill. It's you who screwed up. It isn't my responsibility to cushion the blow.
Good luck. We're all going to need it.
Ray
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RAY RICHMOND has covered Hollywood and the entertainment business since 1984. He can be reached via email at
ray@rayrichco.com and Twitter at
@MeGoodWriter.
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