Dear Mr. Trump,

You’ll please forgive me for not writing to you during the past two weeks, as I dealt with a family death. The theme of death – saying goodbye to someone or someone we love — now impels me to write to you about the deaths that you are championing: the death of our democratic society, the death of the rule of law, the death of civility.

Our democracy, if it is not to be led to the gas chamber, requires a president who values democracy as his primary objective; it dies with a president who loves himself more than anything else, who values only power and wealth, who could care less for our historic, but fragile, institutions.

The rule of law, if it is not to be led to the gallows, requires a president who doesn’t denigrate judges who hand down decisions that don’t go his way, who doesn’t obstruct justice and try to curtail investigations about foreign interference in our elections. The rule of law dies with a president like you, Sir, who believes he is the law.

Civility, if it is not to be led to before the firing squad, requires a president who sets a good example of honorable behavior, not a narcissist who makes fun of people with physical handicaps and pushes other foreign leaders out of the way so he can get to the front of a line, not someone like you, Sir, who refers to refugees as “animals.”

The gas canisters are ready to be dropped in, the hangman’s trap door is ready to be sprung, the executioners’ rifles squad are loaded and aimed, and the only thing that will stop them is Americans who care about democracy, the rule of law, and civility rising up in great ranks to vote you and your apologists out of office.

So may it be God’s will.

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger