Dear Mr. Trump,

Give the fake Trump a rest, the Trump who reads from a Teleprompter words that someone more mature has written. Give the fake Trump a rest, the Trump who pretends to want civility. It’s a lie, just like everything else that comes out of your mouth.

What you really believe is what you say immediately after you stop reading from the Teleprompter. The real Trump is the one who urges violence against the news media, who leads cheers of “lock her up” when it comes to Hillary, Diane Feinstein, or any other progressive woman politician. The real Trump is the one who brags about being a [White] Nationalist” and calls African nations “sh*thole countries.”

I’ve checked the websites of some Republicans running for Congress. Guess what? None of them takes issue with your taunts against the media, with your name-calling, with your lying. None of them excoriate your blatant sexism, your comments about “grabbing p***y,” your trashing of Dr. Christine Blakey Ford. None of them point to the obvious violence that your rhetoric encourages and promotes.

It’s only through the grace of God that no one has been assassinated yet by the people whom you inspire. But we can’t be lucky forever. Given that you have immediately gone back to attacking the press as the enemy and that you refuse to accept any responsibility yourself for the ominous likelihood of violence from your supporters — in fact, that you plan to step up your rhetoric — I can only surmise that you would have been happy had the bombs gone off and took the lives of their intended victims.

Step one in protecting our country from political violence: Get your Republican supporters out of Congress.

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger