Dear Mr. Trump,

You’ve embraced a murdering dictator – more than one, to be accurate – so why not embrace a child molesting Senate candidate?

In your world, a grown man trying to take advantage of a 14-year-old girl is not only not wrong, it’s fine, it’s what “very fine people” should do. Roy Moore, in your judgment, is exactly the kind of person who will “make America great again.”

You obviously share Roy Moore’s affection for those good old days of slavery, don’t you? The days when WHITE families were together, although black families could be torn apart on a whim and black women could be raped, with impunity, by their WHITE slaveholders.

You obviously love the man who – even though he was sworn to uphold the law – disobeyed the United States Supreme Court. That makes him a hero in your eyes. No doubt you agree with him that Muslims should not be allowed to serve in Congress. That pesky First Amendment that requires the government to be neutral as to religion has got to go! (But that Second Amendment, that we need to keep and let it run roughshod over common sense.)

Roy Moore is a man whose principles you love, sir, and apparently your Republican party loves him as well. Won’t that make America great again, when all grown men can attack 14-year-old girls and get away with it? And be proud of it?

Sir, he is a man after your own heart.

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger

Dear Mr. Trump,

If you ever read my letters to you, you might wonder why I keep trying to get in touch, when it’s obvious that you will never respond, nor any of your lackeys.

You might be amused at how much of my scarce time I devote to these letters, which I know will be buried with millions of other like letters for decades after you leave office and will be excavated by future historians only by the most miraculous of circumstances. Yes, I accept the fact that my words to you will sit in a federal government server somewhere, a digital record of my thoughts and feelings – occasionally advice – that that you will never see.

Here’s something you’re probably not aware of, though. I share these letters publicly, in as many social media as I can: Facebook (two pages), Linked-In, Twitter, and my own website. I want my readers – few though they may be – to know that a writer should do what he does best, write, when our country is in grave peril. I want to encourage my readers likewise to do what they do best, whatever that might be: write, talk, plan, organize, support your impeachment (unlikely), vote to put your opponents in office (much more likely), strengthen each other in resisting in every lawful way possible this national nightmare named Trump.

Mr. Trump, sir, I want people to believe that the truth will come out some day and that America will survive.

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger

Dear Mr. Trump,

Despair is in the air about the kind of hatred you have brought about in our country and the irreparable harm that you are doing to its institutions. I know that fact pleases you, sir. I know that you live and breathe to increase the pain and wretchedness of those of us who want a diverse, pluralistic society.

You keep feeding the hatreds of your “base” – such as retweeting groundless and malicious attacks against Muslims and immigrants – and it occurs to me that the term “base” is well-used in relation to you and your most ardent Ku Klux Klan and Nazi supporters.

“Base” means the bottom layer, and those who hate along with you are at the lowest rung of society. You might substitute the word “dregs” for the haters you have encouraged, for those like you who debase women – which you bragged about, of course that’s your voice, come on – for those who would steal from the middle class and from future generations to provide unnecessary tax cuts to your billionaire friends.

“Base” is also defined in a way even more appropriate for you, which I quote from http://www.dictionary.com/browse/base:

(1) morally low; without estimable personal qualities; dishonorable; meanspirited; selfish; cowardly.
(2) of little or no value; worthless.
(3) debased or counterfeit.
(4) characteristic of or befitting an inferior person or thing.

So, when I hear you are doing things for your “base,” when I hear that you are catering to your “base,” I understand perfectly, sir.

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger

Dear Mr. Trump,

It is no surprise that you have effectively endorsed Roy Moore for a Senate seat, even though he is a sexual predator, even though he is a child molester, even though he violated the law when he was Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. Surely he is a man after your own heart, given your bragging about “grabbing p***y.” We expected no less from you, sir. You see in Roy Moore a kindred spirit, a hater and demeanor of women. Even your daughter recognizes that his accusers speak the truth, but obviously you don’t care.

You would argue that it’s better a serial killer get into in the Senate than a Democrat, as long as he’ll vote to help you strip the pockets of the middle class, in favor of the rich, in your pretend “tax reform.”

And if your Republican-majority Senate can confirm federal judges – against a century of precedent – who are deemed unqualified to serve by the American Bar Association, as long as these appointees of your promise to erode civil rights, disenfranchise minority voters, knock down on specious Second Amendment grounds every reasonable gun law … so much the better.

You need the despicable people in your corner of the Senate to carry on your mission of destroying our great United States. Let’s hope that Alabama voters have finally had enough of your kind.

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger

Dear Mr. President,

How can you be so proud, sir, of gouging additional taxes from the middle class to line your own pockets and those of your friends?

Oh, I forgot. The rest of don’t count. We’re the bothersome majority of the country who don’t have billions of dollars. Got it, sir.

How can you be so proud, sir, of grossly increasing our debt? That puts the burden of your self-largess on our children.

Oh, I forgot. We and our children and our children’s children don’t count. Only yours count, which is why you want to end the estate tax, sir. So your progeny can glean the benefits of living in our free society but not support its government. Got it, sir.

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger

Dear Mr. Trump,

So it turns out, I now see, that you would save tens of millions of dollars every year by your new tax bill. But the taxes of many people a lot poorer than you will go up. How is that fair?

I think we should be able to work this out, sir. Please send all the tax savings from your plan – if it’s enacted – to the middle-class Americans whose taxes are going to increase. Then get your ultra-rich buddies to do the same. Tell your good, close friend Putin to chip in a few bucks, too. Tell him it’s just the cost of collusion.

All levity aside, what you’re doing was referred to by none other than George H.W. Bush as “voodoo economics.” There’s no possible way that your tax cut won’t monstrously increase the deficit and our national debt. At best, you are placing increasing trillions of dollar of debt on our children and grandchildren. I know you don’t care, sir, if the country completely falls apart when you’re gone, but I do care.

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger

Dear Mr. Trump,

You purport to look out for the “small guy,” yet you hired as the head of your campaign a massive tax cheater, as reflected in today’s indictment of Mr. Manafort. That he failed to pay tax on at least $13 million of income may seem like small potatoes to you. God knows how much of your own income you failed to pay taxes on, as you have chosen not to release your tax returns. Putting aside that not-small issue, does it not concern you that the man you put in charge of your campaign is a tax cheat?

The indictment also lays out how Mr. Manafort hid from the government that he was a foreign agent. By doing so, he violated the law. You, sir, must have known. You claim to have super-high intelligence. You claim not to be a moron, so you wouldn’t have hired Mr. Manafort as the head of your campaign without carefully vetting him and understand his background.

And of course you had to know that he worked for Putin’s cronies. In his clandestine service to Ukraine, Mr. Manafort was also serving Putin’s interests.

Such a man to bring into your campaign! Such a man to have at your right hand, whispering into your ear, as you sought the Republican nomination!

For a person who cries about “fake news,” sir, don’t you think it’s ironic you hired a man who laid down layers of deceit about his activities?

When the fish’s head is rotten, …

Good day, sir.

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger

Dear Mr. Trump,

Your White House has sent me an email in which it claims that “the cost of raising a family has grown exponentially.” I’m sure you have no idea, sir, what it costs to raise a family. But I’ve done some research. Perhaps I can help educate you.

What makes up the cost of raising a family? The largest component is housing. The Trump Administration plans to reduce government aid for low-income housing by $5 billion. If you’re concerned about the cost of a raising a family, sir, why strip away $5 billion now going to families for just that purpose?

Then, sir, the next highest component of raising a family is food. By 2011 the imports of agricultural products from Mexico to the US totaled $15.8 billion, making Mexico the second largest supplier to the US. The leading categories include: fresh vegetables and fresh fruit, in winter months particularly. Your desire to scuttle NAFTA will keep all this nourishing food in Mexico, driving up prices here or forcing American families to do without. Please explain how forcing up food prices is going to help reduce the cost of raising a family. Oh, I get it. The families you are so concerned about protecting will just do without.

What about the costs of medical care? You are driving up the insurance premiums of many families by failing to make the payments to insurance companies contemplated by the Affordable Care Act. Oh, I see. They can reduce their costs of raising a family by foregoing medical care. Got it.

You, sir, are the cause of the rising costs of raising a family. You are not the solution.

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger

Dear Mr. Trump,

How unbecoming of you, sir, to attack a Gold Star widow and accuse her of lying. Her husband gave his life for his country – something that you never put yourself at risk for, with your “heel spurs” – and she’s obviously in pain. The unborn baby will never know its hero father. Yet, you have no compassion whatsoever for the widow’s pain, nor respect for her dead husband, a hero, nor the common decency that any mature adult would have to refrain from calling a liar someone who is suffering and in grief.

By your conduct, you mock the very idea of leadership. Why should anyone in the armed forces follow you as “Commander in Chief” when you have no respect for the people who put their lives at risk for this country and their families?

Despicable? Revolting? Nauseating? Which of these adjectives do you prefer, sir? I use the term “sir” with the greatest possible regret.

Sir.

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger

Dear Mr. Trump,

I hear that you accused President Obama of not making calls to families of deceased U.S. soldiers, “because that’s what you were told.”

You accused him of not being born in the United States, because that’s what you were told, and you had great evidence to prove it, “believe me.”

You accused Muslim Americans of celebrating on 9/11, because you apparently saw it on a television that no one else saw, and anyway, I’m sure that’s what you were told.

Who are these secretive people whispering in your ear these outrageous lies, lies that you then repeat without regard to truth? They are the Alex Jones’s of the world, right? The people who will also swear that Elvis Presley is still alive, that Hitler survived his bunker and is starting a new Nazi party, that the ATF blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, right? The same people who believe that aliens seeded life on Earth and that a small cavil of evildoers is controlling the world and that the FBI and CIA have implanted electrodes into their brains.

Those are your closest confidants, the crazies who whisper in your ear. Sir, it explains an awful lot.

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger