Dear President Trump,

I want to say how sorry I am that Secretary of State Tillerson privately called you a moron. Part of draining the swamp finding a cabinet that is honest with the public, and surely, at the time, Tillerson should have put his remarks out there for the entire country to contemplate. How can the country operate effectively with all these behind-the-scenes analyses of your ability?

Secondly, I feel that Tillerson should have been taken to task – and probably fired outright – for vagueness. What is a moron, after all? One dictionary definition provides a long list of possibilities: “fool, idiot, ass, blockhead, dunce, dolt, ignoramus, imbecile, cretin, dullard, simpleton, and clod.” See Google Definition of Moron. He failed to indicate one or more of these 12 possibilities he intended.

Third, and worst, I don’t think any of them really apply to you. You have often talked about your high IQ, and I feel, honestly, that you would score at least 110, maybe even 120, certainly above average, much higher than what the appellation “moron” suggests.

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger

Dear Mr. Trump,

Sir. I have always tried to be polite in these letters to you, even though you never respond and even though it seems at times that your White House.gov server has blocked me.

Sir. It is a title of respect, is it not? It is a title that you do not deserve, because you show no respect for others. When, for example, you blame Puerto Ricans for the hurricane tragedy – saying with absolutely no basis that they are not trying to help each other – you show no respect for the downtrodden. When, for example, you brag about grabbing p—y, you show no respect for humanity. When you tell your own Secretary of State that things he says are a “waste of time,” you show no respect for the dignity of our government or the people you have appointed to serve it. When you push a tax plan that will benefit you enormously, but force many middle-income Americans to pay more in taxes, you show no respect for their hard-earned dollars. When you disparage and insult a foreign leader with a nuclear arsenal, you are pushing us toward nuclear war and show no respect for our planet and the life in it. Sir.

Sir. When will you try to earn the respect that the title implies? Sir.

Sir. When will you realize that the office of president is not your toy, a plaything to indulge your bullying fantasies? Sir.

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger

Dear Mr. Trump:

My word! We are so impressed with your bluster and strong words! How you always come up with the best name-calling, we’ll never know, but we’re in awe! “Rocket man!” That solves so many problems, doesn’t it? Why didn’t President Obama have the foresight, we wonder, to think of “Rocket man!” I bet you think it’s because both Obama and Kim Jong Un are Muslims, right? Neither was born in the United States, right? America first! See how tough you are, Mr. President! Sir!

How frightened of your toughness must the North Koreans be right at this moment! They cower in their bomb shelters now, don’t they? They now understand how you hanker to use your nuclear weapons and have stopped their missile and weapons program, right?! They have decided to drop their idea of self-defense because you said you would wipe them off the face of the earth, right?! Aren’t you smart, Mr. President?!

Smart like Hitler, when he led his country to destruction! No one was going to tell Hitler what he could or couldn’t do! He showed how tough he was! So what if millions of Germans were killed in the process?

We are in awe, Mr. President, Sir!

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger

Dear Mr. Trump:

It is with a heavy heart that I recognize a sad truth: you are leading us into a nuclear war.

Has it not occurred to you that saying “We will destroy North Korea!” is exactly what Kim Jung Un wants to hear? Has it not occurred to you that such a threat from the United States validates exactly what he and his predecessors in power have been telling the North Koreans every day for the past 65 years? With their country ready to be “destroyed” by the United States, North Korea now has every incentive to attack us first.

Pull back, Mr. President, from those foolish and ill-considered remarks before it is too late.

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger

Dear Mr. Trump:

You’ve taken the position that global warming is a hoax. You’ve said that “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

But now, Sir, please consider:

Hurricane Harvey’s 51.88” of rainfall at Cedar Bayou, TX was most ever recorded in the continental United States from a tropical cyclone.

Four separate stations in Texas recorded over 48” of rainfall from Harvey – each of these would have broken the previous continental U.S. landfall record.

The official death toll from Hurricane Harvey in the United States is 82.

Now consider Hurricane Irma, which spent three consecutive days as a top-of-the-scale Category 5 hurricane, the longest in the satellite era.

The official death toll from Hurricane Irma in the United States is at least 39.

This is now the first time that two Category 4 hurricanes have hit the United States in the same year, and the hurricane season has just begun.

Are these 121 deaths of Americans – whom you are sworn to protect – a hoax?

Isn’t it time, Sir, that you acknowledged the reality of global warming and start working to do something about it? Instead, you’ve done everything in your power to deny its reality and curb United States efforts to fight this disaster-in-the making.

How many American deaths will we need in order for you to be persuaded?

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger

Dear Mr. Trump,

I’m sorry I have taken so long to write again to you, but I know you are busy too. It must have taken you a long time to come up with a plan to kick out of the country so many good, hard-working, young people. It must have been strain for you to think of reasons for this action, beyond just that Obama instituted the DACA program. If you are having trouble sleeping, I recommend melatonin, by the way.

The name of your administration should be Hypocrites R Us! On one hand, you are so determined to kick out the Dreamers because their parents – not they – broke the law by entering the country. In your view, no compassion should be shown to these stalwart would-be citizens. The law is the law, after all!

On the other hand, you pardoned Joe Arpaio, who absolutely broke the law, purposely violated a court order, and acted with criminal intent. But wait! I thought the law was the law! You have compassion for this lawbreaker, who deserves jail, but not for children brought here by their parents?

Paint a big sign on the front of the White House, please, and make it read:

Hypocrites R Us!

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger

Dear Mr. Trump,

It doesn’t matter to me whether you believe in God or not, but many of your supporters claim to be Christians. Those who call themselves “White evangelicals,” for example, voted 80%-14% for you in the 2016 election, according to the November 11, 2016 article in the Washington Post by Sarah Pulliam Bailey. One may well wonder how those who purportedly believe in a loving God would seek to put in office someone who breeds hatred, who despises equality, and who gives encouragement to neo-Nazis, but that is not my point today.

Rather, my purpose here is to call your attention to what the Bible says about what the head of a government should be. This is important, Sir, because your “White evangelical” voters may think twice about voting for you again if they consider these passages.
Importantly, Deuteronomy 17:16-17 emphasizes that the leader must not seek great wealth. “Silver and gold he may not accumulate for himself in great abundance.” Deuteronomy 17:17 (Metsudah Chumash 1996). It would seem, though, that you and your family are using your political office for financial gain, particularly from foreign governments. If your previous voters don’t care that such conduct contravenes the United States Constitution, they may yet realize that it contravenes the Bible.

Of equal importance, Deuteronomy 17:18-20 provides that the ruler must study the law every day, guard the law, and fulfill it. The price for not so doing is that the ruler’s reign will be short. Deuteronomy 17:20. However, you seem to want to violate the law. I refer, for example, to stopping payments that the Affordable Care Act requires, or for disregarding the First Amendment prohibition against discrimination on the basis of religious belief. It is for these reasons, Sir, among many others, that I hope the result demanded by the Bible – your reign shall be as short as possible – comes to fruition. May the “White evangelicals” who supported you the first time realize in time their error.

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger

Dear Mr. Trump,

You have only yourself to blame for the failure of Congress to jump to your orders and desires. Take health care. Had you not unfairly savaged Senator McCain, an American hero, because he’d been captured during war – a war that you evaded – he might have had more sympathy for your health care bill and voted to keep it alive. Instead, you attacked him. You must have felt so superior to him, because you, yourself, had never been captured. You couldn’t resist putting him down to make yourself feel superior. Felt good, huh? Made that adrenalin course through your body, huh? The thrill of being a bully.

A person with either intelligence or decency would think carefully before he speaks and, when he speaks, would do so respectfully.

Those of us, Sir, who oppose your policies – e.g., depriving the needy of medical care – can only thank God that you are as careless and disrespectful as you are toward those who share power in our country.

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger

Dear Mr. Trump,

What a shame that you have to rely upon the bigots of the country to sustain your presidency, but, let’s face it: without them, you wouldn’t have won. Their idea of making American great again is to demean everyone else who is not white, male, hetero, and Christian. You sold them on the idea that they could achieve their racist goals if only they voted for you. That’s why David Duke shouts in triumph: “This is why we have Trump!”

I’m not the only American writing to you in this vein. There are millions who not only share my views but write to share them expressly with you. Of course, you don’t care. It’s really not our approbation you seek. As these letters “pile up” in the digital archives, they will remain hidden for at least twenty-five years after you leave office, if I understand federal law correctly, because you’re under no legal obligation to divulge these letters to the rest of the world.

If humanity in fact survives, perhaps historians will collect and analyze this trove of correspondence and be able to state definitively that the American people did not accept, and fought against, your bigotry.

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger