Dear President Trump,

As an ordinary citizen, I write to protest and dissent from your effort in plain sight to dismantle the United States Constitution and the Federal Government.

You took the oath to take care and faithfully execute the laws of the United States. Instead, you try to dismantle sections of the government established by Congress and not spend money that Congress has authorized.
You are attempting a coup. You know it and all Americans know it. No one elected you king; you are an administrator and you cannot be above the law.

Your treatment of USAID is despicable. Your approach to the DOJ through your executive orders and attorney general memorandum is one that essentially opens the door to bribery and kleptocracy.

Your disdain for the poorest Americans in still having money frozen, notwithstanding a Court order, to programs in clinics in places like West Virginia and Mississippi is appalling.

Your treatment of foreigners in our midst besmirches the Statue of Liberty.

Your idea of turning Gaza into the Riviera of the Mediterranean amounts to ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity, a war crime, and aggressive war.

Your attack on women and other minorities through your anti-DEI orders and actions tries to return us to the period when only white men need apply. It took over 200 years for a woman to become an Attorney General and over 210 years for a person of color. That lily-white man trail backwards over 200 years was not merit when no one else was included in the pool of possible prospects.

You and your supporters seem to revel in the cruelty that you are inflicting. All of you seem to try to give off an aura of inevitability and power. Yet, you are neither inevitable nor are you powerful.

There have been other times in America when the cruel have been handed the levers of power in an election and they have proceeded to oppress. And at each time, ordinary Americans have stood up to protest their cruelty and renew with what is the best in us.

Within the confines of what is lawful and peaceful, I protest and dissent from your abomination of a Presidency. I watch with joy the efforts of those with far better skills than I to block your dismal choices in the courts and succeed with the judiciary.

Your contempt for women and their reproductive health leads to women dying. Your harassment of transgender people shows a debased understanding of the nature of being human.

Your decapitation of our intelligence and military assets emboldens our adversaries.

Your lack of comprehension of the soft power of humanitarian aid leads to countries turning away from us.
Your apocryphal treatment of Canada and Mexico takes us back to the 19th century when crazy members of Congress and Presidents sought to invade these places on various pretexts. That is not a friend.

You are going to the Super Bowl today and I fully expect your propaganda machine to try to spin the reception of the Presidency as support for you and your policies. Do not delude yourself. The Super Bowl is the realm of the rich and not the ordinary American.

Your insistence on loyalty from across the government and the private sector at a level of obsequiousness that is tantamount to cowardice says much about them but more about your insecurity.

I am merely an ordinary citizen with no power at all. And yet in my ordinary citizenship, I write to denounce your lack of empathy and compassion for anyone who is not rich.

You no doubt think we are all rubes on whom you can pull fast ones.

You are surely mistaken. I understand the darkness of the abyss inside of you. I am not afraid of shining light on that darkness within my limited life.

I will not be cowed in the manner that you seek to cause the press to cower.

I will not believe the lies that you put forward.

I will not be moved.

I respectfully dissent.

Sincerely,

Ben Davis