It’s easy to react in the moment, but the Trump Presidency is more than the moment. Now it’s coming to the end, and I want to say a couple of things about it.
First, I’d like to thank the President for being a good President for most of his four years in office.
Dear President Trump,
When I helped elect you in 2016, I hoped that you would be a bulwark against the transformation that eight years of Obama had started, and that seemed destined to continue unchecked under a Clinton administration. I didn’t expect you to be a gracious man, a tactful man, or a conservative chief executive. You were one of those things, and that was enough: you were a conservative President, and you exceeded my expectations.
Thank you, Mr. President, for appointing hundreds of good judges, and giving us a Supreme Court that is likely to show the Constitution some respect.
Thank you, Mr. President, for getting us out of the Paris Accord, and for clearing the way for America to become an energy superpower. Now that we’ve demonstrated that we can do it, perhaps the next President won’t muck it up too much.
Thank you, Mr. President, for presiding over an historic outbreak of peace in the Middle East. Thank you for ending the Iranian deal that would likely have led to that country’s nuclear dominance of the region, with only Israel to keep them in check.
Thank you for expressing love for my country, for not mocking me for speaking only English, for not berating me for being a businessman and building something for myself. Those seem like very low bars, yet the man who preceded you couldn’t clear them — didn’t even try.
Thank you for excoriating a press that is mired in corruption and dishonesty, and that has manipulated and betrayed the citizenry for decades. I think we owe a lot of the current skepticism of the press to your efforts, however rude and sometimes clumsy they were.
Thank you for reminding the Republican party that businesses are both big and small, and that the middle of the country can’t simply learn to code. You promised at your inauguration that you wished to represent all Americans, and you delivered on that promise.
So thank you for four years that were better than I ever expected, four years that stopped and occasionally reversed the damage done by your predecessor. I never thought we’d get a reprieve, but we did and I appreciate it.
I never mistook you for a man of particular dignity and grace, never thought you’d exercise great self-control or restraint. But you suffered an unconscionable amount of abuse, persevered through attacks that would have disheartened most, and continued to work and to stay within the Constitutional boundaries. I never imagined you’d experience the relentless onslaught you did, nor, to be honest, would I have guessed that you’d have handled it as well as you did. I thank you for that as well. You provoked the worst from your opponents; that is probably ultimately a good thing, as we needed to see them clearly.
I think you were cheated out of victory, if not through outright electoral fraud (though I won’t rule that out) then by a unified opposition of liars and censors — mainstream media and tech giants, politicians and institutions. You still have to leave office, and I’d like to see you go with grace and dignity, but as I said I never really expected those things from you and it would be unrealistic to ask you to discover those qualities now. I can accept a graceless and undignified exit now; I require only that you dutifully fulfil the law as you step down.
You did a good job, and you got a raw deal. You spared my country four years of Clinton.
So thank you.
An American