Dear Mr Trump,
You may be surprised to notice that I am not calling you 'President-elect Trump.' The reason is simple. You are not my president elect, nor will you ever be 'my' president. Let me explain why this is so.
First of all, it is not because you lost the popular vote and will become the President of these United States only because of an antiquated institution that some consider a dishonourable relic of the days of slavery. No, Mr Trump, Mr Not-my-president-elect Trump, you would not be my president even if you had garnered an Obama-style landslide.
Nor is my obstinacy based on the fact that you will implement policies such as cutting taxes for the rich--policies that in the past have only led to deepening income inequality. Much as I oppose such policies, they are standard Republican fare and would have been a looming reality even if a different Republican nominee had won the Electoral College.
It is not even because you, who own casinos, beauty pageants and a modelling agency, appear to espouse socially conservative policies so restrictive of women's liberties that they are reminiscent of Margaret Atwood's dystopic novel, The Handmaid's Tale. Your own running mate and many of your former rivals for the nomination espouse similar policies, albeit with less apparent hypocrisy.
Do I refuse to acknowledge you then, because your environmental policies will lead to further escalations of climate change, raising the terrifying prospect that our own grandchildren will have no life, no future, no habitable planet? Grave as these concerns are, frightening as a Trump presidency seems for millions around the world, this situation is not in itself irremediable. It is always possible you could wake up to the urgency of the situation--if in fact you love your children and care about their future. You could become a global leader for positive change--you do not have to be the person who signs our species' death warrant--and that of countless other species.
So why do I stubbornly insist that you are not and never will be my president? My friend, I will never accept that you are my president because your campaign was based on hate. You spoke to those who suffer and gave them someone to blame--the Muslims, the Mexicans, immigrants--the Other. You ridiculed and denigrated women, minorities and disabled people, dismissing basic human decency as 'political correctness.' You have awakened the beast that sleeps within each of us and empowered him to tear apart our communities, our nation and our world.
My friend, we have seen this before. We have seen another man who inspired huge rallies and gave a hungry and humiliated nation a scapegoat for their suffering. My parents lived through those dark times of the rise of Hitler and the Second World War. Their teenage years were filled with bombs and rationing and death. Later, as young adults in the time of peace, they were determined to raise children who would stand up to the next demagogue, the next would-be fascist leader. My parents knew that there was no flaw in the German character that is not shared by each of us around the world. They knew that good people acquiesced to Hitler's increasingly dark policies in order to be proper and respectful citizens. They saw their own politicians seek to appease Hitler in a vain attempt to preserve the status quo. They taught me never to accept or acquiesce to a ruler who spoke words of hate and stirred animosity towards the other.
So you see, my friend, all my life I have been preparing to have the fearlessness to stand up to a leader such as yourself. Please don't misunderstand me. I wish you well, and I wish only the best for your supporters and those who voted for you. I understand that your rise to power is a symptom, not the problem. I know that we all desire the same thing--happiness, but we do not always know the best way to attain it. I understand that sometimes we make the fatal mistake of pursuing our own happiness at other's expense. And when we do so it creates misery for ourselves as well as others.
But, my friend, as your sincere well-wisher, as one who has pledged to defend the spirit of our constitution against all enemies, inner and outer, I will stand against the rhetoric of hate, I will stand against the 'othering' of minorities, I will fight for our liberties, for justice, for true equality, with my pen, with my voice, with my firm conviction. I will not appease nor acquiesce; I will not consent to the normalization of hate. You may be duly elected, but you will never be 'my' president.