Dear Donald

Dear Donald,

Let’s have a chat.

That press conference last week was a train wreck.

An absolute, unadulterated train wreck.

Filling the room with your paid staffers to clap, cheer, and jeer didn’t help with the dignity or substance of the affair.

Agreed, the latest allegations against you would upset anyone.

Especially if untrue.

But, you must understand many people are hesitant to give you the benefit of doubt because you had behaved deplorably throughout the election campaign (and long before that), including talking about grabbing women by the p***y, and you continue to behave in a manner that’s arguably incompatible with human decency, and the dignity of the office you are about to occupy.

Sadly, the allegations made against you are compatible with the character you portray daily in your tweets and other interactions, and are plausible in light of how you represent yourself in public.

If the allegations do turn out to be a lie, many will still take a stoic approach to the matter following an election campaign you filled with so many blatant lies if you were Pinocchio your nose would have skewered the moon. It’s more than ironic to see you cry ‘fake news’ now, even if you are using that term incorrectly in this context.

Did BuzzFeed cross a line by publishing unverified allegations?

Perhaps.

Perhaps not.

But then you are so far from the line yourself you can’t even see the line anymore. You carelessly, or calculatingly, upended cultural, political, and social norms with your presidential campaign, and you complaining about the conduct of BuzzFeed just sounds hollow, even churlish now.

Also, what were you thinking comparing the US intelligence agencies to Nazi Germany?! No, just no …

And a few days later taking aim at John Lewis via Twitter, on the eve of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, as ‘[a]ll talk, talk, talk – no action or results’?!

Seriously?!

Have you looked at the history of the American civil rights movement?!

The man is a legend!

He is one of the great heroes and key players of the civil rights era: he is one of the 13 original Freedom Riders, he was one of the leaders of the 1965 march at Selma, Montgomery, and he was beaten on a number of occasions in the course of the civil rights movement because of his brave and historical activism, including at Selma where his skull was fractured by a police nightstick!

Your comments about John Lewis are a new low in headache inducing ignorance and disrespect – but, sadly, that’s the one thing you truly excel at: new lows.

It’s people like you why people like John Lewis exist.

Only if you were just as quick and unequivocal to denounce David Duke, American white supremacist,  antisemite Holocaust denier, conspiracy theorist, and former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, when he publicly expressed support for your presidential candidacy.

Nevertheless, even though I dislike you intensely, I want you to succeed as President of the United States, because a strong and stable America is critical for geopolitical balance.

The people of the United States deserve better. The entire world deserves, and needs, better.

But me, or even the world, wanting and wishing you to succeed is not enough. Unfortunately, you are the one who has to step up to the challenge.

Tragically, the administration you assembled practically qualifies as a hate group with its combined track record of bigotry, racism, misogyny, homophobia, and religious zealotry, and sets the foundations for a potential transition not just from one president to another, but from a liberal democracy to an authoritarian kakistocracy with shades of kleptocracy and fascism.

Your own track record in business and philanthropy also raise more questions than answers, and the ostentatious bravado and braggadocio you display fail to mask the reality of your spectacular failures.

First, you are not a ‘self-made man’ – you benefited from, and built on, the significant wealth and connections of your father, Fred Trump.

Second, while you built on the money, connections, and influence you inherited, at best your history in business is chequered – peppered with questionable business practices, frequent incompetence and bankruptcies, and many lives destroyed.

Third, repeated investigations shown that your ‘philanthropy’ is smoke and mirrors, falling somewhere between practically non-existent and the least you can get away with, but even then seemingly only so you can brag about it.

And we haven’t even started addressing the conflicts of interest that will arise from the lack of divestiture from your business as you are about to take office. Your children running your business empire is not a ‘blind trust’, and it is an ethical and legal quagmire waiting to happen.

Based on the ‘values’ you espouse, and your conduct to date, at the risk of being accused of engaging in name-calling, I can only accurately describe you as an unqualified belligerent, boorish, narcissistic buffoon with too many observable sociopathic personality traits, who is unlikely to be capable of performing the duties and obligations that come with your new high office.

But I am prepared to be proved wrong so, with only four days remaining before your inauguration later this week, please start acting like the President.

Your shortcomings are accentuated by the fact that you are following in the footsteps of two intelligent and dignified leaders who made a formidable team, Barack and Michelle Obama.

Admittedly, Barack Obama is not perfect. He is human like the rest of us, with his own flaws, and he is no stranger to mistakes and miscalculations.

And while no one is asking you to be perfect either, here are a few concepts you need to brush up on – and fast: dignity, ethics, humanity, humility, leadership, press freedom, the rule of law, and science.