Rant #2,536: An Open Letter To My Beleaguered President

Dear Mr. President:
Today is Thursday, November 19, and we are one week away from Thanksgiving.
 
By this time, we should have known who the president of our country was after a rigorous, hard-fought election.
 
And we do know who it is.
 
The winner of the contest was Joseph Biden.
 
Yet, you have not conceded at this point in time, going the court route to try to get recounts on votes and ballots that you say are fraudulent.
 
You have been kicked to the curb on every turn, and I think it is time that you simply concede the election, and devote your efforts on voting reform, which the past election proved was desperately needed by our country.
 
Mail-in ballots--the very ballots that you are contesting the validity of--should never, ever be used for convenience, and that is what happened during the past election.
 
Millions upon millions of people voted this way, and how many of the people who chose this route really, clearly and honestly used mail-in ballots because they had no other way to vote this year?
 
The same people who go to Kohl’s and Walmart to do their shopping during this horrible pandemic that we are in used the mail-in ballots to their advantage, rather than leaving that method of voting to people who really needed it, like the infirm and the aged.
 
The number of such ballots cast this time around clearly attests to that, as millions upon millions of people were able to vote this way this year simply by claiming “illness.”
 
You simply cannot fight COVID, and by using “illness” as an excuse, people were able to vote this way, the least safe, secure and valid way that Americans can currently cast their ballots.
 
Millions upon millions of people chose this route, and while it might be underhanded to claim “illness” when you readily shop and eat out with reckless abandon during a pandemic, were these votes necessarily illegal as you claim so many millions of them to be?
 
Underhanded? Perhaps.
 
Illegal? No.
 
They were cast this way in a system that is clearly not made to handle such a large amount of mail-in ballots, and at this point, the people have spoken.
 
You have lost, and it is time to concede.
 
That is not an admission of failure. More than 70 million people had faith enough in you that they voted for you, and even in your loss, you posted one of the highest vote totals in the history of this country.
 
But Mr. President, it is time to move on.
 
You registered a number of accomplishments as our commander in chief that will live on after you depart the White House.
 
You made trade deals with foreign countries more level.
 
You made being a citizen of this country important again.
 
You launched a historic environment in the Middle East, where peace is at hand if things stay in place like they are, and you exposed the Palestinians as not peaceful people, but as the hooligans that they truly are.
 
You promised us a robust economy, and you delivered on your promise prior to the pandemic.
 
And as the pandemic swept the country, you promised us a serum to cure us of this scourge this very year, and although so many people chided you for this, it appears that we will have one—or more than one—supposed cure before the end of the year.
 
You have made the Republican Party stronger, and it will be interesting to see in the following years’ elections if that strength can continue, and continue to build.
 
You made us proud to be Americans again.
 
I am not saying that all of your policies were wonderful and grand.
 
I understand why you did not wear a mask during the pandemic—to show strength—but I think your insistence to not wear one kind of backfired.
 
Wearing one would have unified the country, it would have put Democrats and Republicans and others on the same level, all of us fighting the coronavirus the same way, by all of us using a simple method of refusal of acceptance of this virus: by wearing a lousy mask. 

But you refused to wear one.
 
I believe, in all due respect, that that simple move on your part might have been the tipping point of the election, and why you lost.
 
If you simply would have worn a mask, people would have voted for you that didn’t when you refused to do so.
 
And when you and your family contracted the disease, and many of your staff did too, I do believe that was the tipping point for people who were sitting on the fence, needing something tangible to either choose to vote for you or Mr. Biden.
 
They simply chose Biden because they lost faith in you during this horrible period we are in.
 
And not to ramble on about it, but you should concede, because the longer you hold off, the longer our next administration is thwarted in moving ahead in battling the virus head on.
 
It serves absolutely no purpose to prevent them from doing that, and it makes you into something of a bully and a sore loser.
 
I am sure you don’t want to go out with that perception, whether it is a right one or a wrong one.
 
So Mr. President, as someone who supported you during your White House run, who proudly voted for you twice believing you were the best candidate to lead this country, I implore you, as we are coming up on Thanksgiving, to concede the race to Mr. Biden.
 
The time has come, it is now, and it is time to do what must be done.
 
I can guarantee you that even though you might not think it will make you feel good to say that you lost, you will be amazed at how much better you will feel when you admit defeat.
 
Sometimes, admitting the obvious is the best antidote, and I do believe that once you concede, you will not only feel better about yourself, but the perception by people like me about you, a president that we supported 1,000 percent, will improve too.
 
Think of your family, your wife, your son, your adult children, and the country and the world.
 
It is time, Mr. President, it is time.

 

Inspired by “An Open Letter To My Teenage Son” by Victor Lundberg, 1967.