An Open Letter To The First Family

Dear President Trump, Mrs. Trump, and the rest of the Trump family;

I am not an American, but I am among your many upstairs neighbors, and I have to say that I'm deeply concerned by what you are all doing.

I can't speak for Canada as a whole, but I can speak about what I'm seeing, and I'm becoming increasingly concerned.

Mr. President, like many people throughout the world, I was dismayed when I woke the morning after Election Night and learned that you were going to become the 45th president of the United States. I could see, almost immediately, the clawing back of civil rights for LGBT citizens as well as women, but I thought for sure that I should give you a chance. Giving people a chance is something I preach to my students and to my own children, so I thought I'd best model the behavior.

We're not even 100 days into your first term as president, and I cringe every time I see the Trump name come up. As a news aggregator, I don't mind seeing your name, as every time I include it in an article I'm likely to get views, but as a person, you scare me. You take your insults and your tantrums to Twitter, where everyone can see your dirty laundry, and you don't seem to care who you smear. You got angry because of a satirical portrayal of you on a sketch comedy show. You seem to spend most of your time working on self-aggrandizing posts about how amazing you are, but I don't see much in the way of results.

You claimed that you want to "make America great again," yet you've clawed back the changes made to Title IX regarding gender identity in schools, putting some of our most vulnerable people on Earth - kids - square in the crosshairs of bigots. Transgender individuals simply want to do as the rest of the gender binary do, and that's to go pee in a bathroom that corresponds to their gender. They don't want to lie in wait to attack one of their peers; they just want to go to the bathroom and wash their hands in peace.

You've got a press secretary who doesn't seem to know the names of the world leaders you should be dealing with on a regular basis, who then reveals that you're in the process of destabilizing Syria while also effectively stating falsehoods about Hitler using chemical weapons on his own people. You seem to have no response to any of his gaffes, choosing instead to let him carry on, spewing what seems to be anything that comes off the top of his head rather than carefully considering what he's saying before speaking to the press. I understand that having someone who seems so obviously incompetent - or at the very least, unprepared - to handle the role of presidential press secretary, as well as that of White House communications director, can be a boon for you, as the press becomes so wrapped in what he's messed up on yet again that the press ignores whatever you happen to be doing. While this may be so, he makes the country look laughable.

You claim to want to "make America great again," but you've dropped bombs on Syria and Afghanistan. I understand ISIS is a real threat, one that frightens me and a lot of other people deeply, but America just got out of a war that is estimated to cost $2.4 trillion by this year. That's according to a Congressional Budget Office report, sir. You want to start two more wars on borrowed money? Seems a little fiscally irresponsible, and with your recent appointment of Don Benton, a man with absolutely no military experience, to the Selective Service Committee, the organization responsible for running the draft, this seems a train wreck ready to drive the United States into further debt; all because you had an itchy trigger finger.

Am I saying that there should have been no response to the chemical attack in Syria? That the world should stand by while ISIS continues to wreak havoc? Absolutely not, but dropping bombs seemingly whenever you get the chance to make the news, while you might think it makes you seem strong, you actually look like a global bully. There's a reason why we have organizations like NATO and the United Nations, Mr. President, and it's to avoid situations like the one you seem to be plunging America into.

Your son and namesake, Donald Trump Jr, just openly ridiculed, via Twitter, LGBTQ individuals for not wanting a Chik-Fil-A franchise to open up because of the franchise's open lack of support for the LGBTQ population. This flies in the face of the First Lady's pledge to launch a social media anti-bullying campaign. While I realize it seems that your son is exactly like you, the American people need someone behind them that isn't going to make fun of them and that is going to take their concerns seriously. They would also probably appreciate a First Family that respects more than just the rich people.

I fully respect and appreciate that the people have spoken and that like it or not, you are the current president of the United States. I'm just wondering if you even have an appreciation for the fact that while your job approval rating got a recent boost from the United States' role in the Syrian airstrike, your approval rating is far lower than you would probably like to acknowledge. Then again, you've probably already spun it in your head that the numbers show that you are just far more superior than we appreciate in general.