I would like to take a moment to thank you, Mr. Trump, for all the hard work you have done. I’ve been watching your interviews and debates over the past six months, and I just have to say that you are an inspiring man. You rile up those attending your rallies, you make headlines on a daily basis, and you do this all by following your heart. You speak what you feel, and you don’t apologize for it.

You are truly a one-of-a-kind person.

To be honest, I’m genuinely grateful you’re running for president. If it wasn’t for you, the bigots and racists of this country would still be in hiding. You see, you say what others confess to want to say, but keep to themselves. You say things that remind older generations of the overt racist environment Americans festered in. The nostalgia they feel becomes too great, and they can’t help but revert back to their Jim Crow mentality. Thank you for giving them the courage to come out of their hate closets so that the rest of us can avoid them.

For too many Americans, racism and xenophobia are just key terms in a history book. The American people are indebted to you for showing us that racism is more than alive and well, and that xenophobia is a mental disease afflicting more and more people each time you give a speech. Thank you for giving life to those words, and making them have tangible consequences.

I would like to ask you a serious question though: When you say you want to “make America great again,” do you have a specific date in mind, or are you just referring to some nostalgic moment in American history? The reason I ask is because the assumption that America is no longer great has very insidious implications.

You’re insinuating that the social progress made over this country’s history isn’t great. You’re implying that the struggles and activism of great people were done for nothing. You’re saying that the blatant and unabashed exploitation of people in the Global South is the way to boost our economy. You’re professing a love for legal forms of discrimination that served to protect the murderers of Emmitt Louis Till.

Perhaps you want to go back to legal child labor in dangerous factories. Perhaps you want to go back to a time when women couldn’t vote. Perhaps you want to go back to segregated schools a la George Wallace. Maybe you mean to take us back to the time America outlawed interracial marriage, or certain forms of sex. Maybe your idea of “great” isn’t so great after all.

Mr. Trump, I have no doubt in my mind that you say what you mean and you mean what you say. But I have to tell you that you are perverting Theodor Seuss Geisel’s words when you claim to be the one person who cares enough about this country to bring the necessary change to make things better. Your idea of a “great” America is very different from the America millions of others envision.