To our President-elect, Donald Trump,

I like to see the good in people. No matter what they do, I search for some semblance of relatability, rationality, humanity. I search for a justification or an explanation. I look for the silver lining because I believe that every person, inherently, is some combination of good and evil, and those aspects just shine in different ways, in varying degrees. I don’t think a person could be wholly bad or, alternatively, wholly good. And it may be naïve and immature, but I believe that every person, deep down, wants to do good and be good in some capacity.

When I see you and watch how you speak, and hear about the things you support, I’m kind of baffled. I genuinely don’t understand how a person could operate as you do, spewing offensive and discriminatory and hateful language and ideas. How could you boast about tightening our borders, rejecting millions of people? America: the first thing you think of is the land of the free. The Statue of Liberty. Ellis Island. This is the home of the American Dream, the nation in which, in theory, anyone can achieve anything. Our country is a land of immigrants; your wife is an immigrant. She is from Slovenia – a country that was once communist. Communism, a few decades ago, was viewed with a similar horror and unfamiliar fear that Islam is often looked at with today. And as she so eloquently “said” in her convention speech, this nation is founded on the principle that anyone can come here and work hard to achieve their dreams, that everyone should be treated with respect. People around the world have no homes and no hope. Just as America has been a place of hope, the last chance at survival or remote prosperity, and a haven for the persecuted in the past, it should and must continue to be for those who need it now.

Right now, there are millions of Syrians who were forced from their homes, left with nothing. There are millions of Mexicans who just want to escape their poverty and work to start a new life. All around the world, there are people who simply want a second chance and people who do not have anywhere else to go to, whose lives are on the line. Being Muslim does not make someone a terrorist, being Mexican does not make someone a rapist, or dangerous, or undeserving of admittance into this country. Illegal immigrants are not ungrateful, lazy job thieves – the vast majority are hardworking people who are often barely paid a living wage, supporting our economy and trying to survive. They are people who did not have a chance at a life, whose children have known nothing but America their entire lives and who live in fear of being forced back to a home they do not have.

Immigration is not purely a matter of national security – it can’t be simplified to something that concise and sterile. The reasons people come here go far beyond matters of American policy or security. They go beyond borders; they are issues of human rights, of survival, of providing a place for people because they are humans, and they deserve to live.

I often rationalize you by thinking that you do it for votes. You change your views so often that perhaps you are not so discriminatory and hateful, but you are just an egotistical panderer, hungry for power. I guess this is somehow better, because, then, maybe you are not genuinely hateful, racist, sexist, homophobic. Distasteful and egotistical, most definitely – but maybe not unjust, undemocratic, unsympathetic. This explanation is comforting for me because maybe if it’s true, I don’t have to fear so much for the rights of women, LGBTQ+ individuals, disabled persons, and people of color. Although in reality, this might be even scarier – that you are willing to sacrifice your beliefs for power, that ultimately you have no convictions.

Your Twitter is something I really can’t wrap my head around. I have grown up being told by my parents to watch what I post on social media because it will be there forever, eternally attached to my name. Your Twitter account is a prime example of this point they’ve been drilling into my head for years – except you somehow became president nonetheless. The power your tweets hold is phenomenal – with 140 characters you launch personal attacks, you establish positions: you become breaking news. This power could be used to do so much good. You spend so much time channeling your rage and ego into nearly incoherent messages when you could be spreading positivity, ending the constant feedback loop of your ridiculousness that fuels and enrages your critics.

On January 6th, you used two tweets to talk about Arnold Schwarzenegger, saying,

“Wow, the ratings are in and Arnold Schwarzenegger got "swamped" (or destroyed) by comparison to the ratings machine, DJT. So much for.... being a movie star-and that was season 1 compared to season 14. Now compare him to my season 1. But who cares, he supported Kasich & Hillary.”

Why is this necessary? Who cares? As the leader of our country in less than 20 days, why would you invest your time and effort into expelling egotistical, petty nonsense about your show that I didn’t know anyone actually watched instead of doing something valuable such as, I don’t know, saying something positive or actually attending intelligence briefings?

There is already enough hate in the world. But after you were elected, people began waving this flag of hatred in your name. White supremacists, homophobes and extremist conservatives (such as your trusty chief strategist Steve Bannon – what a nice guy! A real class act! Great pick!) now feel empowered – they now think that their causes have been validated and are now part of the mainstream. And I genuinely don’t think that that is what you intended to do, or want to happen. I don’t think you want swastikas appearing on baseball dugouts, neighborhood sidewalks or the dorm room doors of Jewish students, or people assaulting minorities and screaming, “Trump all the way… because black lives don’t matter.” I have enough faith in you that I believe you must not want that. If you can spend so much time and energy getting in Twitter wars with Alec Baldwin over a comedic, exaggerated impression of you, why can’t you manage one single tweet condemning the hate and violence that is being propagated in your name? How difficult is it to say something as simple as, for instance, “I do not support those who are spreading violent, hateful, and discriminatory messages. This is not what America is about.”? That is 122 characters – you still have plenty of room to add an exclamation in your typical tweeting fashion! Instead of having the Twitter account most reminiscent of an angry racist grandpa who just discovered social media combined with the biggest sore winner ever to live, why don’t you, just once in a while, fight the fights that are actually worth fighting? Or, if that’s really too much to ask, there’s this old saying – you’ve probably never heard it, but I think you really need to: if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all.

Thanks,

Olivia Turano