My Dear Wormwood,
I understand your patient has taken up residency as the President of the United States. My ears are tickled with reports of riots, protest, strife, and other nonsensical violence sweeping across the nation. Have you anything to do with this?! This is glorious! This is incredulously becoming of one as lowly as yourself. I do desire to see this marvelous outcome continue, but allow us to move to your particular subject (one whom you must be indebted to me over, for I went to great pains to have him assigned to you).
You have presently done a most excellent job in shaping his temperament, for his words have long since run away from his utterly diminished self-control. His tongue is a sharp knife, and his divisive words continue to spread like wildfire. See to it that he stays his present course of absolute justification in all of his future bloviation and empty speech. For the servants of the Enemy have surely been divided in their self-justified opinions on this man.
This! This is the beauty! You have not only managed to craft a man thoroughly enveloped in his own sense of grandeur, but allowed him enough displays of vigilance, virtue, and other goodwill that his followers are firmly convinced of his authenticity and genuine character. They praise him for his racism, they praise him for his force, and they praise him for the simple notion that they have no one else to praise in politics!
But listen closely, my dear nephew. The Enemy is moving. Reports are in that some of his people are earnestly committing to that awful notion of prayer in order to try and change him. You must be doubly sure of your advances in his spirit. For you know that if any virtue or sense of self-awareness is truly allowed to beset him, he may indeed confront his inner sins and call upon The Enemy for salvation. Hideous! Horrific! How terrible it would be for him to become aware of his blackened heart.
But no matter. As long as you ensure his continued pride, fortune, and status, what reason should he have for the countenance of The Enemy? What benefit would his horrible code of ethics have upon your patient? For you have woven a life around him so rich with the pleasures of this world (cultivated over years of trial and error, I might add), that he is not in want of anything.
Tread lightly. Handle this patient well, and your name will be known and praised throughout Hell. Demons and devils will shout your praises and sing tales of you. Steady him by your whispers and hand, and at all costs, keep him away from The Enemy.
Your Affectionate Uncle,
Screwtape
(Written in the style of C. S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters")
