A year ago, almost to the day, I sent Hillary Clinton a letter I started just a few hours after the electoral college was announced for Trump, effectively naming him president. I have decided to post it in its entirety below.
A year has passed and everything she warned against during her campaign should Trump get into office has come true. Everything.
She is an astonishing woman, and I count her as one of my heroes. If you knew me, you'd know just how rare it is that I label anyone a hero of mine. If you are one of her many haters, let me be plain with you: you're brainwashed, ignorant, and immoral. How do I know you're immoral? Because in your hate you did one of three things come election night November 8, 2016: you either voted for Trump, you voted for a third-party candidate, or you stayed home and didn't vote at all. Every single one of those actions was profoundly immoral, as evidenced by the previous year of Trump's illegitimate "presidency"; and the likelihood that you have done anything to rectify your actions is somewhere between slim and none. That's how I know. No sane bookie in Vegas would take those odds. That's how I know.
Hillary Rodham Clinton is this nation's true and rightful president. Donald Trump is this nation's first dictator. Barack Obama was this nation's last actual president. Those three sentences are factual. They aren't fake news. They aren't opinion. To disagree with one, two, or all three of them is a direct confirmation of your brainwashed and ignorant state.
This blog reflects who I am, what I believe, what I cherish, what inspires me, and my daily creative efforts to engage with the world. It is regularly visited by very few--ten people at best. Most of you are here, in the US, but a few of you hail from overseas. If you are one of those people, please know this: a strong majority of the citizens of the United States are appalled and horrified by what is happening in our government. Some of them voted for Trump. Some of them voted third-party. (Some people, after all, do not like being immoral. Some people, after all, enjoy having a soul.) Many of us are doing what we can to stop this nightmare from going any further. We blog, we write books, we make music or videos, we hold placards along a busy boulevard, we sign petitions, we write our ostensible leaders in government and demand that they get off their fat duffs and do their part to save not just our country, but the planet.
This blog is for those so involved, for those who refused to drink the Kool-Aid and brainwashed themselves into thinking Hillary Clinton is a monster. If you aren't that person, you aren't welcome here, and I will remain content to be visited by ten people a day forever. I won't bow to you, I won't concede anything to you, I won't give up, and I won't shut up. Deal with it.
~~*~~
December 13, 2016
Secretary Hillary Clinton
Hillary for America
Post Office Box 5256
New York, NY 10185
Dear Mrs. Clinton:
First of all, please allow me to apologize. It took the general election “victory” of Donald Trump to get me involved enough to start writing my representatives, which I have done with urgency since November 8. That’s inexcusable, and I’m sorry, both to you and to everyone in this country who worked so hard on your behalf, and to the country itself. I’m sorry as well that I didn’t volunteer for your campaign or knock on doors or make calls. I live in Oregon, which, unsurprisingly, ended up in your column that horrible day; still, I feel I should have done something, anything. I honestly didn’t think Trump would win. I believed the election forecasts, which I followed very closely, and which all proclaimed that you’d win with little trouble.
I’m writing, simply, to thank you for the grace, dignity, strength, honor, and courage with which you and Tim Kaine ran your campaign. I was solidly in Barack Obama’s corner in 2007, and followed his presidency with great interest. I firmly believe he will go down in history as one of the greatest presidents ever. I was very happy when you became his Secretary of State. I thought that took great class on both your and his part.
I prayed for you to run for president, and when you announced your candidacy, I was ecstatic. I felt very strongly that this was your time. Your leadership, grace, smarts, and class made you eminently qualified for the highest office in the land. I prayed for you every single day, Mrs. Clinton. If Obama was a great president, then you, I felt, would be even greater. Under your leadership this country would come into a social, financial, educational, artistic, compassionate, even spiritual renaissance.
I wept when Trump was announced the victor. I still weep. I can’t imagine your pain. Please know that millions of Americans feel it too. In fact, know that a strong majority of Americans feel it. You have, at the time of this writing, won more votes than any candidate in history save Barack Obama in 2008.
Is it a consolation prize that you won the popular vote, and by a substantial margin, one that’s still growing? I think not. Your victory was real. It is real. It isn’t adequately reported by the media, perversely but unsurprisingly, but it’s there just the same. You convinced us: we are indeed stronger together.
Like most Americans—certainly all the sane ones—I am now terrified. I am a very poor individual who has depended on my partner for six years for pretty much everything to get through life: a roof over my head, food, clothes. She is enrolled in Obamacare and has no idea how she’ll get by once Trump eliminates it, which he has vowed to do the first day he’s in office. I am enrolled in the Oregon Health Plan. I have written Governor Brown, begging her to do whatever she can to protect us, and all Oregonians, from the impending repeal of the ACA.
Donald Trump is an existential threat to this country. As I write this, he has created a huge dust-up with China over Taiwan, and has endorsed the brutal tactics of the Philippines president against his own populace, and just today went on a Twitter tirade against a union worker! What can poor Americans like myself do, Mrs. Clinton? Despite writing letters to my representatives, I feel utterly and completely helpless. The next four years—hell, the next four months—could prove catastrophic to this nation. Barack Obama may in fact be our last president.
Where I live, in rural Oregon, there is much hatred and anger for Democrats. It can be read in the letters to the editor in the local rag and heard in folks’ conversations. It’s all very real where I live, that hatred, and I am at a loss whenever I encounter it.
I can’t imagine what it has been like from your perspective. You have been the target of these attacks for so long now, and still you have battled on. In that way you strongly remind me of my mother, Mrs. Clinton. Her name was Kathleen—Kay. She was diagnosed with a rare adult form of muscular dystrophy in 1969, and died in 1984. The way she fought every day, her unshakeable optimism, her resolve, her refusal to back down to her disease and my father, who divorced her shortly after she fell ill and then proceeded to sue her and his kids into poverty ... well, watching your campaign and the media’s relentless attacks on you, I couldn’t help but think of Mom. You have her spirit.
She and the maid the court appointed to help her with us, her five children, are genuine heroes to me. The maid was named Beatrice, and was Mexican-American. She was strong, loving, compassionate, and took no BS from us, and I loved her dearly.
I want to tell you that you are now on that list. I never thought it would expand; and I certainly never thought I’d add a politician I’ve never met to it! But there you go. The incredibly brave way you have conducted yourself, and the way you have inspired me and tens of millions more ... well, how could I not add you?
Please know that I pray for you and your family every day, Mrs. Clinton. Please also know that I am in your service. Just say the word, and I will bend over backwards for you.
With the very highest regard,
Shawn Michel de Montaigne
Gold Beach, OR
I prayed for you to run for president, and when you announced your candidacy, I was ecstatic. I felt very strongly that this was your time. Your leadership, grace, smarts, and class made you eminently qualified for the highest office in the land. I prayed for you every single day, Mrs. Clinton. If Obama was a great president, then you, I felt, would be even greater. Under your leadership this country would come into a social, financial, educational, artistic, compassionate, even spiritual renaissance.
I wept when Trump was announced the victor. I still weep. I can’t imagine your pain. Please know that millions of Americans feel it too. In fact, know that a strong majority of Americans feel it. You have, at the time of this writing, won more votes than any candidate in history save Barack Obama in 2008.
Is it a consolation prize that you won the popular vote, and by a substantial margin, one that’s still growing? I think not. Your victory was real. It is real. It isn’t adequately reported by the media, perversely but unsurprisingly, but it’s there just the same. You convinced us: we are indeed stronger together.
Like most Americans—certainly all the sane ones—I am now terrified. I am a very poor individual who has depended on my partner for six years for pretty much everything to get through life: a roof over my head, food, clothes. She is enrolled in Obamacare and has no idea how she’ll get by once Trump eliminates it, which he has vowed to do the first day he’s in office. I am enrolled in the Oregon Health Plan. I have written Governor Brown, begging her to do whatever she can to protect us, and all Oregonians, from the impending repeal of the ACA.
Donald Trump is an existential threat to this country. As I write this, he has created a huge dust-up with China over Taiwan, and has endorsed the brutal tactics of the Philippines president against his own populace, and just today went on a Twitter tirade against a union worker! What can poor Americans like myself do, Mrs. Clinton? Despite writing letters to my representatives, I feel utterly and completely helpless. The next four years—hell, the next four months—could prove catastrophic to this nation. Barack Obama may in fact be our last president.
Where I live, in rural Oregon, there is much hatred and anger for Democrats. It can be read in the letters to the editor in the local rag and heard in folks’ conversations. It’s all very real where I live, that hatred, and I am at a loss whenever I encounter it.
I can’t imagine what it has been like from your perspective. You have been the target of these attacks for so long now, and still you have battled on. In that way you strongly remind me of my mother, Mrs. Clinton. Her name was Kathleen—Kay. She was diagnosed with a rare adult form of muscular dystrophy in 1969, and died in 1984. The way she fought every day, her unshakeable optimism, her resolve, her refusal to back down to her disease and my father, who divorced her shortly after she fell ill and then proceeded to sue her and his kids into poverty ... well, watching your campaign and the media’s relentless attacks on you, I couldn’t help but think of Mom. You have her spirit.
She and the maid the court appointed to help her with us, her five children, are genuine heroes to me. The maid was named Beatrice, and was Mexican-American. She was strong, loving, compassionate, and took no BS from us, and I loved her dearly.
I want to tell you that you are now on that list. I never thought it would expand; and I certainly never thought I’d add a politician I’ve never met to it! But there you go. The incredibly brave way you have conducted yourself, and the way you have inspired me and tens of millions more ... well, how could I not add you?
Please know that I pray for you and your family every day, Mrs. Clinton. Please also know that I am in your service. Just say the word, and I will bend over backwards for you.
With the very highest regard,
Shawn Michel de Montaigne
Gold Beach, OR
~~*~~
