An Open Letter to President Trump: Time To Drain The Swamp

Dear Mr. President:

Here is what I see, from my little window on the world.

There is an organized plot to overthrow you. This is not “discourse,” or reasoned opposition, or even the typical dirty tricks we’ve come to expect in the political sphere. Rather, the sedition is like a thin, gray, watery, poisonous smoke: We’re coughing from the chemicals, but the source remains elusive.

You see that DC is full of corruption. In response you have surrounded yourself with your closest family. I have to tell you, Sir, that as much as I like Ivanka and Jared Kushner, it makes me nervous how much you rely on them to do our most sensitive work.

FOX News has become your personal media outlet. Some say that they are “controlled opposition,” too, but it’s obvious that you have no safe haven with the others. Still and all, it’s distressing how you seem to pick and choose “friendlies.” I think you could find another media outlet, or even a citizen journalist or two, that would be tough but fair.

Speaking of media: I find myself wishing that you had more impartial and intellectual spokespeople. Your positions make a lot of common sense, but also resonate academically. This city is full of very smart, experienced and willing people. There are enough communicators with “street smarts” on your team; it is time to bring in the policy wonks, and to put them front and center.

One thing I’d like to see your team address is this: Are we still a democracy? Or are we living the boiling frog theory, where every day sees Americans desensitized just a bit more to the loss of our liberties? In just a short time, we’ve come to take it for granted that we have little or no privacy; that we don’t understand the laws that govern us; and that due to national security concerns, we have very little hope of actually knowing what’s going on. 

I think you have accomplished a lot, Mr. President. Jobs, healthcare, taxes — these are things people are concerned about. And you get it.

But the corruption at the top is a wound that will not stop festering. It’s like when a person has cancer, God forbid, and the disease is metastasizing rapidly. If you don’t act quick enough, the bad cells go so far into the system that there is no way to cut them out.

I may be totally wrong about this. But it looks to me like you have a very narrow window of time before the cancer cells overtake you. There are just too many of them lined up. 

Mr. President, you seem to have good instincts, and I know that you have dealt with many, many bad people over the course of your life. I don’t doubt that you have plans, and solid ones.

But something tells me that something’s going wrong. And so as a citizen I urge you to make “draining the swamp” your #1 priority in office. 

You cannot ally yourself with alligators.

It is time to show, for once and for all, that corruption will not be tolerated. And not to allow people with questionable integrity to hold public office.

Mr. President, you have a reputation for being tough. So please, no more Mr. Nice Guy.

It is time to shed the pretense, make arrests, and commence with trials. Followed by appropriate civil and criminal penalties.

I pray for you, and for our great Nation, every single day.

Very respectfully,

Dannielle Blumenthal, Ph.D.

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All opinions my own. Photo by tacofleur via Pixabay (Public Domain).

– By Dannielle Blumenthal, Ph.D.