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Changing This Bumbling Narcissist Impossible, So We Must Depose Him
Jun 06, 2017
Dear Donald Trump:
I write this short note to you shortly after you have moved to cancel participation of the United States in the Paris Climate Accord. I know that many believe you are a stumbling, bumbling narcissist who does not think deeply about anything but himself and the mood of the base he is so eager to maintain. But I see things just a bit differently.
I suspect you now know full well that climate change is real and is accelerating. Perhaps you even welcome the fascist pressures that are apt to intensify as expanding droughts, glacier melts, rising oceans, stressed water supplies, power outages, extreme storms, ocean acidification, and refugee pressures grow. Perhaps you think that rich people like you can escape the consequences, as large zones of the world are progressively decimated. I am not sure. But it would not surprise me. What some see as a blind tendency to stumble into huge blunders I see as a kind of aggressive nihilism that is much more primed to stumble in some directions than others.
If such an assumption is on the right track, it makes no sense to appeal to you or to try to influence your thinking. You have gone over the edge. It makes the most sense to link protests against your destructive actions at home and abroad to a host of voluntarist actions in localities, schools, universities, churches, universities, corporations and other countries to alter the norms of consumption, to shift the power grid, and to enliven one another. For we know that several zones in the world and inside the United States already feel the results of your destructive mentality and will do so much more in the short term future. We will do our best to hold you accountable for this, as we show as many poor people, working class people, and minorities as possible what destruction your policies are wreaking now and will wreak on their children. Nihilism, of course, is not far away from the pursuit of Fascism.
From this day on you and your ilk have become people to oppose and expose, not to try to convince. We will do the best we can to separate you from your base and to help them to see the con job you have fed them, even as we work more actively upon ourselves to appreciate better than we have in the past the real grievances that propelled so many to take a fateful shot in the dark with you...
Sincerely,
William E. Connolly
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Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
William E. Connolly
William E. Connolly is Krieger-Eisenhower Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. His most recent book is Stormy Weather: Pagan Cosmologies, Christian Times, Climate Wreckage (Fordham, 2024)
Dear Donald Trump:
I write this short note to you shortly after you have moved to cancel participation of the United States in the Paris Climate Accord. I know that many believe you are a stumbling, bumbling narcissist who does not think deeply about anything but himself and the mood of the base he is so eager to maintain. But I see things just a bit differently.
I suspect you now know full well that climate change is real and is accelerating. Perhaps you even welcome the fascist pressures that are apt to intensify as expanding droughts, glacier melts, rising oceans, stressed water supplies, power outages, extreme storms, ocean acidification, and refugee pressures grow. Perhaps you think that rich people like you can escape the consequences, as large zones of the world are progressively decimated. I am not sure. But it would not surprise me. What some see as a blind tendency to stumble into huge blunders I see as a kind of aggressive nihilism that is much more primed to stumble in some directions than others.
If such an assumption is on the right track, it makes no sense to appeal to you or to try to influence your thinking. You have gone over the edge. It makes the most sense to link protests against your destructive actions at home and abroad to a host of voluntarist actions in localities, schools, universities, churches, universities, corporations and other countries to alter the norms of consumption, to shift the power grid, and to enliven one another. For we know that several zones in the world and inside the United States already feel the results of your destructive mentality and will do so much more in the short term future. We will do our best to hold you accountable for this, as we show as many poor people, working class people, and minorities as possible what destruction your policies are wreaking now and will wreak on their children. Nihilism, of course, is not far away from the pursuit of Fascism.
From this day on you and your ilk have become people to oppose and expose, not to try to convince. We will do the best we can to separate you from your base and to help them to see the con job you have fed them, even as we work more actively upon ourselves to appreciate better than we have in the past the real grievances that propelled so many to take a fateful shot in the dark with you...
Sincerely,
William E. Connolly
William E. Connolly
William E. Connolly is Krieger-Eisenhower Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. His most recent book is Stormy Weather: Pagan Cosmologies, Christian Times, Climate Wreckage (Fordham, 2024)
Dear Donald Trump:
I write this short note to you shortly after you have moved to cancel participation of the United States in the Paris Climate Accord. I know that many believe you are a stumbling, bumbling narcissist who does not think deeply about anything but himself and the mood of the base he is so eager to maintain. But I see things just a bit differently.
I suspect you now know full well that climate change is real and is accelerating. Perhaps you even welcome the fascist pressures that are apt to intensify as expanding droughts, glacier melts, rising oceans, stressed water supplies, power outages, extreme storms, ocean acidification, and refugee pressures grow. Perhaps you think that rich people like you can escape the consequences, as large zones of the world are progressively decimated. I am not sure. But it would not surprise me. What some see as a blind tendency to stumble into huge blunders I see as a kind of aggressive nihilism that is much more primed to stumble in some directions than others.
If such an assumption is on the right track, it makes no sense to appeal to you or to try to influence your thinking. You have gone over the edge. It makes the most sense to link protests against your destructive actions at home and abroad to a host of voluntarist actions in localities, schools, universities, churches, universities, corporations and other countries to alter the norms of consumption, to shift the power grid, and to enliven one another. For we know that several zones in the world and inside the United States already feel the results of your destructive mentality and will do so much more in the short term future. We will do our best to hold you accountable for this, as we show as many poor people, working class people, and minorities as possible what destruction your policies are wreaking now and will wreak on their children. Nihilism, of course, is not far away from the pursuit of Fascism.
From this day on you and your ilk have become people to oppose and expose, not to try to convince. We will do the best we can to separate you from your base and to help them to see the con job you have fed them, even as we work more actively upon ourselves to appreciate better than we have in the past the real grievances that propelled so many to take a fateful shot in the dark with you...
Sincerely,
William E. Connolly
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