President
Trump
The
White House
1600
Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington,
DC 20500
29
March 2017
Dear
Sir,
I am writing today to
speak briefly to boundaries interpersonal, governmental, and international.
(and what follows is mercifully not written in the form of a Gilbert and
Sullivan parody, much as it would have delighted me. One has to know one’s
audience…but perhaps I don’t give you enough credit. In any case, we proceed:)
In the course of my
studies in clinical mental health counseling, I came across a popular book
called Boundaries by Drs. Henry Cloud
and John Townsend. They describe three different types of boundaries that
people place between themselves and others: diffuse, rigid, and semipermeable.
As anyone who has read Goldilocks and the Three Bears knows, the first two are
less than desirable, while the third one is juuuust right.
Some have accused you of
having a “thin skin” when it comes to the media, and this is an example of a
diffuse boundary—letting everyone and everything in without discernment, and
allowing it direct access to your heart. When the media do their job to ask
questions about your plans for the country, they are just looking for information.
Their perception, likewise, does not need to be your definition or your
condemnation—it’s just information. It doesn’t need to hurt you.
When a boundary is
violated, it's common to develop defense mechanisms to protect oneself or to at
least help oneself feel safe in the face of uncertainty and danger until one
can regroup and heal. Anger is a common one, as well as the tendency to strike
first and violate others’ boundaries before they can hurt you. A third is to
develop rigid boundaries, not allowing anyone or anything to affect you or
inform you. This is what I see you doing when you refuse intelligence briefings
and project bravado about your abilities to solve all the world’s ills, which now
fall on your shoulders. I think this is a mistake. It is possible to humble
yourself to receive information without being humiliated.
You, Donald J. Trump,
are one man. You do not have to be the best or the hugest or the most fantastic
in order to gain people's respect. You are finite, and that is okay! You have
been placed into a role that gives you enormous responsibility over the
decisions that govern other people's lives. You do not need to be larger than
life in order to accomplish this; you simply have to have an ear to the needs
and consent of the governed. Various people groups have organized to march
'against' ‘you’ in general, to the confusion of some; but I think it is because
they fear you speak for them without having listened to them. Remember:
Dictators shout. Leaders listen.
Our nation has endured
thanks in large part to a little principle called limited government. It
generally maintains the least restrictive environment for the American people
in which to do their activities of daily living, providing the feeling known as
“freedom” or “liberty.” It tries to let them make their own decisions about the
money they earn with the work they do, balancing this with collective needs
such as roads, defense, education, protection for the indigent, law
enforcement, etc.
So far you have done a
passable job of respecting this boundary, as you were elected as a Republican
and they traditionally focus on decentralizing power (money) so that it can be
exercised (spent) as closely to those concerned as possible, to avoid waste and
corruption. However, here, too, you are sometimes too tight-fisted (PBS, EPA,
and ACA) and sometimes too diffuse (defense and the wall.)
A border is a boundary
that helps define our nation. Though the concept of a 'nation' is a construct,
it is usually a helpful one designed to unify a diverse group of people living
on the same chunk of land, through culture, currency, and in our case, a founding
document (the Constitution—read it.)
You ran for President on
a platform to Make America Great Again. The subtext here being that it had
somehow been watered down or degraded. On this point I can see the appeal to
voters in three ways, through the lens of boundaries:
One: that history in
schools has shifted toward teaching that everything America has and is was
stolen or extorted—two huge boundary violations—leading to national
self-loathing and shame;
Two:, that we allow able-bodied
people to live in our country and enjoy its wealth without work, and too freely
allow entrance to those who have not pledged allegiance to us or at least
signed a paper declaring their intent;
And three: that after
the attacks on September 11, 2001, we were left feeling vulnerable and afraid,
and have been feeling that way for sixteen years, and people are tired of it.
Your campaign capitalized
on this understandable fear and shame, and people’s desire to somehow move past
it. Yet now I offer this advice to temper those heavy, at times blinding
emotions: I urge you to handle our traumatized nation, now under your care,
with awareness. Negotiate your response within yourself before you speak and
act. Don’t exploit a vulnerable population.
Our country needs to stand
up for itself, to be sure. We need to know who we are and what we stand for and
why we help who we help. But this can be done without aggression. It can be
done without a rigid boundary such as a wall. It can be done without a diffuse
boundary such as open borders. The best defense is a good offense.
The best middle ground
to weakness and aggression is assertiveness. Assert that we will care for our
own people and anyone who is willing to work with us, but won’t stretch
ourselves too thin saying “yes” to things beyond our means and limits. Strengthen
our country's boundaries by clarifying what we are about and the rest of the
world may take notice and respect us—and you—unenforced by fear of retaliation.
Grace and peace,
Katherine G. Jongsma
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