Mr. Trump, you are not a very good pen pal.

President Trump

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Washington DC 20500

4 May 2017 

Dear President Trump, 

Honestly, I am tired of writing letters to you.  My family (me my wife, and our two daughters) has been writing you roughly a letter every business day since you took office.  We have asked you not to cut funding for libraries, have encouraged you to view third-world countries with compassion, encouraged you not to defund the EPA and the Parks Departments, have suggested that the you should not vote for a health care bill that will literally result in the deaths of US citizens, and have suggested you reconsider your plan to build a wall.   

All in all, we have sent you seventy-five letters so far.  In that time we not only haven’t gotten a letter back from you, not even a form letter to acknowledge that you have gotten any of our letters.  I don’t expect you to read all of your letters, but honestly, I have written letters to almost every president since Gerald Ford and have gotten replies from every one of them.  Nothing from you, sir. 

Part of what makes it so hard to write to you is that in spite of all our imploring, you continue to do things that we perceive as lacking compassion, and often downright mean.   You really want to leave people with a pre-existing medical condition without insurance?  You really want to cut programs that encourage energy efficiency and cost the government nothing (like the Energy Star Program)?   You really want to deport children who have been granted US citizenship under the Dreamer Act, and who have never lived in the nations you are deporting them to?  Is it intentional when you insult our allies and seem to get along better with our enemies?  Do you really want to ignore threats like global climate change by pretending they do not exist?  If you ever did read our letters, is there any chance they would make you pause and consider? 

 

 We wrote one letter to our state Senator about a month ago.  Though it took a while, we got a thoughtful, personal reply.   

See, I started this project with my  family in hopes that we could engage in civil discourse and I could teach my children that writing letters to the president can help them make an impact.  I do not think they are actually learning that. 

So you haven’t been a very good correspondent.  But I don’t think we are going to quit yet.  We think we will send you an even 100 letters, then perhaps we will try writing to someone who cares about American citizens enough to read what we have to say.  I am sorry to be harsh, but you have been something of a disappointment in this regard. 

 Regards,

Bill Boerman-Cornell