Tag Archives: embarrassment

Dear Mr. President: an open letter

“In America, anyone can become President. That’s the problem.” –George Carlin

Hello friend,

Don’t you ever wish you could get the undivided attention of the leaders of the world and give them a piece of your mind? You know, just sit down over a beverage and try to get them to understand the world from your perspective or try to change their mind on a few things. Or maybe you imagine yourself as the principal and them coming into your office to sit while you stand over them and read them the riot act (my elementary school principal was a frightening dude, so this visual works for me!). Maybe you want to praise them for their wisdom and their class in handling a recent crisis, or perhaps you would rather berate them for the way they have let your country lose its place in the world order. Whatever your agenda, I bet you have imagined one of these conversations (or monologues) with some leader somewhere along the way.

Well, I am not sure if you have noticed, but the guy who lives in the White House these days seems to evoke some pretty strong sentiments from the citizens of the country he is charged to lead. I am one of those citizens.

I have read the Tweets and watched the press conferences. I have studied his appointees, his agreement withdrawals, and his proposals. I followed the seemingly endless presidential campaign very closely, and I have continued to follow the presidency.

It would be an understatement to say that I have an opinion on the matter. I can’t imagine that anyone in America with a head above ground does not have an opinion on the matter! But you know how delicate, emotional, and often combative political discussions can get. It can be hard to be fully honest and feel safe. And sometimes, just for our sanity, we try to bury our heads about what is going on, right? Because with one dramatic turn of events after another, to fully process them all just might be unhealthy.

So I was thinking this week that with the news cycle a little more off politics and onto other disasters, this might be just the time to think a bit more clearly about how we might address this polarizing character at the head of our government. And what better way than our journal, of course! The safest depository for sensitive or inflammatory ideas. It’s perfect! And so, a letter to the President….

Dear Mr. President, 

I am writing to you today because I would like to get some things off my chest. These are just from me. Though my political bent is definitely to the liberal side of the spectrum, I don’t affiliate with any party and don’t wish to speak for anyone but myself today. One voter, one citizen.  

I’m actually a deeply concerned citizen. Frankly, I don’t appreciate your style of leadership or the direction you are steering our country from a policy perspective.  

As far as your personal leadership style and the way you come across as the figurehead of America, I am a deeply embarrassed citizen. I have followed several Presidents in my lifetime and have disagreed with many (sometimes most) of their big decisions or policies. I never deluded myself into thinking any of them were saints. I don’t need my President to be a perfect soul. However, your words and actions have failed just about every moral test I can imagine.  

I often think of this stuff in terms of my children and how they would see it or be affected by it. Up to this point in my life, I can imagine thinking it would be really cool if the President—from either party–were to come to their school to address them or to come by our house for dinner. Despite our political differences, I believed the President would act with class and grace and be a good example to my kids. Now, if given those opportunities, I would keep my children home from school that day and deny the dinner request. It wouldn’t be worth the risk of what you might say or do. That’s a shame.  

I find it disturbing and disheartening how often I hear or read or think of your actions being characterized as “beneath the office of the Presidency.” I don’t need to make the list—it seems that you follow your press clippings closer than I do—but again, it is enough to make me feel bad for the kids. “The Office” seems to be now permanently diminished for your successors. With so few things left in the world to feel some reverence for, it saddens me that you have singlehandedly robbed all the future kids of our nation of something special.  

And again, it is not as though I was expecting a beacon of morality when you entered the office. Whether through your history of housing discrimination, the Central Park Five, birtherism, the Mexican rapists, the anti-Muslim stuff, mocking the disabled, and the Access Hollywood tape, it was clear long before the election that you were—both publicly and privately—anything but a model for social justice and inclusion. Still, I held out a sliver of hope that even if the presidency didn’t chasten you a bit, as others predicted, that it might just tone down the frequency and blatant nature of crassness and bluster.  

I probably would have settled for you just stopping the Tweets. But no, you seem intent upon throwing gasoline on any sparks you may have ignited and making volatile situations exponentially worse, doubling down on your missteps rather than walking them back (never mind apologizing). For someone who bragged so often of his presidential temperament along the campaign trail, your absence of wisdom, grace, and simple personal control is frightening.  

Probably by now you have guessed that I am not much of a fan of your policy proposals, either.  

If you hadn’t already lost the respect and support of people around the world by the time you pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement—if you recall, the polls suggested you were already vastly unpopular globally—that was certainly the moment, for me, that it felt absolutely obvious that the United States was no longer to be considered the leader of the world, and maybe not even ONE OF the leaders. It seems that in trying to “put America first,” you ended up placing America last and all by itself. The feeling I came away with was, again, embarrassment.  

Your recent plan to revoke DACA, your anti-Muslim travel ban, your pardon of civil rights violator Joe Arpaio, your encouragement of police to be more rough with suspects, your ban on transgender people in the military, and your wink-wink “denouncement” of neo-Nazis and White supremacists following the nightmare in Charlottesville—not to mention the many things you said and did prior to becoming President—have all created an atmosphere in which so many more people in our country today feel unsafe and unsupported.  

I am not here to argue about whether or not you are a White supremacist, but what I do want to make perfectly clear is that your words and your actions have helped create an atmosphere in which White supremacists feel increasingly emboldened and comfortable as a part of our everyday, “normal” society. If you truly are not a White supremacist, I hope you are appalled by that. It seems that you are not.  

One of the things I have noticed since you became President—and for a long time I could not quite put my finger on it—is that the country seems to be suffering from a form of Generalized Anxiety Disorder. There is this extreme sense of apprehension in the air, like we are constantly worried about which calamity will show up in the next news cycle. Who will you have offended? How will you embarrass us next? Who is getting fired? Which of my loved ones am I going to have to comfort? Who will I have to march for? Are you going to be impeached? Are you getting us into a war? 

With your itchy Twitter finger and your raw nerve of an ego, we just don’t know what madness will await us when we wake up the next day. This state of heightened anxiety, multiplied by that that awful feeling of vulnerability for so many of our citizens based on your actions, is perhaps your most damning legacy.  

So yes, it’s true that a small part of this is just that I wish we had elected someone whose political leanings were more like mine. I am disappointed that the environment is under fire, that climate change is being denied, that your return to “law and order” is leading to increasing injustice, that solid contributors to our society are being sent away, that you cannot find a way to get more people access to health care at a lower price, and that you seem intent on widening the gap between the rich and poor. I am fairly sure I would feel much of that disappointment with anyone from your party in office. I am used to that sense of loss; I can deal with that.  

So you see, Mr. President, my takeaway feelings from your time in the White House are not direct results of you and I not sharing a political party. No, instead I get two overwhelming sensations when I think your effect on our country. The first is embarrassment. I feel such shame that during the campaign you showed us exactly who you are, and we still elected you. We have lost our place in the world as result, and for me, I have lost any sense I had that we are a country to brag about and that others might look to for an example, that “shining city on a hill” that one of your predecessors often described.  

The second overwhelming sensation that overtakes me when I think of your presidency is sadness. As I mentioned earlier, so much of how I view these things is as a parent and a teacher of future generations. Growing up, I always thought of the President as someone who, in public at least, spoke and acted with class and represented America in a dignified way. The kids today get a guy who mocks the disabled at campaign rallies, famously talks at work about sexually assaulting women, and frequently calls people “losers” in public. It doesn’t seem fair to the kids.  

It saddens me that you are the guy that this generation of kids has to see as the example of what the President acts like, and it embarrasses me that the world is watching us and that I have to explain to my own kids that their fellow citizens knew who you were and still elected you. That is a difficult conversation. The embarrassment is for me. The sadness is for the kids.  

So, Mr. President, I wish I had more words of praise for you, because I would much prefer to be doing that right now. Despite all of this, however, I am still hoping, as I was the day you were inaugurated, that you will find a way to temper yourself, to control your ego, and to act in a way more befitting of the leader of a great country. I am still hoping that you will open your heart and your mind to the greatness of the people of this country—ALL of the people: not just the White, male, straight, and Christian ones. I am still hoping you will choose words and policies that make all of us feel safe and respected and welcome. And finally, I am still hoping that you will close your Twitter account. I wish you and your family good health and happiness. 

Sincerely,

William

How about you? What would you like to say to the President? Open up your journal and unload your thoughts. Remember: it is a safe space; no one will ever have to read it but you. As is the case every week, I only shared mine as a jumping off point for you. My guess is that your letter will look a lot different than mine. But how? Is your letter more complimentary? What specific things would you like to praise him about? What about the other side: what specific issues do you want to berate him about? Charlottesville? The Wall? The travel ban? Dreamers? Health care? Climate change? Would you like to address his character and the example he is setting for children? How much of what you would say is driven by what you were expecting when we was elected (whether you voted for him or not)? Has he disappointed you relative to your expectations, or has he been better than advertised? What do you want him to do more of? Less of? Would you share some personal stories of how his presidency has affected you and your loved ones? How can your words help him? If you are mostly angry, how can you find words that are both a release for you but also helpful to him? Do you think there is anything you could say to bring about a positive change? I dare you to try! Ask yourself: What would you like to say to the President?

Speak Truth to Power,

William

P.S. If this resonated with you today, please pass it on. Let us help each other to use our voices for good!

A Father’s Humanity

IMG_1209“Of all the titles that I’ve been privileged to have, the title of ‘dad’ has always been the best.” –Ken Norton

Hello friend,

I think my Dad probably gets a bad rap in these posts. I recently wrote about how much of a momma’s boy I am (see “A Mother’s Son”), and how so many of my most favorite memories involve my Mom. Along the way, I have mentioned how different my Dad and I are from each other in our willingness to show emotions and how I have never really gained access to that wonderful circle of friendship and common interests that he shares with my older brothers. These things are true, but they also perhaps lead the reader to believe that my old man is cold and heartless, more of a robot than a man. This is simply not true.

I think most kids tend to see their father as something of a superhero. Dads are strong, always carrying the kids around on their shoulders and lifting them up to see things. Dads are smart, fixing broken toys or knowing the answers to homework questions. Dads are powerful, coming home from work—where they were surely in charge of something–with the power to buy pizza and ice cream, or the power to punish bad behavior, because “Wait until your father gets home!” preceded him. Dads are tough, always doing brave things like getting up in the dark to go out and kill animals with guns or shoveling all of that snow from the blizzard. And Dads never cry. They keep their feelings at a distance so they won’t ever look weak. With all of this, how could we NOT see our fathers as superheroes? That is pretty much the way I saw mine.

But superheroes, as mythical and awe-inspiring as they are, are hard to get to know. Their invincibility—the very thing that makes them super—is what makes it hard for anyone to really touch them. Keeping their feelings at a distance keeps them super, of course, but it also keeps people at a distance, too. It is, quite simply, one of the hazards of the job.

My poor father! Between his innate aversion to emotional closeness and sharing, and his natural charisma and talents that made him so much the superhero to all kids, he had to go and have a son like me! As I have mentioned to you many times in other posts, I like my relationships deep and open. My innate aversion is the opposite of my old man’s: it is small-talk and all things guarded. I want to live out loud and explore the range and complexity of the human condition, one deep encounter at a time. My Dad? Well, not as much.

So, could these seemingly star-crossed souls co-exist in adulthood—after all of my childhood’s starry-eyed hero worship had settled–to either one’s satisfaction? From my end, at least, it turned out that I found what I needed in my Dad’s most difficult hours.

Twenty Summers ago, I got in my car and took an epic roadtrip from Los Angeles up the Pacific Coast Highway, checked out the mountains of Oregon and Washington, wandered through Glacier country, and arrived back in my childhood home in the wee hours of what would be my Mom’s fiftieth birthday. Later that night, my Dad had a massive heart attack and nearly died. I remember driving to the hospital later with my sisters and, just before we arrived, my dam burst. I started sobbing uncontrollably. It happened again later in the day, after talking with the nurse about my Dad’s status. I went out alone into the hallway, just out of the ICU, and just crumbled onto the floor and sobbed like a baby. At that age, still 22, I wouldn’t have called our relationship a close one. On top of that was the fact that less than two years earlier, I had made my big announcement that I was quitting pre-Med, leaving school, and heading off to become a star. I knew it was a huge shock and disappointment to nearly every person in my life. But most of all, I was completely certain that it was my Dad who harbored the greatest disappointment. It seemed, from my view at least, to be much more than just disappointment, though. It felt like embarrassment.

So it was that I found myself passing the night by his side in his curtained-off “room” in the ICU the night after his surgery. I had volunteered for the job of sitting by him and feeding him little ice chips in the brief and random moments when he would awaken from the drugs, a million tubes running out of him, to ease the extreme cottonmouth that is part of the process. In the semi-dark room, his eyes would pop open in alarm. With him unable to speak, I would look calmly into his eyes and ask if he wanted some ice. Invariably his eyes would tell me that he did, and so I would spoon him the tiny chips, as I had been instructed by the nurse. Then he would drift quickly back into oblivion, only to have the same thing happen a few moments later. Over and over through the long night. In the longer unconscious spells, I would talk to him about Notre Dame football and other random stuff, hopeful that a familiar voice might help him make it through. I am certain he has no recollection of that night, but it is one I will never forget. It gave me—the black sheep and disgrace of his wonderful brood—a chance to actually be of service to this superhero in his one moment of vulnerability. I am sure I needed it more than he did.

Fast forward many years into the more recent past. My Dad had battled and re-battled alcoholism for long stretches of my adulthood. If you have ever been around alcoholism, you know it is no facilitator for deeper, more meaningful relationships. It slowly dulls the drinker and, on its best days, dulls all relationships in the vicinity. Still, even in that subhuman state, my Dad had the wherewithal to take on the challenge of treatment to pull himself out of the abyss that is that terrible disease (I am still really proud of him for that).

It was in that setting of a treatment facility that I had my other poignant moment with my Dad that will remain etched in my memory for life. I hadn’t seen him since the intervention, which is, of course, a heart-wrenching experience for everyone involved. I drove out to the facility with my sister on a beautiful Sunday afternoon near the end of his treatment, both a little nervous about what we would find. And there he was: a superhero with a brand new supersuit and gadgets. He was so fresh and spry and sharp and all things alive. It completely floored me; I guess I had forgotten who he really was in all of those dulled-over years. I marveled at his confidence, charm, and charisma as he toured us around the facility like it was his own. He introduced us to all the guys—he even seemed proud as he did—and they all revered him as their leader and a great man. I loved that. But the moment that has stuck with me the most came after we had met everyone and toured all the buildings. We found a trail along the woods to wander and eventually sat down on a bench for a break in the quiet beauty of the day. My sister was between us, so I studied him secretly as he told stories about the guys and their families and all of the crazy drama that had brought them to the facility. He looked mostly ahead into the greenery and occasionally to my sister, and I just stared at his eyes as he spoke. They were so astoundingly alive and sharp. So vibrant. He seemed completely new. Revitalized. I had my Dad back, and that was everything. I will never forget that look in his eyes. Never.

In the end, those two little moments that my Dad wasn’t even aware of are the ones that draw us together in my mind, helping me to feel closer to a man who never made that easy. What I have learned in this ongoing process is that maybe you don’t have to be “close” to someone to still have a special relationship. I don’t expect my Dad to suddenly become all emotionally gushy at this point, and I don’t want him to pretend to be more proud of me than he really is. I still think the world of him, and he still affects me profoundly every day. I cherish the times we have together, and I appreciate that my kids have gotten to know him and love him, too. I will take him just as he is. And hey, maybe we will get one more memory before his story is all said and done, a last moment when my superhero’s vulnerability grabs hold of me in a way that speaks the language of my heart. Maybe. If not, I am okay with that, too. He will always be my old man. That is enough for me. More than enough.

How about you? What is the dynamic between you and your father? Open up your journal and take yourself through your relationship. You can do this whether your father is dead or alive, a huge part of your everyday life or hardly involved at all. How close are you? Are you closer now than you were before, or drifting further apart? How has that closeness changed through the years? What do you attribute that to? How similar are you to your Dad? Does that make things easier or harder for the relationship? What memories most define your relationship with your father? Are they big events, or subtle things that he may not even be aware of? What makes those memories stick for you? Whether or not he is alive, what would you most like your father to know? Are those words that you have the courage to say? How about today? Rather than leaving me a reply this time, use your words to tell a father that you love and appreciate him. Happy Father’s Day!

Love across difference,

William