An Open Letter to My Friends Who Still Support Trump

I don’t want to rehash the 2024 Presidential Election. Your guy won a free and fair election and is now the President of the United States. That’s all well and good, but it’s hard for me to believe that what Donald Trump has done in his first 100+ days in office is what you voted for. It’s not, is it? I mean, I disagreed with your support of Trump, but I assumed you supported him because you felt he would do a good job for the country by bringing down the price of consumer goods, securing our border, reigning in spending, ferreting out corruption, and strengthening the rule of law. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? What are you thinking now?

In less than four months in office, Donald Trump has violated the Constitution, broken laws, and has become the most corrupt president in American history. I suspect you don’t agree with me. Your loyalty to the man completely and utterly blinds you to his bad behavior. So, let me spell it out for you.

So far during Trump’s second term, everything of consequence he has done has been illegal. I know that sounds like hyperbole, but let’s look at what he has accomplished in just over one hundred days.

In a recent opinion piece in The Atlantic, former Federal Appeals Court Judge J. Michael Luttig laid out the case against Trump. Here’s what he had to say:

“For not one of his signature initiatives during his first 100 days in office does Trump have the authority under the Constitution and laws of the United States that he claims.

• Not for the crippling global tariffs he ordered unilaterally;
• Not for his unlawful deportations of hundreds of immigrants to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), El Salvador’s squalid maximum-security prison;
• Not for his deportation of U.S. citizens to Honduras;
• Not for his defiantly corrupt order from the Great Hall of the Department of Justice to weaponize the department against his political enemies;
• Not for his evil executive orders against the nation’s law firms for their representation of his political enemies and clients of whom he personally disapproves;
• Not for his corrupt executive orders against honorable American citizens and former officials of his own administration, Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor, a former Homeland Security chief of staff who dared to criticize Trump anonymously during his first term;
• Not for his unlawful bludgeoning of the nation’s colleges and universities with unconstitutional demands that they surrender their governance and curricula to his wholly owned federal government;
• Not for his threatened revocation of Harvard University’s tax-exempt status;
• Not for his impoundment of billions of dollars of congressionally approved funds or his politically motivated threats to revoke tax exemptions;
• Not for his attempt to alter the rules for federal elections;
• Not for his direct assault on the Fourteenth Amendment’s birthright-citizenship guarantee;
• Not for his mass firings of federal employees;
• Not for his empowerment of Musk and DOGE to ravage the federal government;
• Not for his threats to fire Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell;
• Not for his unconstitutional attacks on press freedoms; and finally,
• Not for his appalling arrest of Judge Dugan.”

None of the things Judge Luttig listed are legal. None. Of. Them. They are all unconstitutional, in violation of statute, or both. As Judge Luttig says, “It would be impossible to say, after Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office, that America has a government of laws, not of men.” That is a sobering admission from a man known for having an even keeled demeanor and impeccable conservative credentials.

But it isn’t just that his executive orders violate the Constitution. Trump’s acceptance of gifts and his selling access to the Oval Office fly in the face of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. Not familiar with it? Here’s what it says:

“No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” (U.S. Constitution; Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8)

As I write this, I can practically hear you saying (shouting?), “Trump isn’t doing anything corrupt.” Oh, really? Let’s consider a few of his greatest corrupt hits:

$Trump Meme Coin – The $Trump Meme Coin was launched just three days before Trump’s inauguration to his second Presidential term. The meme coin has no intrinsic value, but it does allow anyone with money—including foreign countries and criminal organizations—to purchase a coin(s) and potentially have direct access to the President. Recently, Trump announced that he will be holding a dinner for the 250 largest “investors” in the meme coin at the Trump Golf Club in Washington D.C., complete with a “tour” (presumably of the White House). Trump even promoted the coin on social media and encouraged people to spend more money on the $Trump Coin so they have a better chance of meeting him at the dinner.

Executive Branch Club – Donald Trump Jr., son of the President, has started a club he calls the “Executive Branch” that allows wealthy people—including foreign governments and criminal organizations (Notice a trend here?)—to pay $500,000 to become members and have access to his father. In other words, the two Donalds have concocted a scheme to sell access to the Oval Office, enriching the Trumps in the process. And because it is a private club, there is no requirement that Don Jr. provide transparency on who he is receiving money from. Remember how we screamed about the Clinton Foundation that Bill Clinton started that allowed anyone to donate money?  Remember when Republicans in Congress were claiming that Hunter Biden took money in exchange for access to his father and they wanted to impeach him for it? How are the “Executive Branch” or the $Trump Coin any different?

Qatar to “Gift” $400 million Private Jet to Trump – This may be the most audacious bribe in the history of the world. The Royal Family of Qatar (financiers of pro-Palestinian protests in the United States and of Hamas) has offered to gift Donald Trump a luxurious Boeing 747-8 jet valued at more than $400 million. The Trump Administration said that the jet—known colloquially as “The Palace in the Sky”—will be used by the President as a replacement to Air Force One during his time in office and will then be transferred to his Presidential Library Foundation, which means Trump will be able to continue using the plane after he leaves office.

Continues to Promote His Personal Businesses – As President, Donald Trump continues to promote his main company, The Trump Organization, attending golf tournaments at his Doral golf club, striking real estate and crypto deals with Middle Eastern countries, and requiring the Secret Service and other government agencies to stay at Trump hotels and resorts. In addition, he uses his position to sell Trump-branded merchandise, such as his made in China “Make America Great Again” caps, including a pink cap he promoted for Mother’s Day. Previous presidents were required to give up control of and involvement in businesses they had an interest in, but Donald Trump refuses, causing constant conflicts of interest between what is good for the country and what is good for Trump’s bottom line.

These are just the four biggest acts of corruption Trump is involved in. Any one of these things would have gotten any previous president impeached, but the feckless Republicans in Congress refuse to take any action against the President, and in fact, seem to support his clearly illegal, corrupt behavior.

Here’s my point: Unless I misunderstood what you, my MAGA friends, said prior to the election, none of these things come close to what you wanted Trump to do. You said you wanted him to fix the economy, not destroy it. You wanted him to deport illegal immigrants guilty of violent crime, but you said you didn’t want him to deport legal immigrants and citizens, and I suspect you didn’t want him to defy court orders in the process. And you wanted him to drain the swamp, not become the swamp. Did I misunderstand?

This is the part that is hard to say but needs to be said. Going back to 2015 when Donald Trump came down the golden escalator, I have not understood your support for him. Even though I disagreed with the stand you were taking, I believed that you still wanted what was best for the country. We may have disagreed about Trump, but I never thought your goal was to see our economy ruined and our democracy destroyed. But now, when the facts are so clear about Donald Trump’s illegal actions and corrupt behavior, if you still support him, the only conclusion I am left to draw is that you actually are not the Constitutional conservative you claimed to be. Supporting Trump at this moment means you do not support the Constitution, you do not believe in the rule of law, and like Donald Trump himself, you want to see our democracy replaced by an authoritarian regime with hallmarks of white supremacism, Christian Nationalism, and Putin-style corruption. Is that really what you want?

Being on the inside of the MAGA Movement, you may not see this, but the MAGA view of the world is simplistic, lacking in nuance and subtlety. Republicans good, Democrats bad. Conservative good, liberal bad. Trump good, anyone who disagrees with Trump bad. Your tribe sees the world in black and white rather than in shades of gray. But the world is not black and white. It is not simplistic. It is big and complicated and constantly changing. The MAGA faithful long for simple solutions to complicated problems that can be easily communicated in 30-second sound bites. But the reality-based world doesn’t work that way. Complicated problems require knowledge, expertise, and an ability to know history and apply its lessons.

Tariffs are a good example. Trump acts like he discovered tariffs and he sells them as a get rich quick scheme for our nation, not seeming to realize that tariffs led to the Great Depression and made the economic recovery from it much more difficult than it had to be. He also doesn’t seem to realize (or simply refuses to acknowledge) that American citizens, not foreign countries, pay for tariffs. They are a tax, much like sales tax, on the goods we rely on to run our everyday lives. Not to mention, establishing tariffs on our trading partners is not a power the Constitution gives to the President.

Immigration is another good example. Blame our immigration woes on Biden, even though it’s been a problem for decades, and then try to solve the issue by rounding up anyone with brown skin, including legal immigrants and citizens; claim they are terrorists, gang members, and criminals; and send them out of the country to a concentration camp without due process. Is that an effective solution? No. In fact it’s anti-American and causes more problems than it solves. But it’s simple, and it’s easy to understand and explain. So, Trump doubles down on the deportations, breaking laws, defying court orders, and ignoring public sentiment in the process.

We are a blessed people to live in the United States. And like all people, we have been given the gifts of intelligence and discernment. To those of us outside the MAGA movement, the facts could not be more obvious. Trump is burning down our democracy, making enemies of our allies, allies of our enemies, and pitting citizen against citizen. His behavior is crude, his policies are cruel, and his impact on our once great nation is corrosive. In the first few months of his new term, he has damaged the economy, weakened and weaponized the government, made a mockery of the rule of law, and made us a laughingstock to both allies and enemies alike.

And maybe worst of all, he convinced the MAGA faithful that he was our nation’s savior, the only one who could treat our ills and stand up to those “Godless liberals.” He told you that the enemy (what he calls his fellow Americans who hold different political views than him) works every day to bring socialism and communism (he doesn’t know the difference, so he uses the words interchangeably) to America. He called himself “The Chosen One” and claimed that deporting the stranger, denying food to the hungry, and marginalizing the poor were the “Christian” things to do. Sadly, many within the MAGA Movement believed him.

At this dark hour in our country’s history, it’s time to make a choice. I don’t mean to point fingers, but if you still support Donald Trump, you need to come to grips with the type of person you have become. You have to accept that your support is enabling Donald Trump to destroy the country that you have long claimed to love. Is that who you are, an enabler to the destruction of America? If not, then you really need to consider what your support of Trump means. Are you being true to your values and beliefs when you support Trump, or have you simply gotten caught up in the tribalism of the MAGA Movement?

Here’s the thing: Admitting you’re wrong is hard. I get it. But it’s okay to admit you made a mistake or that you believed Trump’s nearly constant stream of lies. As your friend, I understand how hard it is to make that admission. So, consider this an intervention, an effort by your friends to open your eyes to the reality of your situation. If you can muster the courage to admit you were wrong, the rest of us would be happy to welcome you back into the world of facts and truth, where our beliefs and opinions are formed based on evidence, not the other way around. The soul of our nation hangs in the balance. We’d love to have you with us on the right side of history.