Our Sarah and Dan just delivered their second child, Hana Camille. Of course, there has never been a more beautiful child anywhere. I swore I wouldn’t cry when I first saw Hana but I did, just like all your mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles and grandparents cried, right?
She emerged at 6 pounds with a full head of hair. Her three year old brother, Noah Elan, has been pretty good about the whole thing and we are overjoyed. Our children and their children are all doing beautifully. Naturally, I started to think about what these children would face in life and frankly, it scared me to death. I began to think about what kind of world I wish for them.
I would want a world where people are treated with dignity, no matter what race or religion they are. We have a president who would deny people access to our country based on their religion. When he campaigned, he made that promise and now he turned his cruel, twisted worldview into official governmental policy. That seems a lot like what Adolph Hitler did in his country. Trump lied about where Barack Obama was born. He didn’t do it once — he did it over and over again to inflame his base, just as so many other dictators have done throughout history.
We all remember the bullies in our lives. We have a president who has made bullying an art form. American kids are following his example, saying “If he can do it, why can’t I?” Somehow the politicians, particularly the senior Republicans who we should be counting onto to be profiles in courage, aren’t standing up to the bully. They are retreating into the shadows. When the history of this period is written, my bet is that they will argue that they did all they could. Shame on them!
Then there is the matter of sexism. This president, the one who boasted about grabbing women by their private parts, is nothing more than a roadblock to achieving sexual equality, not only for girls and women but for boys and men, too. Will little Hana have the same access to jobs and schools at all levels as boys and men do? We were getting there but now we have a president who objectifies women and calls the ones he doesn’t like terrible names.
We have a president who watches as the glaciers melt, the temperatures climb and the environment degrades yet pulls us out from world agreements to save the planet. Here is a seventy year old man who doesn’t seem to give a damn about our little Hana and what she and her kids will face. He appoints administrators who are climate deniers. He is a scoundrel in every sense of the word.
This is a man who would deny our Hana the right to make decisions about her own body and turn those decisions over to religious zealots who will impose on her their feelings about what is right and wrong. He is committed to ruining the whole concept of equality of opportunity. Health care will be the rich and young. Older folks will be punished. We will move farther away from real equality.
This same man will destroy our Constitution. He will build more and more weapons of mass destruction. He will make friends with the dictators of the world who he seems to admire and emulate more and more every day.
So, dear Hana and Noah and all the other kids and their kids to come, we can only say that whatever color you are, whatever faith you practice, and whoever you choose to love, we wish you the skills and fortitude that it will take to make this world right. We apologize for letting it come to this. Most of all, we really do love you.
