It was a day that left parents everywhere struggling to explain some very big concepts to small, inquiring faces. Just how did a racist, sexist, xenophobe become the leader of the free world?
Whether you have an active interest in US politics or not, the election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States of America is likely to have been a hot topic at the dinner table.
And there is no real explanation, except that sometimes, the bad guy wins.
Like most mums and dads, Oscar-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin found himself struggling this week. In a moving letter to his daughter Roxy (15) and his ex-wife, Julia, the man behind The West Wing laid out his thoughts in a letter published today by Vanity Fair.
The letter begins:
“Sorkin Girls,
Well the world changed late last night in a way I couldn’t protect us from. That’s a terrible feeling for a father. I won’t sugarcoat it—this is truly horrible. It’s hardly the first time my candidate didn’t win (in fact it’s the sixth time) but it is the first time that a thoroughly incompetent pig with dangerous ideas, a serious psychiatric disorder, no knowledge of the world and no curiosity to learn has.
And it wasn’t just Donald Trump who won last night—it was his supporters too. The Klan won last night. White nationalists. Sexists, racists and buffoons. Angry young white men who think rap music and Cinco de Mayo are a threat to their way of life (or are the reason for their way of life) have been given cause to celebrate. Men who have no right to call themselves that and who think that women who aspire to more than looking hot are shrill, ugly, and otherwise worthy of our scorn rather than our admiration struck a blow for misogynistic shitheads everywhere. Hate was given hope. Abject dumbness was glamorized as being “the fresh voice of an outsider” who’s going to “shake things up.”
Sorkin went on to lament the fact that the office once held by Washington and Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, F.D.R., J.F.K. and Barack Obama will be held by “a man-boy who’ll spend his hours exacting Twitter vengeance against all who criticize him (and those numbers will be legion).”
“We’ve embarrassed ourselves in front of our children and the world.” he says, before adding “Here’s what we’ll do…”
“…we’ll fucking fight. (Roxy, there’s a time for this kind of language and it’s now.) We’re not powerless and we’re not voiceless. We don’t have majorities in the House or Senate but we do have representatives there. It’s also good to remember that most members of Trump’s own party feel exactly the same way about him that we do.
We get involved. We do what we can to fight injustice anywhere we see it—whether it’s writing a check or rolling up our sleeves. Our family is fairly insulated from the effects of a Trump presidency so we fight for the families that aren’t. We fight for a woman to keep her right to choose. We fight for the First Amendment and we fight mostly for equality—not for a guarantee of equal outcomes but for equal opportunities. We stand up.”
He add that “the battle isn’t over, it’s just begun.” Adding:
“Grandpa fought in World War II and when he came home this country handed him an opportunity to make a great life for his family. I will not hand his granddaughter a country shaped by hateful and stupid men. Your tears last night woke me up, and I’ll never go to sleep on you again.
Love,
Dad”
Read Aaron Sorkin’s full letter to his daughter in Vanity Fair.
Main image credit: Reuters
