Why I Oppose Donald Trump: An Open Letter to My Friends Who Support Him©

 Why I Oppose Donald Trump: 

An Open Letter to My Friends Who Support Him© 

[Personal note of apology to my friends: A previous version of this essay was published Friday, 9 January 2026 titled “The Heart of a Champion: An Open Letter to Some of My Friends Who Are Trump Supporters.” I have taken it down and replaced it with this one because the first effort was directed in a personal way about the thinking and attitudes of Trump supporters. That was injurious and inappropriate and my friends have my apologies for that display of poor judgment. This one, considerably longer, concentrates solely on why I oppose the sitting president.] 

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As the first year of Donald John Trump’s second presidency draws to a close, the case against his leadership grows more urgent. Objections which arose from patterns established during his first term, now carried forward with greater frequency and force--more blatant in expression, more driven by grievance and anger, more directed to personal profit, and more dangerous in their consequences. These objections stem from deliberate actions that persist, intensify, and compound over time: an intentional, steady degradation of democratic norms and the rule of law, a sustained erosion of legal and ethical restraints, and a deepening normalization of conduct once disqualifying for high office.

Trump’s presidency continues to be marked by unpredictability and excess. His public speech routinely veers into recklessness, his pronouncements oscillate between incoherence and provocation, and his behavior rejects the discipline required of the US President, entrusted with immense executive power. Chaotic governance under such conditions destabilizes institutions at home and breaks down credibility and trust abroad.

President Trump values personal power and loyalty above expertise and effective governance. He shows little regard for science, relying instead on his elementary understanding, shallow biases, and the advice of those who simply agree with him. He has a penchant for conspiracy theories that reinforce his authority and sustain his prejudices.  By sidelining expert guidance on national security, public health, and climate, his administration leaves the country exposed to serious, avoidable dangers. Ignoring professional advice in these areas makes catastrophic mistakes more likely—mistakes that could cost lives, destabilize communities, and weaken the nation’s ability to respond to crises. 

The consequences ripple across the country. Policy decisions on everything from food, medicine and public health, to energy, climate, and global threats, falter or are abandoned. Valuable precedents are ignored, public programs struggle to function, and both economic and international stability suffer. Citizens face real harm when government agencies operate chaotically and international agreements are abandoned and resources are mismanaged. This is not abstract—it erodes the daily functioning of government and the well-being of the American people.

Donald Trump presides over the United States with a disregard for law and principle that sets the tone for the entire government. His conduct directly degrades both office and nation: he boasts of lawless impunity, employs cruelty—at times even savagery—as a political tool, and abuses authority in ways that echo far beyond American shores, from Mar-a-Lago to foreign capitals.  Following his lead, the government normalizes injustice, coercion, and abuse of power, turning a nation once hailed as the world’s exemplar of liberty and constitutional democracy into a case study of how swiftly institutional guardrails weaken when leadership treats law as optional and restraint as weakness, showing that power, not principle, now governs.

More troubling is the broader moral and civic decline under Trump. As his offenses multiply, the nation plunges into a social decline of historic proportions—a horrifying descent in plain sight. Across two presidencies, the world has seen how rapidly moral and ethical foundations fray. 

This term, the country entrusts power to a convicted felon and a man found liable for sexual assault, and that, astonishingly, marks only the beginning. The slope downward grows steeper, the pace swifter, and the peril to institutions and society more profound. The rupture intensifies as the Supreme Court affirms presidential immunity, effectively confirming a view of executive power untethered from ordinary legal constraint. Even the least wary among us might have foreseen that such license, granted to such a temperament and appetite for dominion, would unleash excess beyond measure—and so it has.

His undisciplined mind, ungoverned passions, and unrestrained impulses convert executive power into an arbitrary despotic exercise of authority and misrule that, like a magnet, turns the nation’s moral compass and undermines ethical standards of public life. This repeated impunity sets a precedent, making clear to others in government—and, by extension, to society at large—that law, ethics, and accountability are unimportant and optional. In this way, moral corruption spreads beyond the Oval Office, eroding institutional norms and weakening shared responsibilities and obligations that sustain civic life.

It is equally damaging when the President turns belittling, bullying, ridiculing, and humiliating reporters, the disabled, fallen soldiers, Muslims, political opponents, and others into a spectacle—when cruelty becomes entertainment and contempt wins applause at rallies. When mocking rivals replaces debate and intimidation replaces persuasion, citizens shrink from speaking out, dissent is silenced, and full participation in civic life ceases. National discourse is poisoned, the moral fabric of the nation suffers profoundly, and the very practices that sustain democracy begin to unravel.

The President shows no regard for the truth. During his first administration, The Washington Post documented more than 30,000 of his false or misleading statements. While it has not tracked them this term, his mendacity remains notorious, his lies limitless. When leaders treat truth as unimportant and disposable, society suffers and democratic choice becomes unattainable. Systematic lying, attacks on journalism, and the replacement of evidence with loyalty-driven narratives distort reality, corrode public trust, and make informed debate impossible. Undermining truth, shared facts, and common understanding is not merely a rhetorical tactic—it constitutes a direct assault on the foundation of a functioning democracy. It destroys social cohesion, fuels polarization, suspicion, and distrust among citizens, weakens civic responsibility, and threatens the very mechanisms of democracy itself, including faith in elections, the impartiality of courts, and the freedom of the press. 

The danger reaches deep into the structure of government as the president weaponizes the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Department of Defense, turning them into instruments of personal vengeance—punishing opponents, branding dissenters as traitors, and dreaming of retribution against anyone who refuses to kowtow to his will. Repeated conflicts of interest and the use of public office for private gain further erode trust in government institutions and degrade the moral authority of the presidency. This directly undermines the rule of law, because a constitutional system relies on the independence of its institutions. The line between lawful authority and personal rule begins to vanish as these agencies serve his goals of consolidating power, instilling fear, enforcing loyalty, stifling dissent, obstructing accountability, retaliating against critics, and, above all, delivering punishment.

Seizing every opportunity to aggrandize himself, Donald John Trump seeks not merely to rule America as a sovereign, but to stand as master of the world, persuaded of his own unrivaled genius. In him, power becomes a license for excess, subject to his corrupt will. The consequence is no longer theoretical risk but observable abuse and societal decline.

Taken together, these patterns reveal an administration whose persistent hubris, defiance, ignorance, and rebellion undermine the rule of law, embolden cruelty, weaken democratic norms, fragment society, and transform authority from a stewardship into an implement of oppression of the less powerful.

My opposition to Donald Trump does not rest on partisan preference. It rests on the conviction that democracy, the Constitution, liberty and individual rights, the rule of law, the discipline of accountable power, and the basic norms of civic decency are foundational and inviolate. Donald Trump does not merely threaten these foundations—he actively works to dismantle them. When leadership engages in such sustained destruction, standing aside is no longer an option. Resistance is justified; it is a civic duty.  

Let's think together again, soon.