An Open Letter to President Trump

Dear President Trump:

Because we are hearing so much about making America great again, I thought that you  might welcome a review of the wisdom of your peers, and so have assembled memorable observations from previous American presidents who have, in fact, helped to make America great. 

It is appropriate to begin at our country's metaphorical front door with the Statue of Liberty's invitation to the world on Liberty Island: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

Presidents of both parties have embraced the invitation and vision of a multicultural nation that has defined the United States and made us admired around the world. Our success and prosperity have been based on our gradually expanding beliefs and experiences that have defined our country, at least until your administration, as a place of welcome and diversity. Here is how you you make America great again.

George Washington: "Observe good faith and justice toward all nations."

Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

John Q. Adams: “If conscience disapproves, the loudest applauses of the world are of little value.”

Abraham Lincoln: "Our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all . . . are created equal."

and

"The strongest bond of human sympathy . . . should be one uniting working people of all nations and tongues and kindreds."

WilliamMcKinley: "The mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation."

Franklin Roosevelt: "We are trying to construct a more inclusive society. We are going to make a country in which no one is left out."

Harry Truman: "Whether discrimination is based on race, or creed, or color, or land of origin, it is utterly contrary to American ideals of democracy."

Dwight D. Eisenhower: "You do not lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership."

Also from President Eisenhower "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

John F. Kennedy: "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

Jimmy Carter: "We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams."

George H. W. Bush: "We don't want an America that is closed to the world. What we want is a world that is open to America . . . Leadership to me means duty, honor, country. It means character, and it means listening from time to time."

Barack Obama: "There is not a liberal America and a conservative America: there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and a Latino America and an Asian America: there's the United States of America."

    Two additional observations from leaders in your position: Thomas Jefferson wrote: "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupt absolutely." Abraham Lincoln reminded us that "If you want to test a man's character, give him power."

    President Trump, you have been given power and are being tested every day. Your legacy right now is of a bombastic, self-serving demagogue corrupted by the illusion that you have absolute power . . . that you, as you have said, "Rule the world." That is how you will be remembered, with a footnote that you destroyed the reputation of the United States of America and were responsible for the decline of the United States in influence and prosperity around the world.

    Sir, think about it. You can still save your reputation and make America great again.

    Sincerely,

    Kathleen Coskran