Dear President Trump: On Aug. 19, you created a media stir (again) by “worrying about going to Heaven.” On “Fox & Friends,” you said: “I want to try and get to heaven if possible. I am hearing that I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole.”
Coming from you, such a comment was so shocking that a New York Times reporter was dumbstruck: “Holy Mother of God! Was he joking?” Your press secretary replied: “The president was serious.” Then, 10 days later, you revived the idea of Heaven in a message to your faithful: “I want to try and get to heaven.”
This reminds us of July last year when you escaped the assassin’s bullet “by an inch,” and later reflected on your near-death experience: “It is a chance to bring the country together. I was given that chance [by God].” Perplexed, discerning people looked at each other and wondered: Did Trump finally find his soul? Well, it turned out, your soulful moments after the close call were short-lived.
Heaven or not, you are now the same person that you have always been — mean, petty and unforgiving. But, you keep reminding us of your desire to go to Heaven. Raw Story even suspects that your heaven-talk is just a fundraising ploy. But as powerful as you are, you cannot just command Heaven’s Gate to open for you: I assume Heaven requires a lot more from you than anyone else since you can flatten mountains and dry oceans with your power.
As matters stand now, you’ve said it yourself: Your chances of entering Heaven are “at the bottom of the totem pole.” That means, by your own reckoning, you are at the top of the totem pole for Hell. GOP critic Rick Wilson agrees with you on your afterlife: “History will remember [Trump] as a small, ugly, sick man who left behind a trail of destruction [and] corruption unmatched in American history.” Obviously, the wide highway you are on now doesn’t look heaven-bound.
Still, mysteriously, Providence smiles on you with a chance at redemption: Just now, you are the only strongman who can radically transform America to better the common lot of its humanity. Indeed, you alone can accomplish the kind of public good as a monument to your goodness.
Nobody in history — not Alexander, not Napoleon, not even Hitler — has had the kind of power you have now. America’s standard political impotence has always ended with “Who’s gonna do it?” followed by “Nobody.” Now, we have a ready-made answer that jibes with our reality: “Trump is gonna do it.” To justify your omnipotent power and realize your desire for Heaven, you need courage and vision to move in step with human history. Quit playing with power; use it for the good of all.
Don’t miss your chance for redemption again. Celestial messengers don’t wake sleeping fools too often. You have been awakened twice already but, somehow, you went right back to your stupor both times. Don’t wait for the third-time’s charm, which might not be to your liking. Even now, rumors of your death are so rampant on X (“Trump is dead!”) that Forbes had to declare that “Trump is not dead.” In heavenly perspective, the distinction between “Trump dead” and “Trump not dead” is paper thin and makes no great difference.
You must build pyramids of lasting greatness that bear your name, not another hotel with your gilded name on it. Imagine yourself hailed as the wisest since King Solomon, most merciful since Jesus, and most decisive since Caesar at the Rubicon.
Now, there are many urgent changes that await your bold and radical decisions, but here is the list of the Ten Most Imperative Things you must do to turn America’s (and your) fortunes around, all of them sure-fire redeemers in the eyes of history and Heaven:
- Reinstate the draft, in the form of national service: Despite resistance, benefits will be incalculable, resuscitating the dying youths of America.
- Ban all consumer plastics: Save America, the world, you and your grandchildren, from our slow death.
- Regulate smart phones like alcohol and tobacco: Protect children from America’s killing addiction.
- Limit all incomes, not to exceed the “POTUS” salary: The president’s pay is the highest people-approved income in America and no one’s salary should exceed that amount. Why should anyone get paid more than the most-important position in the United States?
- Disarm America, including all policemen, ICE agents and citizens: An act of such heroic proportions that only you can accomplish.
- High-tax the rich: Shock America and turn your reputation around in one Gordian slashing of the money knot, with the shouts of universal joy to be heard around the world.
- Forbid all food advertisement and all super-processed foods: America’s present and future health depends on this.
- Stop immigrant deportations and disputes with academic and cultural institutions: You made your point and it’s time to be magnanimous. Quit your petty “revenge tour.” You have a bigger mission to accomplish.
- Mandate “living wages” for all: Liberate working Americans from their daily slavery amid freedom and poverty amid affluence.
- Require that all business calls — both corporate and government — to be answered only by real humans, not machines: A seemingly insignificant step, but the change will re-build America’s crumbling humanity and community.
By the strangest quirks of Providence, you have been given a chance to redeem yourself and save all other living souls. Given the alternative to Heaven, you have no other choice.
Jon Huer, retired professor and columnist for the Recorder, lives in Greenfield and writes for posterity.