I know I haven’t always been perfect. Over the last four years, I’ve condoned horrible anti-American acts, displayed wildly egregious hypocrisy with zero shame, and not only sowed the seeds of division, but watered them daily, like a very diligent horticulturist.
However, if it’s quite okay with you, I’d only like to be remembered for this moment – this one singular time I’ve done even the bare minimum, and called an objectively bad thing a “bad thing.” I believe I deserve heaps of credit for doing this. It takes tremendous amounts of courage to say something as bold as “getting five people killed based on an insidious lie is truly rotten and dangerous.”
And, no, I’ve not publicly said anything nearly that accurate, but I’ve had those words cross my mind on the toilet, and that counts, yeah? Some of you might think that I’ve made a mockery of the oath I swore when I first stepped foot in these hallowed halls. But guess what? I just called the terrorist attack directed by the leader of this country “not ideal” and “mean-spirited.” Suck on that, you Constitution thumpers.
We could go on talking about how I supported putting kids in cages, bribing allied leaders, and bending the knee to adversarial dictators until we are blue in the face. But as a poster I saw in my granddaughter’s Instagram story once said, “To dwell in the past is to not let your light shine through to the present.”
I don’t know exactly what that means, but it sounds like I am supposed to feel, as my granddaughter might say, vindicated AF.
I know I never forgave Obama for being black, and perhaps in due time, I’ll come around. But that’s all I’m asking for here: just an iota of forgiveness. And also for you all to have very, very, extremely, absurdly selective memory, in which I never acted in bad faith to rush through unqualified judges, or pretended I didn’t see the tweets while hurrying to the safety of my office, or defended the position that yes, there were “very fine” people waving Nazi flags. Please let all of that wash away like footprints in the sand at high tide on the beaches of the coastal town I hope to one day retire to.
And then remember that, when the president urged his militant supporters to assassinate his political rivals, that I bravely stuck my neck out by calling it “really not super great.”
So, how about it? Can I go to Texas Roadhouse without getting spit in my food? And when you mention me in the history books, can you at least say I was six feet tall? That would be great.
