In Just 62 days, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 45th President of these United States and Commander in Chief of the world’s most powerful military. More than half of the nation voted for his opponent, Hillary Clinton. As such, President-elect Trump will take office with less popular support than is usually the case.
As much as Trump’s supporters held a deep faith in their conviction that he was the best candidate, his opponents held an equally intense faith that he was dangerously-inexperienced, held fringe views on a number of important issues and lacked the character and temperament to hold our nation’s highest office or lead our military. Under such circumstances, the task of being a uniter will obviously be a difficult one.
Somewhere in the middle, many Americans have been calling to give the President-elect a fair chance to demonstrate the kind of President he will be, which is not an unreasonable suggestion by any means. However, Mr. Trump’s initial movements since winning an Electoral College victory have given his doubters valid reasons for concern.
Even his supporters have long conceded that Mr. Trump lacks the sort of knowledge of the enterprises and institutions of government that should be expected of an incoming President. However, they routinely answered this concern with assurances that he would surround himself with the very best minds in the world, who would advise him on the many pertinent subjects on which he holds little or no expertise.
Skeptics, myself included, argued that Mr. Trump has never been one to demonstrate the humility required of asking for such help or admitting any sort of inferiority, even toward qualified experts on the subject matter at hand. We pointed to accounts given by those who've worked closely with the developer and reality TV star in the past and described a very egotistical man who routinely surrounded himself with yes men (and women) who were more likely to confirm his suspicions than challenge his positions and that, in the end, loyalty was always prized above competence.
Mr. Trump's selections on transition team members and early word on potential cabinet members and other key appointees would seem to confirm this view of his leadership style. Steve Bannon, who turned right-wing fringe website Breitbart.com into a pro-Trump propaganda site during the election, has been named chief adviser and strategist. Senator Jeff Sessions, who has expressed hard line positions on immigration and has long been followed by complaints of racism (once having to apologize for saying he thought the KKK was okay until he heard they smoked pot) will be his choice as Attorney General. Sessions was the first (and for quite some time the only) member of the Senate to endorse Trump and showed unwavering support through the entire election.
Retired Army General Michael Flynn, a former top intelligence officer whose controversial positions have put him at odds with other top brass in recent years, was also an outspoken Trump supporter. Like Trump, he has outwardly expressed an odd reverence for Russian President Vladimir Putin, even going so far as to travel to Moscow in 2015 to appear alongside Putin at a gala for the Kremlin-run propaganda channel RT. Flynn will be Trump’s National Security Adviser, a position that does not require confirmation.
Other questionable appointments that have been floated include Sarah Palin as Sec. of the Interior, an appointment that would be about as legitimate as offering Kanye West (who recently told fans he didn’t bother to vote but would've voted for Trump) a key ambassadorship someplace.
Mr. President-elect, many Americans have consoled themselves with the idea that you were until recently a Democrat and have previously expressed very liberal opinions on a whole host of subjects. They hope that much of what you've said since has been election year banter and point to your history of switching positions during the campaign, sometimes in the same conversation, as hope that we might not yet know what you really think. In the spirit of such hope, we kindly ask that you clarify your positions on key issues now that you have four years before you’ll have to worry about getting votes again. Here are just two important questions that come to mind:
What do you think the federal government should be doing, if anything, to combat climate change?
At times, you have made statements that make environmentalists like myself very uncomfortable, even suggesting you would dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency. Developers often have a tendency to be notoriously anti-regulation. This isn't hard to understand. When you’re building a golf course, an office tower or a condo complex, regulations designed to minimize the impact they have on the natural environment can prevent you from maximizing profit.
However, as President of the United States, you are responsible not to investors but to the entire population of citizens, as well as the best interest of future generations, not to mention our relations with other countries. Climate change is real, and it is already impacting the American economy. Many of our military leaders have described it as the greatest long-term threat we face. Think finding a home for a few million people when a relatively small nation descends into a civil war is chaotic? Try moving 10 percent of the global population into new living areas when sea levels rise as predicted this century. Talk about a conflict-prone environment.
Some members of your party still obstinately refuse to even acknowledge that the Earth is warming, despite every month this year breaking the record for warmest on record. Others have suggested that regardless of what is causing climate change to accelerate rapidly, there is little if anything that America can do to mitigate those changes and, therefore, we should not risk impeding economic growth with useless, token efforts at further regulation. But what does Donald Trump think about America's role in being a leader in instituting the sort of paradigm shift that could effect worthwhile change on this critical issue? Imagine being the President who united our nation on climate change, or was finally able to leverage the transition to a green economy into a job creator and economic multiplier.
You tapped into serious middle-class American anxiety regarding economic security. Many of your voters bought into your message about creating new, high-paying middle class jobs and putting America back to work again. There seems very little likelihood that the few specifics you’ve offered–trade wars, renegotiating trade deals, somehow convincing U.S. companies to eschew cheap, third-world labor and re-shore manufacturing jobs, or building a wall on our southern border–will actually create a sizable number of new jobs or have a meaningful economic impact, but helping to bring about a green revolution actually could.
Yes, your predecessor made a somewhat ham-fisted stab at this during the bipartisan economic stimulus packages of 2009, but here's a chance for you to beat a Democratic President on his own terrain. By ushering in policies that are conducive to the transition toward a cleaner and greener U.S. economy built on sustainable industries, you could take credit for economic growth, the promotion of global stability (and hence, U.S. security) and, well ... saving the world. Those sound like some great legacy items, am I right?
Now, we all have a few reasons to be doubtful that such a course of action is in the offing, and here’s where you can put us at ease. You've said on the campaign trail that you would cancel the Paris Climate Agreement, which our brightest scientific minds have already called insufficient efforts to combat climate change escalation (which is currently outpacing scientific models). Is that because you have a better plan that would be more sufficient?
You suggested once in a 2012 tweet that climate change was a myth created by the Chinese to make U.S. manufacturing less competitive. Granted, you weren’t running for president then and may have boned up considerably on issues pertinent to the role. So, tell us, the American people, whether you agree with nearly every scientist in the world that climate change is real and stems from human activity, or that it's a hoax. The fact that you’ve appointed to your EPA transition team, a man who is one of the world's foremost climate deniers gives us serious concern.
Myron Ebell once called climate change "phony" and nothing more than a "pretext for expanding government." The idea that he is now in a position to help staff the federal agency that would most effectively combat it, frightens us. There is no doubt that effectively regulating pollution can sometimes get in the way of a business's bottom line. But we already live with the consequences of unabated pollution that was allowed to run rampant for more than a century in our country for the sake of profit. All over the U.S. there are former mill towns with toxic water bodies that have remained long after the jobs dried up. There is not only a social but a real economic cost to such pillaging, as seen in the 1,322 Superfund sites that dot the map on the National Priorities List managed by the EPA.
What do you really think of gay people?
Unfortunately, this was not a topic that came up all that much during the election, but some of the positions expressed by those you've brought into your inner circle have given cause for concern. A lot of the people who are close to me in life and that I care very deeply about happen to be homosexual. Like them, I’m a bit uneasy about V.P.-elect Mike Pence's history in this arena.
As Governor of Indiana, Mr. Pence once proposed diverting state funds from HIV/AIDS prevention programs and toward groups that practiced conversion therapy, a dangerous pseudo-science that the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association and 11 other major medical organizations reject because homosexuality is not a disorder and cannot be changed by any course of treatment (same for gender identity).
The so-called treatment is something that seems straight out of the Dark Ages and often includes disturbingly-abusive methods meant to force the subject into associating homoerotic imagery with acts of revulsion. There is no scientific basis to such therapy, which is about as antiquated and inappropriate as bloodletting when it comes to medical practices.
We haven't seen anything on the so-called replacement that will follow your promised repeal of the Affordable Care Act, but can we expect that such a plan would include an inherent philosophy that, as Gov. Pence once put it, "Resources should be directed towards those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior“?
Governor Pence isn't the only person in your circle who has advocated for conversion therapy. The Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, a member of your "pro-life advisory council," fought for the GOP platform to endorse the practice outright. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who helped you secure the support of evangelical and Catholic leaders, has also defended conversion therapy and complained that the federal government prevents military chaplains from providing such counseling.
According to the American Psychological Association, LGBT youth who are forced to face conversion therapy are nearly 10 times as likely to be suicidal, 6 times as likely to be depressive, and 3 times as likely to use drugs. LGBT adolescents make up 40 percent of all homeless youth and already commit suicide at a higher rate than the straight population, even before they are subjected to this horrifying process.
Even if conversion therapy is off the table for the moment, what do you think of equal rights as a whole, particularly as it applies to the LGBT community? Are you in favor of the recent reforms they have won, or do you think that Americans should be able to openly discriminate against someone who is gay, the same way they used to be able to openly discriminate against someone who is black? Should they be able to refuse them service in their restaurant, refuse to deliver the pizza they ordered or even perform a necessary medical procedure because the client is of a sexual orientation that they find offensive?
Over the past several years, the LGBT community has made tremendous progress in its long struggle to achieve equal rights. Do you see that as a good thing or, like many of your supporters, something that threatens our values as a nation? Can we expect that progress to be maintained or even advanced, or can we expect you to show a similar position to those you've surrounded yourself by and brace for an attack on those rights?
You are the next President of the United States, Mr. Trump. Every word and action you take has profound impact. Americans will be reading the tea leaves closely, as will foreign investors, potential immigrants and the world at large. Put us at ease, or put us on notice, but please, tell us how you really feel on these and so many other critical issues so that we are not left to guess by the actions you take.
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