Thread by @HarrisonSmith85

.@POTUS @realDonaldTrump
#thread Dear Mr. President, I want to start this series of tweets by saying I am neither Republican or Democrat. I'm not excited about a Biden Presidency because the cynical nature in me says no matter what party is in power, it's business as usual.

I believe power truly comes from the people, and it is a population's responsibility to be educated in the process of government, understand the differences between a democracy and republic, how the legislative system works on all three levels, and have a basic... (cont.)

...understanding of civics from the most local of levels to the highest in the land. You have spent a large amount of time on this platform and I thought this might be the best way to get this message to you. I believe in America, its people and the process. (cont.)

I believe the world is and has been better with America in it, since its inception on paper in 1776. This country has its critics & a lot of its criticism is rightly founded. However, we are the nation that beat Hitler, led the way through scientific advances only dreamed (cont.)

We cured Polio, we put humans on the moon, fed the world's hungry, made positive impactful environmental changes and above all, have served as a beacon of hope to billions across the globe. American stands and stood for "a chance." (cont.)

This will stun some of my mere 20K followers compared to your millions, but I believed in you at first. For a moment. In fact, I spoke to you on the phone in The White House with Ja'Ron White, your head of Urban Planning chairing a meeting on infrastructure renewal.

I had just met with Sec. of HUD, Ben Carson weeks earlier for lunch in DC at HUD. He showed me plans for urban renewal which were brilliant. Here is a pic of that day as well. I removed two individuals to keep their identity private. I was there to present a plan. (cont.)

The plan was called "Better America," a program to rollout the greatest infrastructure renewal and attack on poverty & urban decay since the likes of the Bond drives of WW II. You were in NJ the day I was in the West Wing of the White House. (cont.)

While we laid out our plans, I could tell there was really no interest at The White House & I left with a cynical feeling that nothing would get done. I still have the plan & while Mr. White seemed impressed & it was good enough to get me into The White House, it did little else.

That's how it goes and there are no sour grapes. However, why did I believe in you for a moment? As someone educated in history, there was a small hope that someone like you, with your personality to "tell it like it is" might actually break political gridlock. (cont.)

I liken this to a "crazy enough, it just might work." As an educated man, versed in world & American history, my gut said no. There were red flags. A lot. But since becoming politically aware in my teens, I thought in movie terms that this guy could actually do something.

I was aware of you since the mid-80s with your turns on talk shows, "Lifestyles of Rich/Famous" endless articles and even movie appearances. The tabloids exploited your marital issues and affairs. You were "that guy" before "The Apprentice."

I read "the Art of the Deal." I also read a number of legitimate pieces on your business dealings, your issues in Atlantic City and perhaps, as a history person, your close association with lawyer Roy Cohn.

For those who don't know of Mr. Cohn, he repped Sen, Joe McCarthy and that alone should have been the biggest red flag of all. The damage McCarthy and his bogus, inflated claims in the 50s caused to countless people and American democracy was enough to know.

Cohn was shady, unscrupulous, backstabbing and couldn't have cared less for American democracy. His "win at all costs" eventually helped McCarthy destroy himself & collapse under his own ego.

I watched as you moved through the 80s, leaving a trail of broken marriages, ugly tabloid wars, I listened and watched your appearances on @HowardStern and watched you reinvent yourself from a man who failed upward all his life into a celebrity.

I read independent and impartial accounts of how you inherited your wealth from your father, how you manipulated and outmaneuvered in a very Darwinian, Survival of the Fittest way, to accumulate and consolidate the power you entered the 90s with.

Over six bankruptcies, numerous lawsuits for fraud and deceptive practices, alleged mafia dealings in construction, the kick to the curb policies you treated contractors & business people who built your casinos & hotels were there for all to see.

However, few did as you rebuilt your image into a celebrity. From film appearances and continuing the burgeoning Oprah and talk show circuits, you were The Donald 2.0 before there was an Internet. You flexed incredible legal power, litigating enemies into submission.

You weaponized the legal process and I have to say, it was impressive and formidable. Few dared to take you on. You bluffed your way into massive loans, inflated your self-worth and value and frankly become the human version of "too big to fail."

I watched as you survived one personal scandal after another. You deflected university fraud charges, you pummeled adversaries. You built more buildings & cornered NYC real estate. You survived rape allegations from your 1st wife. You shook off abuse accusations from your 2nd.

You took every moment on @HowardStern to build this new Donald 2.0 image. A phoenix rising from the ashes. You beat your enemies, and established an image of a man fighting against a world determined to take him down.

We heard little of any race issues. You were too enveloped in personal intrigue and polishing the business image and while stories of your use of undocumented workers, behind the scenes contempt for African-Americans and "how they lived" popped up, they did not take precedent.

By the early 2000s you started to float the idea of running for President. Your new success on #TheApprentice had sealed the image of you as a gleaming, financial success and power. Just the opening of the show solidified the image of success to the American people.

You were moving into super hero territory. You were the savior, like in a movie, who could come in and save a bloated, inefficient bureaucracy because you alone could cut through it. You could fix the system.

The person who actually makes the system work, is far more dangerous than any revolutionary threatening to overthrow it. That's what you had become--an Outsider White Knight who could fix the system & you would be opposed every step of the way.

But...there was now The Internet, & people could start looking a little closer at your stated financial success & business acumen. But the power of television was stronger at that point. The Apprentice spent over a decade solidifying your image as the quintessential businessman.

I watched this carefully and saw how the Obama years has threatened "fly over America" and how the "middle section" of the country was spooked by progressive agendas and the feeling that government was forcing things down throats.

The Clinton years were wracked with scandal. We reeled from 9-11 and the Internet allowed a new power for conspiracy theories to form and spread. Now data could literally be manipulated to show anything.

The JFK, MLK & RFK assassinations already sowed so much doubt into the American people. Vietnam further eroded trust in our government and before that long lie of a war was over that drained our military & our society of our youth, Watergate hit us.

We spent years believing our President was "not a crook." In the end we found out that was not true and thanks to the media we were able to see some dark things behind the veil. Nixon could've been a great president but he couldn't be saved from himself.

From there we saw Nixon pardoned, fueling the talk of back room deals & conspiracies and then we hit the malaise of the Carter years & again a country stymied by political nonsense & tone deaf politicians while the public & average people suffered.

Reagan promised to make America great again and the Republican Party found its Superman. Its Rambo. However, the "trickle down" economics policies furthered the gap between haves and have nots & the middle class continued to erode.

Then we got more scandal & conspiracy with Iran-Contra. The question wasn't "What the did The President know and when did he know it," but rather "Is the President lying or did he truly not know?"

If it was the latter & Reagan was indeed impaired (I LOVED Reagan, for the record, sir. I was 16 at the time) who was running the show? By the end of Reagan's 2 terms we had a market crash & suddenly we wondered if what we had been told was true about "no deals with terrorists."

But the conspiracy field was thriving by now and The Internet allowed a huge, dry plain filled with plenty of scrub brush for fuel for the flames of doubt, thus eroding our democracy right under our noses.

During this time you went from Democrat to Republican leanings. You were friends with both Clintons at one time, you headed Miss Universe pageants and you partied on through the early 2000s and The Apprentice backed it all.

We had 8 years of Obama...starting with the worst Market Crash since 1929. Average Americans watched their savings and homes vanish while banks & giant corporations not only got massive bailouts, but CEOs collected staggering bonuses.

The promises of Hope and Change were seen by some as a change in fundamental American values (whatever that is) and instead of a govt. talking in FDR-Fireside Chat style, we watched things bulldoze forward. We watched our local police forces acquire surplus military equipment.

The "right" became scared that the "left" was not just taking over, but changing America's DNA. And this brings me to the next point...the topic of race, which does not have you at the center as I hope this long "Tweet Storm" is coming through as logical & fair.

The issue of "race" was never solved or even close to addressed before, during or after The Civil War. The topic was swept under the rug, and the freedom of slaves seen by many as being forced upon them. Instead of a genuine national discourse to address concerns...(cont.)

...policies were implemented and basically African-Americans were left to fend on their own after the passing of amendments that did little to curb abuses on the state & local levels. You can't legislate moral issues and... (cont.)

...no serious discussion went into alleviating the fears each race had for the other. A growing media facilitated terrible stereotypes and the KKK not only arose from the ashes of The Civil War, it was allowed to become a legitimate organization under the pretext of "heritage."

And this grew, like a cancer. The South stayed behind the North in the wake of the war in every aspect: economically, educationally, emotionally and all this did was fester, the symptoms masked by economic crises & two world wars.

No one wanted to have the really hard conversations on race. There was no effort for sit downs from the federal level down for people to express their concerns, fears and to dispel false images, stereotypes & propaganda.

Instead the cancer grew, slowed at times by national crises. But the media grew. And with it came movies that featured terrible racial images dismissed as "comedy." What few advances came, were negated by segregation which Hattie McDaniel's Oscar win exemplifies.

WW II changed the economic & cultural landscapes. Segregation was still policy with fighting soldiers & after the war, the return of blacks to urban areas because that's where the factory jobs took them, saw the start of "white flight" from the cities.

The suburbs sprung up, providing opportunity and...refuge for scared whites fleeing the decay of their once great cities. And this is simply a SNAPSHOT, sir, a view from space, of the situation. It is far more complex and detailed as I am sure you know.

The media grew. Newspapers became empires. TV dominated, radio fell to the side as visual images now made the most impact. We saw the power of TV in them JFK-Nixon Debates and then when it brought the Vietnam War into our homes. The seeds of doubt...in reality...grew.

Which leads me to you, Mr. President. You thrived on image. This was your fuel. I watched you go from tabloid fodder to presidential contender. You did a Reagan in 2015, securing a nomination when no one believed anyone would take you seriously.

You promised "great deals" and the idea that all it takes is sitting people down in a room and all could be resolved, as if America were just one big board room. You ridiculed your opponents, but where it mattered was when you were right.

You were strongest when you called out career politicians for decades of ineffectual service & that is what hooked me for a hot second. Maybe, just maybe, this guy could pull it off. I didn't take race or other factors into consideration on that superficial thought. At that time.

Like TV, the first images were entertaining, but then the reality came hit. The look behind the scenes was so entertaining. The misogyny coming forward in fast waves was horrifying just as #MeToo dropped.

What struck me was the indifference to which it was met. "Locker room talk." "Boys will be boys." The excuses and rationalizations were staggering. Suddenly all the women were liars, you did not pay off a porn star to cheat on your third wife. Yet...

The women who lined up against Bill Clinton...they were to be believed. There are videos, photos and documented accounts of you with #JeffreyEpstein with a quote of you calling him a good guy while joking about his penchant for the younger women.

Yet as you got closer to the election and the Epstein stories, thanks to the reporting of #TheMiamiHerald showed something else. The deals made to get Epstein off lightly all had connections back to you.

Your growing base shook these things off, yet if it were someone more common, it would have destroyed them. Your bankruptcies came to the fore as well as tax situations as your campaign turned toward your ability to end deficits (that you attacked Obama for) & they got ignored.

And the conspiracy theories couldn't have been scripted better. You adopted, or learned from Roy Cohn, just as Sen. Joe McCarthy knew, that all you have to do is spout the lie, the fib and it will get heard. Even if it is stricken from the record. It got out there.

Just get the thing you want out there and let it take root. From the "birther" nonsense to embracing #AlexJones you found a fertile greenhouse for growing the most outlandish stories as a new form of "pre-emptive conspiracies" to hit any potential foes before they even strike.

These "pre-emptive conspiracies" could hit potential foes years before they even knew they wanted to attack you. The "swamp" story fed into the "Deep State" theory that has been wielded by both parties for decades since Eisenhower warned of a military industrial complex.

If you go down, if you ever lose, should you not get the nomination, it had nothing to do with you, your qualifications or actions. It was a vast "left wing conspiracy" born of "them." "Those" who fear you and the change you could bring.

You appealed to the ones felt pushed to the back. The ones who truly have problems with race (of all colors) of lifestyles, whatever it may be...it became a war on different. And you elevated it.

You embraced the "just throw it out there" concept. It works. As Americans become less educated, dumbed down to believe whatever they hear and see, eschewing critical thinking and rational thought, this works perfectly.

I watched you in one primary debate refer to the size of your manhood. And I thought, "How could I actually think, albeit even for a hot minute, this guy could really be taken seriously?" Then in another you could not answer a basic high school history question.

The question addressed the "Nuclear Triad," our land, air and water-based missile defense system. You just rattled off something about nuclear power being strong and America needed to be strong and go military.

I thought for sure that would end it all. You would get called out for having not even the most basic (again high school) understanding for the weaponry you would be entrusted with should you win.

Not a word in the papers. Not a word on the pundit-lined talk shows. It was if it never happened and from there on I felt the debates had become #SNL sketches.

On the other side of the aisle, I couldn't believe that Hillary Clinton was the best that Dems could get. Over 300 million people in America & the best we could get f was a 3rd rate reality show host or a polarizing, ambitious politician not even fully embraced by her own party.

The Wiki Leaks dump brought one thing truly enlightening, and something most Americans overlooked: The Pied Piper Strategy, which appears valid. If so, Clinton was the architect of her own demise. It was her & her party that sought out fringe Rep. candidates with you at the top.

Regardless, you both became opponents, and despite my misgivings about you and my non-support for Hillary Clinton, I felt you would win. This has nothing to do with Sec. Clinton's gender. I am an independent.

I firmly believe both sides of the aisle are in bed with each other. Career politicians spend decades in office with no term limits, fattening themselves on lobbyist money, endorsements & preach frugality & commonness to us.

While most of the country lives paycheck to paycheck, on little to no health care, losing their jobs, we watch politicians on both sides live in wealth outside their districts, enjoy generous health care coverage and million dollar retirements on top of bank accounts...

...inexplicably fattened beyond what their public salaries state. Few look at this, even with the Internet allowing to view voting records, attendance to see who sat out a vote that could monetarily impact them and instead see only what fits their agenda.

You adopted this to also do the same. You know what triggers the masses. You know what manipulates your base. Are you truly a "racist" man? I have never met you and I do not know. But your words and policies certainly paint that picture and I think you're okay with that.

If it causes deflection, distraction from the real issues and allows you to paint yourself as a victim, a king under siege that keeps feeding your base, the ends then justify the means.

I also think people like me and "my kind," the commoners, the fading middle class are a subject of revulsion to you. We aren't worthy and we are nothing. We are expendable. I think that is also your view on women as well. It's about the use people or things have to you.

You told us great deals were coming. Mexico would pay for a wall and that would solve our immigration issues. N. Korea would bow to us and get rid of its nukes. The country's infrastructure would be revitalized because that's how business is done.

The whole time you promised these things, with no concrete plans or facts or any supporting, corroborating data, you seeded us with doubt. The nebulous "they" were out there. Plotting against you. Wanting to take you down. This fear galvanized your base and you became a messiah.

The "Deep State" the "Swamp Things" were laying traps. The massive conspiracy of voter fraud you allege took you from power was not alive and well when you ran as a common businessman. An ounce of prevention in 2016 was worth worth more than a pound of cure in 2020.

Where was this vast force that deprived you of re election in 2016? Surely the Sith-like Clinton could have amassed her power that murders so many around her to block you from taking the office she's wanted all her life?

You laid that groundwork before you entered office. When the impeachment started to grow in force, you already had the fail safe: "The Deep State" was not just after you, it was their witch hunting that distracted you from achieving your promises.

The impeachment was folly for sure as the Senate would never vote to convict. You threw out one "fact" after another, building the image of a man under siege. And it worked. You knew it didn't matter what you said, as long as it got out there.

You became the third president to survive impeachment. Sadly, most Americans think "impeach" means to kick out of office and that's exactly what people like you count on: ignorance.

Your inner staff fell one by one. Fired. Resigned. Indicted. All of them, according to you, victims of conspiracies by the left or they were incompetent and deserved what they got. Your base, without even looking up anything, agreed. Again...just throw it out there.

Your son-in-law, with no qualifications and a family with their own questionable business practices, is given Herculean tasks like solving the Middle East Crisis, while his equally unqualified wife flexed one qualification: she was your daughter.

You denied paying hush money to a porn star for an affair, and then dismissed your own lawyer as a rat. Your base bought it. Now if this was anyone else they would be the villagers in Frankenstein, wielding torches and pitchforks.

You duped the religious base you despise, playing to their ideals, and somehow got the evangelical right to see you akin to Jesus. An adulterer, a man of questionable business practices, slanderous lies who broke just all 7 Deadly Sins was their Jesus.

You said whatever you needed to everyone you needed. Each story fit the agenda. Everyone was a liar but you. The women accusers all liars. The ones who brought forth evidence...liars. Long-standing military servants were inept. The list was growing and you had no responsibility.

Where were the things you were going to change? You threw out a tax break but what did it really do for the average person? What did a raging stock market, again artificially fueled on speculation and bubbles, do for the middle class?

Some benefited and your base asked "How's your 401k?" This was great for those who had them. You claimed no one did more for "black people" than you except Lincoln. Yet, where is that data? Where is that evidence?

Where is one photo op of you in an urban setting, the projects..."the hood" if we need to be clear? Where were you at John Lewis's funeral? To speak? To offer something to the people you feel owe you for all you have done for them?

Where are the results for the Latin community aside from invoking Castro in Florida districts under the specter of socialism. Where were you to define "socialism" other than a boogeyman word? You yourself have benefited from socialism with the real estate tax rebates you got.

Where are the new schools, roads, bridges, Internet for all, new highways, renewed communities and inner cities? What happened to all of that? Where is the controlled budget and reduced deficit? I know you will blame the pandemic for the excessive federal spending.

You ensured your name on the relief checks to remind people at the voting booth. But now that we are here, let's talk about #COVID19 and the #pandemic.

#COVID is not your fault, any more than England's issues of bombs falling upon them The Blitz were Churchill's or The Queen's. But it came for them as this came for us.

We can forever dissect the abject mishandling of this virus from the first moments it was told to you to now. What I can say for sure, if this had been any other administration but yours, you would be in the media criticizing the handling of this situation.

All you had to do was be up front. All you had to do was show simple human compassion and empathy. Instead of a photo op holding a Bible, going into the field to show your support of health care workers alone would have guaranteed an almost certain landslide.

Instead, like the race issue, you ignored it. You chose to focus on what you have always know: money, stocks, futures and shares. You did not invoke a negative word for the white movement that clashed in the protests in the senseless race-induced deaths around the country.

NO, you wished for this to go away. You fiddled while Rome burned. Or perhaps the best comparison of all, you wanted to keep the beaches open even though you knew there was a shark out there. Mayor Vaughn campaigned on summer dollars.

You withdrew. All you had to say, at the start was: "Wear the damned masks." Your base would've listened. You could've avoided politicizing a medical issue. Instead you inflamed. You roused. You antagonized and pushed a fearful population further apart...because it works.

You could've mobilized rapid testing stations quickly and been the savior of this nation during the worst crisis since The Great Depression. Instead you attacked the press, doctors, the anti-Trump media and your own staff.

More importantly, you flamed the fires of conspiracy, allowing non-scientific "facts" come from your mouth, later excusing them as sarcasm which of course emboldened your base.

Sir, you taught almost 100 million people, some who know better, to act just like you: the self comes first. Nothing else matters. America first, you would say, yet you put yourself and your concerns for re-election above us all.

You placed cronies and unqualified sycophants into cabinet positions, aside from your own family. Betsy DeVos might be one of the worst...someone who never should have survived the confirmation process and that's shame on Congress and the committees that allowed it.

We are now in the midst of another shutdown as this virus rages uncontrolled like a @StephenKing story. And you let it happen. You chose to let this happen because instead of facing down this crisis you chose to exploit and that choice is costing us numerous lives a day.

You chose yourself over us. You have spent incredible resources this past month to overturn an election while seeding the self-destructive seeds of doubt in our own democracy, turning us against each other and sitting back while more die so you can put the screws to the new guy.

This is how you always worked. All one has to do is now go back and look at the media, the TV clips and the interviews from the 80s on. It was in front of us the whole time. Only so many decided to ignore it. And Sir, you had me for a hot second.

Because that's what con men do. They distract. They divide. They cajole, they seduce. They tell us what we want to hear because in the end they know what fears to exploit. In that case, you are to be commended. You leave this country richer and us broken.

Four years of one scandal after another, with dark, real links to nefarious forces on both sides of our coasts. Your family benefited financially while most wait for maybe a $600 dollar check this time around.

You grifted this country, Mr. President. The shell of Rudy Giuliani enabled you to create dubious fundraisers that the fine print says may lead to your personal benefit. Giuliani, once a man who "America's Mayor" is now "America's Punchline." Corrupted.

Since the election you have ghosted the very people, the very Constitution you were elected and took an oath to uphold. You lost, and I suspect you did similar actions as a boy. You walked away from what you couldn't take. If you didn't win, you were a sore loser.

Where are you to lead us? Where are the fireside chats to the families terrified, to those who lost members to this virus? Instead we get calls of hoaxes, "sarcastic" urges to drink bleach or us UV light inside of us.

Where are the initiatives to get testing stations up and running and most of all...where are you, Sir? You want to be Superman? Are you the Superman who left the world to serve his own interests with Lois Lane in Superman II while Zod ran rampant across the country?

This country needed you and it still does. It needs you to be fair, selfless, like Lincoln, who gave his own life for the greater good. It needs you to open the books and offer the help to the winner to help us. Denying this new administration is denying all of us.

You left us. But were you ever there in the first place? Just who were you here for, Mr. President? What do you leave us with? A ravaged country...was this your plan? To decimate the country, then rebuild it in your next term? Perhaps #AlexJones could embrace that theory.

We are racially divided. We are economically divided. We are marginalized by this pandemic. We have turned brother and sister on brother and sister. Familie3s that have suffered losses in life have chosen to silence the living in their own families to support you.

This is your legacy, Mr. President. It's the path you have always taken. You create chaos, you deflect, you confuse and you inflame. If this is what makes America great...then bravo. Mission Accomplished.

I believe in the America that understands it has its share of problems, but that with good talk, meaningful, real actions, we can overcome these things. I believe in an America that shows it values education, does not cling to fearful, unsupportable conspiracy theories in its...

...fear to embrace unpleasant truths or changing realities. I believe in the America that rolled up its sleeves, saved the world from Nazism and went to work trying to fix its own issues at home. We are far from there, but out of this mess of the last four years...

...the overturning and blocking of your attempts to destabilize the democratic principles upon which this country was founded, are a glimmer of hope that somehow, the system can work.

The very Supreme Court that you yourself packed, failed to your bidding. It did just what our Found Father designed it to do. And that, Mr. President, is real hope because the founders knew this republic is not defined by a single person.

This is a country of all kinds, races, lifestyles and points of views. It is not a patchwork of conspiracy theories, inflammatory lies and boldface grifting. We are the UNITED Stated of America. That means it has the right to defend itself against individuals who think otherwise.

We all don't have to disagree and I am sure there are those reading this thread who find me "Un-American, a Leftist, Liberal, Socialist," whatever buzzword that fits the agenda. I end this "Tweet Storm" by saying I am American. Not red, not blue, not left, or right.

I believe in my friends & neighbors, my teachers, doctors. I believe in science & the rule of law. I believe in democracy and the republic. I believe in us and I believe in this country's wonderful & checkered, darker history. I believe in the ability to change, correct & atone.

History reserves the right to truly judge you, Mr. President, on your actions. I know you did not read this, but it feels good to lay it out there. Ask yourself as you depart, what do you want to be remembered for? Did you leave the world a little better than you found it?

In the end, that should be the goal of us. Some will. Others will not. You gave us four years, but I ask, Sir, what did you take? It's not how you enter, it's not always what you give, it's sometimes about what you take away and how you exit.
#endthread