Mr. Trump, my thoughts and prayers are with you.
It might surprise you to hear that from someone who holds you in near total contempt. I say “thoughts and prayers” partly because I want you to experience firsthand how lame and empty that sentiment sounds, how phony and hypocritical, especially coming from politicians like you who oppose common-sense gun regulation that would protect us from attacks like you just experienced.
But I’m also sincere. My thoughts and prayers truly are with you, though not perhaps very consoling.
Here are my thoughts:
Now you know how it feels. And the only price you had to pay was a small chunk of your ear. Perhaps now you can begin to imagine how parents of the first-graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut felt when they saw their beloved first-graders ripped apart (literally) on the floor of their classroom by an assault weapon that you and your supporters at the rally Saturday and nearly every Republican member of Congress fiercely opposes doing anything to protect us from. Now at least you know what it’s like to have some crazy, hate-filled person use you as target practice. By my calculations, you were less than an inch from being killed.
Now you also know what your fellow countrymen go through every day. If you’re feeling vulnerable, then you’re beginning to understand our predicament — wondering if we’ll be the next victims of a mass murderer. You don’t seem to care one bit, but maybe you’ll care a little more after this brush with death.
My next thought is that getting shot in the ear is a perfect metaphor for your inability to listen to us — those of us who have been shouting that we’re sick and tired of being sitting ducks. We’re fed up with our loved ones and our fellow Americans getting picked off by serial killers carrying high-capacity assault weapons or sniper rifles or semiautomatic weapons turned into machine guns using bump stocks. Maybe every time you look at your mangled ear, it will serve as a reminder that you need to listen better to the people you will allegedly represent as president should, God forbid, you get another crack at it. In fact, you have a perfect platform in Milwaukee this week at your convention to begin changing hearts and minds on this issue, your own heart and mind first and foremost.
Another thought is I’m glad you didn’t die. Gun violence is never the answer, and political violence is abhorrent and infectious. Now that you’ve been on the receiving end of it, I hope you will renounce political violence in all your rhetoric — no more incitement to violent insurrection, no more calls for retribution against your “enemies.” I don’t want you to become a casualty of the very violence and hatred you so casually espouse and which your policies promote and perpetuate.
You didn’t deserve to be shot, but you do deserve to be defeated at the polls in November, and I don’t want you to die because I want you to experience that defeat. It’s the only way to kill (if you’ll excuse that violent phrasing) the authoritarian, anti-democratic movement you represent. Killing a person doesn’t kill off an ideology, even one as reprehensible as yours.
The polarization you have deepened and exploited for political gain came home to roost last Saturday. If you live by extremism and divisiveness you may also die by it. You very nearly did. You were incredibly lucky. I hope you learned a lesson from your close call. You have been given a second chance. Don’t waste it. It is not too late to become a decent person.
Those are my thoughts. Here are my prayers:
I pray that no one kills you between now and November so that you can once again taste the bitterness of defeat that your anti-democratic movement so richly deserves.
I pray that this brush with death makes you a better, wiser, more humane, less self-centered human being.
I pray that you and the party you represent alter their unreasonable, irrational, inhumane opposition to common-sense gun regulation.
I pray that you are moved by this experience to meet with the parents of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre and other mass shootings and that you really listen to what they have to say.
I pray that this close call shocks you into becoming a truth-teller instead of the compulsive liar you have been for so long. You can start by being honest with yourself about all the damage you’ve done and suffering you’ve caused.
I pray that you become an effective advocate for reducing gun violence and that you stand up to the gun lobby which prevents such progress.
I pray that this experience makes you a more empathic person who understands what average Americans are going through, especially on the issue of gun violence.
I pray that you undergo a deep personal conversion and transformation that leads you to support more humane policies.
And I pray that, after Nov. 5, you have a long, happy and safe retirement at your golf club in Florida, shanking shots and three-putting every hole.