Mr. Trump,

Or I guess I should say, Mr. President. You have just won the 2016 presidential election, so congratulations. But you are not my president and you never will be.

Allow me to introduce myself before I go any further, so you can picture exactly who is speaking to you. I am a white, straight, 20-year-old female. I go to college (and live) on the east coast and will be getting a degree in both Political Science and English. People like me are your worst nightmare, whether you realize it yet or not.

I know all about you. I know that you thrive most when the rest of America is scared because you offer a scapegoat; you offer someone to blame for our problems, instead of turning to one another for the necessary change. I know you used, and continue to use, simple rhetoric to gain the confidence of your voters so that your uneducated audience (the majority) is able to understand you. And I know that, even though you haven’t even been inaugurated yet, you will be the worst president in American history.

Mr. Trump, you may have fooled others – many, many others – but you will not fool me. You have torn America apart and pinned people against each other, instead of bringing them together. Your campaign was based off of shedding light on people’s differences, rather than celebrating and acknowledging how truly similar we are. You have used the anger of the middle class to drive hate into the minds of others, but I guess what many do not know, is that you will, in fact, be taxing the rich even less than they are being taxed right now. “Trumped up trickle down” as Hillary so cleverly put it. I can only guess where you are going to make up that loss and that would be within the middle class, the exact people you were appealing most to.

How are you going to explain to your base voters that you are now going to screw them over? How are you going to turn around and so blatantly do the exact opposite of what you promised? I’m not sure many understand the severity of this issue, but I do, Mr. Trump, and as a middle class citizen, I am fearful.

I am also fearful because I am a woman. You have said some horrible and awful things about women over the years and whether you or any of your supporters would like to admit it or not, the things you say show a lot about your character. Not to mention the things you are accused of actually doing! I am fearful that I will no longer have the rights to my own body, when they were just only recently given to so many other women who have been fighting since long before I was born. I am fearful that people like you have already encouraged and reinforced the idea that men are allowed to do whatever they want to a woman, even if she says no, even if you don’t ask. I am fearful that we will have more Brock Turners walking in this country than ever before because of things you have said, Mr. Trump.

I am fearful for many other things too – for my LGBTQ+, black, Muslim, disabled, Latinx, immigrant friends who now fear that some of your supporters will harm them. In case you didn’t see, Mr. Trump, someone already spray painted your name in South Philadelphia, but instead changed the “T” in your name to a swastika. It is not so much you that I am afraid of, it is the people who support you. The people who think they are entitled. The people who think they are better than others and have the right to make them fear for their lives. Nobody should feel that way, Mr. Trump, even you.

Your democratic opponent, Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton, is no saint. She is far from perfect and most, if not all, people who voted for her realize this. We know how corrupt politicians can be and we know that many Americans are sick of the same old thing going on in Washington. But we know for sure that Mrs. Clinton would have brought us together as a nation, unlike you, who is already pulling us apart. Just take a look at her slogan: Stronger Together. I know that you may disagree with a lot of things she has to say and a lot of things that she stands for, but that’s exactly how I feel about you, Mr. Trump.

I will not sit by and watch you try to deport millions of people who have made a home of our (already) great country. By the way, if you haven’t been paying attention, the amount of immigrants coming into the country has actually dropped and is at the lowest it has been in years. But that is beside the point. I will not watch you get rid of gun-free school zones because you think every single person in America should be carrying around a gun. That is not safe for our children and I think, maybe even you know that, Mr. Trump, but you were just trying to get all the second amendment lovers on your side. I will not stand around and watch you tear about LGBTQ+ relationships because you do not agree with their lifestyle and who they are as people.

So, it should not be a shock when you hear me say that you are not my president, Mr. Trump. You are not the person that I voted for and you are certainly not who I think is best for the job. Your values, thoughts, and ideas are not even close to the same as mine and I resent you for that. I know that people have the right to their own belief system and this is mine: every human being should be treated with love and respect from the minute they are born until the minute they die, until they give you a legitimate reason not to. A legitimate reason is not that they love someone different than you do or that they chose to do something to their bodies that you wouldn’t personally do. A legitimate reason is sexual assault, Mr. Trump, which you are accused of, or not paying someone for a job that they did, that you didn’t think they did it well enough, which again, is something that you did.

I am ashamed that so many Americans are so angry that they would elect you. You are not a good man; I believe you are a grown, spoiled child who yells and complains until he gets what he wants. But I will be the first (and certainly not the last) to tell you that will not work when talking to foreign leaders in regard to foreign affairs. They are already laughing at us, but if you do that, they will be laughing directly at you. Then you will be putting the safety of our entire country at stake.

All-in-all, I would just like to say one last thing to you, Mr. Trump and that is: good luck. You have made many promises to the American people, promises that those people expect you to keep. With a Republican majority House of Representatives and Senate, you have no one to blame if you don’t “make America great again.” You are to blame, if that happens.

In your victory speech, you said, “I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans” and I hope you mean all Americans, not just the ones that you deem worthy. I hope – not for your sake or your reputations sake, but for the human beings that you have thrown to the side’s sake – that you are true to your word.

Good luck, Mr. Trump, and may the United States of America be safe and full of love because hate solves nothing.

Sincerely,

A concerned American