Jonathan C. Lewis
Author and Artist
Dear Mr. President
A fictional travelogue; four minutes to read.
At the Rodin Museum in Paris last week, when my eyes tired, I sat down to rest on a rickety bistro chair overlooking the reflecting pond. That is how I got into a conversation with Pierre. Pierre, a man twenty years my senior, was wearing chinos, horizontally-striped crew neck shirt and black leather jacket.
After we shared abbreviated life stories, when he learned that I was flying home the next day, he asked if he could drop off a letter at my hotel that, as a favor, he wanted me to mail. That evening, settling my hotel bill, the receptionist handed me Pierre’s letter. It was addressed to the White House.
On the long flight home, I could not stop myself from secretly reading it. Forgive me, Pierre, for not mailing it. At the airport, when I landed, I tossed your letter into the trash bin at U.S. Customs.
January 25, 2025
Dear Mr. President,
Congratulations on your election and second presidency. The whole world is watching you. So are my relatives, a branch of my family living in Pennsylvania.
Unquestionably, you are an historic president. I teach high school history at the American School here in Paris, so I know something about American political leaders. Future textbooks will need a full chapter to cover your two presidencies, your criminality, the wanton disregard for the U.S. Constitution and your legendary personal failings.
That aside, I am writing because this Frenchman is impressed with how much you are accomplishing. In just your first week in the Oval Office. You are demonstrating enormous personal energy, stamina and multi-tasking skills. So many executive orders! Your presidential decrees are doing exactly what you said you would do on the campaign trail. I salute your honesty and integrity!
Your focus on big issues like immigration and simultaneously little things like exacting revenge on your enemies, not to mention continuing to make money with your grifts, impresses me. Revoking Secret Service protection from the Republicans who did not support you is good move. No sense in wasting taxpayer money to keep opponents alive, right?
Despite the braying of your critics, you are a political genius when it comes to reading the room. You tapped into the American electorate’s economic fears, fear of cultural change, fear of foreigners, fear of facts and science, fear of the future. To your credit, Mr. President, you are in touch with your fellow Americans.
When abortionists and their ilk smugly predicted that the women of America would never vote for the president who took away their personal freedoms, you said the abortion issue was old news. At the polls, women picked you over your female opponent by a whopping seven points. Your feral instincts were spot on.
Your detractors underestimate your policy instincts and judgment. You have reinstated the global gag rule which bans any overseas organization using U.S. foreign aid from even talking about abortion. Family planning for poor women will drop off, even though each year 68,000 pregnant women in poor countries die during childbirth. And lots of babies die too. It’s your secret strategy for instantaneous poverty reduction in shithole countries, am I right?
Mr. President, you are building a brave new world. Bonne chance!
Sincerely, Pierre DuChamp
