Dear America: A love letter from an appalled European
What happened? Why? How?
Dearest, darling America,
How’s things? From what I hear, everything’s a little dire. Or more accurately, the darkest days of the last century.
Is nationalism back? It doesn’t suit you. It tars you an ugly shade of insecure, arrogant and brash. You used to be a beautiful dream, surplus food, neon lights and streets wider than motorways. Now, you symbolise greed, division, selfishness and a crumbling west.
Don’t be angry. I have to tell you the truth here. I love you. We are friends. I grew up on your films, your books and your history. I cried at Obama’s swearing in with joy and I read Fitzgerald all night under the covers. I love you like a big brother, moved away and idolised through fleeting snippets of gossip back home. But lately, we are all less proud of you. No one praises your wealth or freedoms. Your absent chair is glared at in dinner parties and embassies.
Why did you marry Trump? He hurts you. He doesn’t love you, he’s incapable of love. He doesn’t care for the children starving in the carcasses of rented blocks, the dying girls under railway bridges, the slow decay of your iron, your steel, your blood.
He gropes at your money and sells you out to his friends. He will spread your legs and take your dreams with every invasion, every legislation, every demand of your loyalty. He will beat you with paranoia, bitterness and obsession. Does he tell you he wants you? He doesn’t want you America. He never wanted you. He despises your poverty, your hope, your needs, your diversity. He screwed lady liberty and has her locked in New York apartments and bank vaults. Did he tell you he would leave his wife- Greed- for you? He won’t. That was a passion of a life time. You are just the latest fancy, to aid his cavernous hunger for more.
That’s not you, America. You used to be the favourite child of Europe, always first with a new toaster, vaccine or innovation. Your heroes were our heroes: Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Roosevelt. You brazenly pursued equality and a land where your parents chequebook did not declare your future. You’ve fallen off the wagon, drank too much oil and slept with too many rich cruel men. I don’t like being ashamed of you, brother. You used to mean so much.
Call me. Talk to your family in Europe and we’ll listen. You’ve made a mistake. But it doesn’t need to define you. You are more than your current husband.
Love, always, regardless
Madelaine
