Dear Mr. President,

Bravo, Sir.

Well played, Sir.

You’ve cast a portrait in power out of that material from which the United States was never made: The Self

Self-evidence, Sir, not, ‘The Self’ is that granite from which America got carved, our corner of stone, the brick of truth with which we must build any wall, Mr. President, Sir.

In finding power in what we are not, you remind us as no president ever has who we must be.

And so, Sir, Thank YOU, Sir, Mr President, Sir.

Birthed by Shakespeare, Sir, and codified by Jefferson, Sir, Mr. President, Sir, the self-evident first came into being in the theater, Sir, that place where we all could divide the fake from the real,

Sir.

Because you see, Sir, whenever Juliet dies–and whenever she has died, Sir–she fakes it.  Julie The Faker you might call her, Mr. President, Sir.

She and her Romeo’s death? Sir?  That’s one big disgrace for those on stage, Sir, one big fake to all those off it, Sir.

Julie The Faker, Sir? Romeo, Sir?  Their wild-ing friends? That ugly nurse and loser priest? That whole crew suffer like no one has ever seen before, Sir. Very tragic, Sir.  Horrible.  So terrible, Mr. President, that the dad’s of each house even promise to build gold statues to the other’s dead kid, Sir.  After all the death, Sir, that’s how the play ends, Sir.

Yet even five hundred years ago all watching could tell the real from the fake, Sir..

“Look, there’s the person who played Juliet,” the audience at the theater must have said that first time the play ended.  “And there’s Romeo and the friends and the nurse and priest and look–Sir–you can see the two actors who played the dads there too, those golden idol guys.”

Nobles and serfs, even THE QUEEN, Sir, they all knew in their own one single self that all those on stage were fake, Sir.

The love, Sir, the hate, Sir, the sex and the fights, Sir.  All fake, like the party and the balcony, the swords and the poison too, Sir.  Even the blood that came out of Julie’s whatever, Sir.  Fake, Sir, Mr. President, Sir.

Because characters on stage do not bleed, Sir.  Real bleeds and fake does not, Sir.  That’s the difference.

And all in the audience learned this, Sir, could see the truth of it at least by the time the play ended. Every ‘me’ and all the ‘I’s, Sir.  Each boy and every girl, Sir.  All could tell the one thing from the other, Sir.  The fake from the not.

Them the players.  We the watchers.  Bleeders and not, Sir.

All the serfs and all the nobles, each queen, every jack and joker too, Sir, the most disgraceful person in the kingdom like the most powerful all equal in knowing this division between fake and real, each measuring it in their one self.

Each of us but all together, Sir.

A new unit of being, Sir.

A new way count each “I” and yet get to “we.” One plus one plus one equals all, Sir.

One plus one equals all, Sir, that new mathematics of democracy.

One plus one equals all because we build from the self-evidence that a person bleeds, a role does not.

Any and all of us play the citizen, Sir–the bleeders, Sir–while all an any of us might enact “The President.”  A fake we need, Sir.

We pretend these truths to be self-evident, Mr. Jefferson might have writ, Sir.  

The opposite of true, Sir, is not fake, it is “untrue.”  Lots of things are fake but true, Sir.  Or think of Julie the Faker, again, Sir.  After all, who could believe in her?  Of Epstein age, she’s trafficked only into her own desires, follows only her own heart.  Even as the entire system around her let’s her down, Sir, she stays true to who she is.  If you and Brett and had gotten after her, where we she have ever gotten to, Sir.   Better off dead, with Romeo, Sir.  Tragic, Sir.

So maybe, Sir, The Biden’s are worse, Sir. Maybe.

And maybe, Sir, the Kurds should be slaughtered, Sir.

And maybe, Sir, there good people on all sides, Sir.

And maybe Miller is a sweetie, Munchin a model of thrift, DeVos a scholar, Kavennegaugh a gent,

Maybe.

But now, Sir, and again with thanks for the clarity you offer, please, step off stage and offer us the one thing we need more than anything else: relief, Sir, from the shingng star of self that never matters more than what is evident to all selves

(Does 2+2=5, Sir?  No, Sir, but the symbols written on the page or pixelated on the screen of 2+2=4 and 2+2=5 are equally fake, Sir.)

They give is a way to see, Sir, a thing to believe in Sir, a mirror to our nature, Sir.

It could be a true a man is stable and of genius and of unmatched wisdom because he says so.   Or it could be untrue, Sir.

But if he says it from the stage,Sir, it is fake, Sir.

The real news is the score of the game, Sir.  The grocery list, Sir.  The kids safe at school as something other than target practice, Sir.

That’s what we care about Sir, the truth we ask your fake to enhance, Sir.  The rest is frill, Sir.

Like the pee tape Sir.  Who cares if it is fake or real, Sir?  Only you.  The revelation that you might urinate on others in your private life is, well, Sir, just more evidence you can’t tell when the the lights go down, the show over.   Real or fake, Sir, the golden shower you offer us in your tweets is true enough, Sir.