Dear World,

Donald Trump does not speak for me. He does not speak for my family, he does not speak for my friends.  He speaks for a subset of one political party’s base. That the number of people supporting him is as large as it is appalls and (if I am honest) frightens me, but it’s not all of us, by anything near a long shot.

Still, I’m sorry about all of this.

We can speak out against him, and many are doing so. (Ted Cruz, you’re almost as bad as Trump, you’re just quieter.) But in real terms, there is little we can do until next year.

Donald Trump has the same freedom of speech as anyone in America. The media keeping him off the airwaves would be helpful (metaphorically starving him of oxygen, since we can’t literally do so) but the man is running for President, so whatever horrible things he says are newsworthy.  More than newsworthy, since the only way to find the cockroaches is to shine a light in the corners.* How much worse it would be if he first said these things after being elected.

Trump was born in America, so we can’t strip him of his citizenship. We can’t kick him out of the country. We probably couldn’t find a country willing to take him, anyway. I know! Since Trump wants to ban Muslim-Americans from re-entering America if they go abroad, maybe we could do likewise to him!  Except that would be unethical. He’s our mess, we can’t decently palm him off on somebody else.

I just want to say, people of Britain, that I applaud you. 400,000 of you signed a petition to ban Trump from the U.K. Rock on. Many of us here in the states would sign petitions to ban him from our shores, too, but that’s not possible.**

We’ll defeat the most dangerous menace to American Ideals in a century the same way we always have done, muddling through as best we can. Given that the crazy has spread far out from The Donald, it’s not going to be easy.

Wish us luck.

*I apologize to cockroaches for comparing them to Donald Trump.

**Most of us were just joking with that “deport Justin Beiber” petition.