Coward "The Former Guy" watched January 6th insurrection on TV while the police were brutally attacked

An Open Letter to the Former President—and his followers
Echo Guest Editorial by Jill Sunday Bartoli published in PennLive: https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2022/02/an-open-letter-to-the-former-presidentand-his-followers-opinion.html

Dear Former Guy- the  Past President,

Obviously, you have no conscience. #Hypocrisy

The Former Guy (TFG)

Millions of innocent people died under your watch while you denied the severity of COVID-19 or offered ridiculous “remedies” like the injecting of bleach. It is unconscionable that you made no effort to require well-known vital defense methods like masks and social distancing, and you mocked or ignored medical experts in your administration who could have helped us.

During the polio epidemic, a president who trusted science and the polio vaccine did not confuse, divide or let people die for his own political aggrandizement. 

President Truman said from the White House:

“The fight against [polio] cannot be a local war. It must be nationwide. It must be total war in every city, town and village throughout the land. For only with a united front can we ever hope to win any war.”

Thus, children in leg braces and iron lungs are a thing of the past, unlike the avoidable pandemic we continue to endure—or die from.

In my area of Cumberland County, Pa., yard signs read, “We support our police.” They often are paired with Trump signs. But, it was you who sat and watched TV coverage of Capitol police being brutally beaten by a violent mob carrying Trump signs, neo-Nazi flags and confederate flags. These people were the angry mob you lied to, spurred on by your cry of “Fight like hell!”.  (TFG did not fight for himself, but he sent his stooges!).Several of those police officers later committed suicide, and many others are burdened with both mental and physical pain.

January 6th rioter known as ‘QAnon Shaman’ sentenced to 41 months: Jacob Chansley, the spear-carrying January 6th rioter whose horned fur hat, bare chest and face paint made him one of the more recognizable figures in the assault on the Capitol.

Today we continue to face the rage of the followers you spawned as they refuse to wear the masks or take the vaccine that would protect them and their neighbors from an avoidable continued pandemic. This angry, lied-to group of followers trash-talks and threatens our teachers, school administrators and school board members, all of whom are trying valiantly to keep our children safe, healthy, and in their classrooms.

Is this vitriol and division in the service of anything but your ego? And is lying about losing an election worth trampling on the rule of law, abusing our precious democracy and showing disregard for those hurt or killed in the process? How many of your followers truly want a dictatorship rather than a democracy? How many want an ego-driven dictator who stands by and lets his people die for his end-game?

We need you to tell the blind followers that you spawned to stand down and gracefully accept your defeat. Tell them to stop jeering at mask wearing or other public health measures that can save lives and finally end this forever pandemic. Surly you do not want to go down in history as a twice impeached breeder of national distrust who attempted to use national security agencies—even the military-- to seize voting machines and overturn a free and fair election?

I have five children and eight grandchildren who I want the very best democratic future for. And I want the same for everyone else’s children and grandchildren. I want all of our citizens to have hope and a vision of the unified and compassionate democracy so many heroic, selfless people fought and died for. All of us can find many ways that we can come together and build back better what we all value and care deeply about.

The time is now to take up the call to unite for our democracy and focus on what we can do together. Even our most difficult problems, from COVID, to family poverty, to housing, to caring for mother earth, can be solved with cooperative action.

In fact, the Former Guy needs to rise to the call, speak truth to his followers, and build a legacy he can be proud of. (Instead, #TFG's evil legacy is a proverbial "quick sand" of lies, hypocrisy, deception and political corruption.)

By Jill Sunday Bartoli