Mendel Letters 14: Unbelievable

Hard copies of these typed letters were discovered in an old camp trunk in the basement storage facility of one of the few buildings that remain standing in this Brooklyn neighborhood. The building is quite decrepit and is scheduled for demolition. The letters were found in November 2048 by a teenager who believes they were written by his great-grandfather. The letters are addressed to Mendel, the letter writer’s father, who appears to have been dead for at least six years when his son, whose name we are unsure of, started to write him. The son appears very agitated in some of the letters. With permission from the family, we are publishing them on the date they were written, only 28 years later.

January 13, 2021

Dear Mendel,

When Richard Nixon was threatened with impeachment and forced to resign, you accused me of always seeing the worst. Well, you won’t believe what’s going on now. I’ll try to explain, but unless you are living through it, it really is unbelievable.

Donald Trump lost the Presidential election in November — by a lot. He refused to concede and tried to get the courts and state legislatures to throw out the results and declare him reelected. With no evidence, he announced he had won a “sacred landslide election victory,” but failed on every front. His lawyer is Rudy Giuliani, who never seems to go away, and is now completely out of control.

Trump’s “Big Lie” tactic to rally his supporters echoes what Hitler and the Nazis did in Germany in the 1930s — and it’s not just me who thinks this.

Anyway, Congress was meeting to certify the election. Trump told his supporters to come to Washington DC to a “Save America” rally. Trump and Giuliani stirred the crowd into a frenzy and told them to march on the Capitol Building to persuade Congress to change the election results.

For some reason, a mystery, there were almost no police on guard. The mob, wearing weird costumes, carrying U.S., Trump, and Confederate flags, chanting “U.S.A., U.S.A.” like it was a sporting event, broke into the building, vandalized it, forced Congress to flee, and started taking “selfie” photos sitting in offices and in the Senate Chamber. The mob was so wild that at least five people died, including a Capitol police officer who was beaten to death. Then soon-to-be former President Trump sent his “American Patriots” a message that enough-is-enough and they should go home, but he loves them.

Trump is out of office in less than two weeks, but Congress is trying to decide if it should impeach him anyway and his long loyal Vice-President is considering trying to remove him from office as a danger to the country.

This is not a made-for-television satire. These are the real events. Bonkers.

Your son