Dear world, please accept this American's apology for Trump's first year in the White House

Hi —

We know. We haven't written in a while. Our relationship is in trouble. But please, hear us out.

Someone has come between us. Call him what you will — Uncle Scam; the Tantrum on Two Legs; Black Hole Sun — Donald Trump has been the President of the United States for a full year. For that we are truly, truly sorry.

We don't presume to speak for everyone in America. We certainly don't speak for those who, despite everything, still adore Trump. When we characterise the President as a con man and a disgrace, we do so knowing that many of our compatriots would gladly vote for him again. And when we note that his supporters include white supremacists and self-declared Nazis, we don't mean to suggest that all of Trump's backers are racist, anti-Semitic cretins. Only that a good number of them are.

Incompetence and unhinged braggadocio might define his presidency, but many Americans still celebrate Donald Trump's bluster, chuckle at his abusive tweets, and cheer his lies. Even fundamentalist Christians embrace the thrice-married, wealth-worshipping, alleged sexual predator as a bulwark against … something. The War on Christmas, probably.

But here's the thing: millions and millions of Americans — leftists, conservatives, libertarians; men and women of every ethnicity and creed — view Trump not as a leader, or a politician, but as a crass emblem of our deepest national flaws. Donald Trump's self-adulation, ill-gotten fame, ceaseless race-baiting, and mortifying lack of curiosity about the wider world are not just embarrassing. In a president, they're repellent.

Admittedly, some of us do harbor a queasy respect for Trump's remorseless will to power: the image of a low-rent Sauron in ill-fitting khakis and a ridiculous baseball cap comes to mind. But the fact that a reality TV clown could garner the votes of 60 million humans says something remarkable, and remarkably distressing, about the calibre of president many Americans believe they deserve.

Like any demagogue, Trump has tapped a deep well of unease in his supporters. His yowling about “Mexicans” (translation: anyone from Tijuana to Patagonia) as rapists and drug dealers; his Il Duce-like hymns to violence at his rallies; his laughable fantasies about his own accomplishments; his brown-nosing of creeps like Putin, Erdogan and Duterte — all speak to Trump's autocratic temperament and his no-strings-attached relationship with the truth.

And still, Donald Trump's patently self-serving populism holds sway over a sizeable minority of the electorate. Innumerable Americans evidently believe that if liberals, the courts, and the media would just get out of the way, Trump could ram his anti-science, capitalism-on-crack, fossil fuel-driven agenda down the nation's throat and — wait for it — “make America great again.”

What's odd about such nostalgia is that Trump's supporters and opponents alike understand that the American Dream of job security, an affordable home, reliable healthcare, and a settled retirement has, for many in the US, vanished beyond recall.

Or rather, the dream remains stuck in that unrepeatable postwar era of the late 1940s to early 70s, when massive infrastructure projects, widespread quality public education, a manufacturing base untouched by the destruction unleashed (often by American bombers) on Japan and much of Europe, and other factors helped create the most robust economy — and arguably the most egalitarian society — the developed world had ever seen.

Today, much of the US appears to be shuffling backward into a kind of 21st century serfdom. Consider this: the top 0.1 percent of American families controls roughly the same amount of wealth as the bottom 90 percent. Who knew that the good old days Trump and the corporate lackeys in his inner circle long to return to aren't the 1950s, but the Middle Ages?

Ultimately, Trump's neatest trick has been to convince millions of the forgotten and the aggrieved that he speaks for them, even as he and his minions work to further enrich obscenely wealthy families like his own.

“Who controls the past controls the future,” Orwell wrote, but even flinty-eyed old George might have gaped in astonishment at Trump's ham-fisted liquidation of recent history. In the roughly 8,700 hours — but who's counting? — since Trump was sworn in as America's 45th President, we've witnessed an unprecedented dismantling of his predecessors', and especially Barack Obama's, achievements. Can we really hope to endure 1,000 more days of such reckless spite and sleaze?

Look. It's not you. It's us. We're not perfect. Sure, we take pride in our triumphs through the years — the Marshall Plan; the moon landing; the '63 Chevy Corvette; The Simpsons; Prince — but Trump's ascendancy is another reminder that, as a superpower, America's failures are often as earth-shaking as our successes.

We're sorry about Donald Trump. Eventually, somehow — impeachment, incontrovertible evidence of mental illness (hardly out of the question), or the presidential election in 2020 — he will be ousted from office. Until then, we ask you, our friends and allies, to keep us in your thoughts.

We hope you'll wait for us. We know we can do better. We can make this right. You'll see.

Sincerely,

Most of America

Benedict Cosgrove is a freelance writer in Brooklyn, New York. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, Columbia Journalism Review, the New York Times and other fake news outlets