In the wake of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, many parents are finding it difficult to talk to their children about Donald Trump‘s victory over Hillary Clinton.
That doesn’t appear to be a problem for Oscar-winning writer Aaron Sorkin, the wordsmith of TV series The West Wing and The Newsroom. While Sorkin is obviously distraught about Trump’s win, he used his writing ability to pen a lengthy letter in Vanity Fair to his 15-year-old daughter Roxy and her mother, Julia Sorkin.
He calls president-elect Trump “a thoroughly incompetent pig with dangerous ideas, a serious psychiatric disorder, no knowledge of the world and no curiosity to learn” in the letter to the women in his life.
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He acknowledges that the Nov. 8 election results are “truly horrible,” and encourages his “Sorkin girls” to “fight injustice” whenever they encounter it; he laments Trump’s supporters — especially men — and their celebration over the election results.
After venting much anger about the current situation in the U.S. (as he perceives it), he then hashes out a way to move forward as an American citizen.
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“First of all, we remember that we’re not alone,” he writes. “A hundred million people in America and a billion more around the world feel exactly the same way we do. Second, we get out of bed. The Trumpsters want to see people like us (Jewish, ‘coastal elites,’ educated, socially progressive, Hollywood…) sobbing and wailing and talking about moving to Canada. I won’t give them that and neither will you. Here’s what we’ll do… we’ll f**king fight. (Roxy, there’s a time for this kind of language and it’s now.) We’re not powerless and we’re not voiceless.”
“Our family is fairly insulated from the effects of a Trump presidency so we fight for the families that aren’t,” he continued. “We fight for a woman to keep her right to choose. We fight for the first amendment and we fight mostly for equality — not for a guarantee of equal outcomes but for equal opportunities. We stand up.”
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He consoles his daughter further by saying he can’t see Trump lasting a year without committing an “impeachable crime.”
“The battle isn’t over, it’s just begun,” he writes. “Grandpa fought in World War II and when he came home this country handed him an opportunity to make a great life for his family. I will not hand his granddaughter a country shaped by hateful and stupid men. Your tears last night woke me up, and I’ll never go to sleep on you again.”
The West Wing star Martin Sheen echoes his former writer’s sentiment. In an exclusive interview with Global News last month, Sheen called Trump a “fascist” and a “self-serving, arrogant, stupid lunatic.”
“‘Don Trump,’ as I call him, he is a very clear reality to the old adage: Arrogance is ignorance matured,” he said. “It’s troubling that half my fellow citizens think he’s the best, that he has leadership qualities. This self-serving, arrogant, stupid lunatic. He thinks he’s charming.”
You can read Sorkin’s letter in its entirety over at Vanity Fair.
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