This election has made a lot of people upset including at least one beloved fictional character. Leslie Knope (who was played by Amy Poehler) from Parks and Recreation wrote a letter to America on Thursday about how she is coping since the electoral college gave reality star Donald Trump the votes he needed to become president-elect of the United States of America. It’s a very funny letter that was written by one of the show’s writers on behalf of the Pawnee, Indiana politician and posted originally to Yahoo. Although meant to be from a fictional character, there are certainly many people in America that are going through the same emotions as Knope.
“Dear America,” Knope begins. “Amidst the confusion, and despair, and disbelief, it was suggested to me by a very close friend of mine (I won’t say her name, to protect her identity) (Ann. It was Ann) that perhaps a few people would enjoy hearing my thoughts on this election. So I sat down at my computer, cleared my head, and opened a document. Then I started crying. So I had some hot chocolate, and my close friend (Ann) rubbed my back for a while, and I got myself together and sat down. And started crying.”
She then explains in simple terms the way the system worked in favor of Trump using an imaginary middle school election she experienced as an example before quoting Winston Churchill. Next, she shared one of the most important parts of the story:
“I acknowledge that Donald Trump is the President. I understand, intellectually, that he won the election. But I do not accept that our country has descended into the hatred-swirled slop pile that he lives in. I reject out of hand the notion that we have thrown up our hands and succumbed to racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and crypto-fascism. I do not accept that. I reject that. I fight that. Today, and tomorrow, and every day until the next election, I reject and fight that story.”
She wraps up the letter with a special message for young girls in the United States who are probably witnessing varied versions of the above in their own homes.
“Our President-Elect is everything you should abhor, and fear, in a male role model. He has spent his life telling you, and girls and women like you, that your lives are valueless except as sexual objects. He has demeaned you, and belittled you, and put you in a little box to be looked at and not heard. It is your job, and the job of girls and women like you, to bust out. You are going to run this country, and this world, very soon. So you will not listen to this man, or the 75-year-old, doughy-faced, gray-haired nightmare men like him, when they try to tell you where to stand or how to behave or what you can and cannot do with your own bodies, or what you should or should not think with your own minds.”
Adding, “He is the present, sadly, but he is not the future. You are the future. Your strength is a million times his. Your power is a billion times his. We will acknowledge this result, but we will not accept it. We will overcome it, and we will defeat it.”
Idiot