Dear Trump-supporting friends, we love you and forgive you. Now apologize.

An open letter to my friends and relatives who voted for Donald Trump and supported his leadership these four years. I hold you responsible for the picture below.

My parents, whose lives were decimated by Adolph Hitler, believed that the United States was a beacon of democracy and liberty, and were grateful to live there. But we all grew up hearing the warning, “it can happen here too”. We thought they were paranoid.

I have tried to keep the peace between us these last four years by avoiding direct confrontations on our different political opinions. But now, it is time for you to come forward and say you were mistaken. It’s fine to be Republican and have different ideas than Democrats about the way America should be run. This is and never was about being Republican. It was about voting for and then supporting a mentally ill, narcissistic, unhinged, dangerous serial liar who was above all law and pissed on our precious democracy, dragging the entire country into the gutter where he lives. This is about the man who brought the great US of A to her knees last night. I am still shaking from the footage.

OK, so you made a mistake and were taken in by him. You thought his “kindness” to Israel was genuine, instead of a series of trading favors for his own personal gain. (Haven’t you learned yet that people like that are never for real? They will always sell you down the river when it’s good for them…) It’s ok to be wrong. But be a mensch and an adult now, and stand up and say you were wrong.

We, your Democratic friends and relatives will forgive you, because we love you and don’t want politics to come between us. But we can’t just go forward like nothing has happened. AND NEITHER SHOULD YOU. You need to say to us that we were right all along, and thank us for trying with all our might to protect the precious balance that has made America a model of liberty and justice for all (albeit with flaws) for almost 250 years. Yesterday was a giant earthquake for democracy, which is a very delicate thing. There is a new fault line in the topography.

Please, help us all to heal and move forward. With love, your Democratic friends and family.