Two Letters for Two Presidents

Topic: Perspective

January 20, 2025

Alexandria, Virginia

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Dear President Biden,

In mere hours, your administration and its actions will be relegated to the pages of history. For a few decades, if even that long, academicians may be able to prop it up so it doesn’t fall to the level of those belonging to Martin Van Buren or Jimmy Carter, but time and the public sentiment will prove an accurate arbiter of what has happened these past four years.

Instead of making an effort to augment the so-called “peaceful transition of power” you’ve boasted about for these past 48 months, our countrymen are coming awake on Inauguration Day to learn of preemptive pardons for those who purposely misled a nation over COVID-19 and its origins, failed to maintain military readiness, handled the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, and operated a biased committee that existed solely to deprive American citizens of their Constitutional rights to due process and fair and speedy trials over offenses that would mostly be classified as “minor,” if indeed these citizens were convicted at all.

COVID-19 created generational damage, shuttered businesses forever, stunted the social development of our children, and inspired a spirit of fear in the unduly large portion of our population that looks to government for guidance rather than God, wise friends, and common sense. Indeed, the actions taken after COVID-19 set the very conditions for you to become President in the first place, and even before taking office four long years ago, you had the opportunity to entertain the challenges of those who doubted your very legitimacy, and still doubt it to this day, and solidify your supposed mandate of over 81 million votes that is so unbelievably high it may stand as a record for another decade, if not longer.

Americans never received closure for an election that unfolded unlike any other in their lifetimes, or in the lifetimes of their parents and several generations of grandparents. They did, however, receive a deprivation of justice for those rounded up by our own government over mostly misdemeanors, and watched their hard-earned dollars be bundled up to sustain wars all over the world while our own southern border raged out of control and threatened not only the public safety, but the very survival of what is supposed to be a sovereign nation. North Carolinians drowned in floodwaters while your diplomats jetted across the world to help sustain other nations and enrich themselves while keeping your “business” associates happy.

You flooded our military ranks and judiciary with those not qualified to lead dogs to meat wagons, but who were selected for outward characteristics that run counter to everything Martin Luther King, Jr., had to say about the value of people. Americans will always be left in doubt over the outcome of the 2020 election, but ultimately you received the certified vote of Congress on that dreadful day, January 6, 2021. You owed it to the American public to lead and not dither, upholding the Constitution and rule of law without turning government into a spoils system and putting it up for sale to the highest bidder who would pay proper homage to “the big guy.” This is America, Mr. Biden. We are not supposed to live in fear of the government and its vast sea of agencies, yet they were weaponized yet again to quell dissent and make people too afraid to use their voices.

The past four years and this new beginning remind me of the words found in Proverbs 28:28 – “When the wicked take charge, people go into hiding. When the wicked meet disaster, the godly flourish.”

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Dear President Trump,

In mere hours, your administration and its actions will again appear and populate the pages of what will eventually be known as “history.” Those who have followed you closely for many years have a supernatural feeling that you’ve been preserved, literally kept alive, for achieving something so momentous in the scope of Western civilization itself that it can barely be conceived of in the wildest imagination.

You’ve faced the worst the world has to offer and given the opportunity to slink away to comfortable retirement years, came back for more. God has placed before you an open door that no man can shut despite all their efforts and works of darkness concentrated on the single purpose of tearing you down. Most of your supportive countrymen admire your resilience above all other things, including your ideology, charisma, and past successes. I have no doubt you will draw upon your escapes from the enemy as the coming years take their toll upon you and your sense of peace and well-being.

I am not in position to give you advice, but rather, encouragement. I have learned that it is impossible to please everyone even with the sincerest effort. Despite the great things you will do, armchair quarterbacks will express disdain the loudest, though they accomplish nothing and could themselves never relate to being the “man in the arena.” Tough times are ahead for all of us as we give our best to redeem this country that now hangs in the balance, but tough times don’t last – tough people do.

One of my favorite quotes of yours is:

“The more people tell you it’s not possible, that it can’t be done, the more you should be absolutely determined to prove them wrong. Treat the word “impossible” as nothing more than motivation.”

My father, who faithfully served this nation for nearly three decades in uniform, was fond of saying “Your attitude determines your altitude,” and “90% of people are just along for the ride, and 10% lead the way.” If he were alive to have seen you become leader of the free world, you’d have been his favorite, because he understood human nature and could discern real from fake better than anyone I’ve ever known, and has been subsequently proven right about nearly everything he predicted when he was still here.

The world is bound by serfdom because taking the easy road and turning blind eyes to injustice are far easier than choosing hard rights over easy wrongs. Freedom is rare because of the cost associated with taking it and then preserving it from those who seek to destroy it. The eyes of the freedom-loving world are upon you and we beseech God to grant you wisdom, protection, health, and a heart of justice in this valiant effort to preserve what Reagan called the “last best hope of man on earth.”

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Seth Keshel, MBA, is a former Army Captain of Military Intelligence and Afghanistan veteran. His analytical method of election forecasting and analytics is known worldwide, and he has been commended by President Donald J. Trump for his work in the field.