My dear American friends,

I’m really sorry, deeply and truly sorry to see in my lifetime something I thought wouldn’t come to be in all eternity, this clownish, frightening turn your country has taken, as if its worst parts were all that remains, the ones we haughty and ignorant Europeans poked fun about for ages, making disparaging comments I always fought by pointing “but Steinbeck”, “but Baldwin”, “but New York”, “but Coltrane”, “but Ella”, “but Lynch”, “but Auster”. All of them are dead and surely some are not, Kendrick is not, I know, I know, there are still amazing people and amazing art and amazing culture among you, I know, I know, but it’s now so hard and sad and depressing to even look your way, that I’m afraid I won’t, ever again. Maybe I’ll read some of you, surely I’ll listen to Kendrick for some time and of course I’ll translate, though these I will not choose. But looking at you all, at you as a whole, up to you, hell no, sorry no, never again. The USA were an idea, now the idea is dead and it rots, and it reeks. It’s making me sick.

The worst part is, even if there always were good reasons to find bombastic and preposterous your claiming to be the pinnacle of liberty, the shining city on a hill, the industrious flagship of the civilized world, the democratic lighthouse on a never-ending sea of Tyranny, some part of me believed in that. There was a twinkle of truth in your so-called exceptionalism. I did find you free of body and spirit and I did find you shiny and industrious and bright. I did find you inspiring. You were the cultural empire of my time. How the mighty have fallen.

How come? How could you? How could you give your beautiful country, this immense land, the modern Roma, this mediterranean sea sandwiched between oceans, how could you give all that to the worst, the vile, the vengeful, the clown? What kind of self-inflicted wound is that? Were you tired to be part, que dis-je, part, leader of the free world? Were you tired of the rule of law, the separation of powers, the habeas corpus, all these old gifts we old farts from old lands gave you two mere centuries ago, give or take a half? Were you tired to be one people under god, tired to be united? You’re not even aspiring to be states anymore! Even this ancient defiance about federal meddling and Jacobinism is gone! What are you now, French? You’ve asked a mad, spiteful old man to take the reins and drive you where it pleases him. For god sake, the last time we did that, the guy was supposed to be a war hero. You’re going with the felon who already tried to overthrow your constitution once. Even that, your oh so important and perfect yet amendable constitution. it’s gone.

Look at you, god damn, you hate yourselves. How are we supposed to love you now, if you hate yourselves?

Oh, I know, believe me I know, we’re not better. I never thought we were. I thought you were. We’re old and tired, we’re jealous and small. That’s why you left. And you were right to leave. But now you’re back. Reading the news, one might think you’re Hungary or Bielorussia, or France for that matter, giving a couple of years. I mean, the guy pokes fun of the weak. He loathes free women. He doesn’t even honor your dead. He’s in for himself and everybody knows it, but you gave him the crown anyway, to own the ones you hate. Now he will rip you off and destroy everything and there will be no healing from that. You need to hear it from the people who’ve already gone through this. There is no going back. Once you leave the hill, you’re in the ditch. For good. For bad.

Now the only reason we have to look your way is to see what kind of sinister fuckery you’re ready to inflict next upon everybody. Breaking ages old alliances, going to war on a whim, put people in concentration camps with cheers, abolish civil rights, you name it, you said it all, you’re ready for all. Not all of us, you might say. I know, I know. A majority, though. Yet maybe the minority would like our help? Thing is, we can’t. There is nothing we can do. Nothing. It’s watch-only, on this side of the pond. And it’s too ugly to watch, I’m sorry. I really am. What good would come of my watching it? If you’re ready to blow the world up, I might as well not know, I might as well ignore it while it lasts.

If I’m wrong, pray tell me. I would love to be wrong. I would love to love you again. Until then,

Goodbye.