Even though Parks and Recreation is no longer on the air, Leslie Knope came out of the woodwork to share a letter to America following the election.
After a brief recap of how she spent election night (crying, being comforted by Ann, and buying out a store's entire hot chocolate supply), she shares an anecdote from her childhood:
When I was in fourth grade, my teacher Mrs. Kolphner taught us a social studies lesson. The 17 students in our class were introduced to two fictional candidates: a smart if slightly bookish-looking cartoon tortoise named Greenie, and a cool-looking jaguar named Speedy. Rick Dissellio read a speech from Speedy, in which he promised that, if elected, he would end school early, have extra recess, and provide endless lunches of chocolate pizzandy (a local Pawnee delicacy at the time: deep fried pizza where the crust was candy bars). Then I read a speech from Greenie, who promised to go slow and steady, think about the problems of our school, and try her best to solve them in a way that would benefit the most people. Then Mrs. Kolphner had us vote on who should be class president.
I think you know where this is going.
Except you don’t, because before we voted, Greg Laresque asked if he could nominate a third candidate, and Mrs. Kolphner said “Sure! The essence of democracy is that everyone—” and Greg cut her off and said, “I nominate a T. rex named Dr. Farts who wears sunglasses and plays the saxophone, and his plan is to fart as much as possible and eat all the teachers,” and everyone laughed, and before Mrs. Kolphner could blink, Dr. Farts the T. rex had been elected president of Pawnee Elementary School in a 1984 Reagan-esque landslide, with my one vote for Greenie the Tortoise playing the role of “Minnesota.”
Knope says she was "inconsolable," and her teacher asked her what upset her the most.
“Greenie was the better candidate,” I said. “Greenie should have won.”
She nodded.
“I suppose that was the point of the lesson,” I said.
“Oh, no,” she said. “The point of the lesson is: People are unpredictable, and democracy is insane.”
"No, I do not accept it," Knope says, of Trump's victory:
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.
The letter closes with a message to young girls.
It says:
On behalf of the grown-ups of America who care about you and your futures, I am awfully sorry about how miserably we screwed this up. We elected a giant farting T. rex who does not like you, or care about you, or think about you, unless he is scanning your bodies with his creepy T. rex eyes or trying to physically grab you like a toy his daddy got him (or would have, if his daddy had loved him). (Sorry, that was a low blow.) (Actually, not sorry, I’m pissed, and I’m on a roll, so zip it, superego!)
"He is the present, sadly, but he is not the future," she says. "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.
