Acknowledgement I live, research and write on Quandamooka Country, amid Indigenous lands, waters, winds and ancient living cultures.

I pay my respects to Elders past and present, and to the continuing custodianship of Quandamooka people. Sovereignty never ceded

Philippe Foubert Writer · Researcher · Ethicist
New essayLetter to America, No. 2: killed, jailed, and disappeared, the human record of US immigration enforcement Read → New essayMegan Davis’s 2026 Mokak Oration: a rapid response Read →
The crowded east portico of the Capitol on 4 March 1865, with Abraham Lincoln standing at a small table reading his second inaugural address, a flag draped from the balcony above
Washington, 4 March 1865. Abraham Lincoln reads his second inaugural address at the Capitol. Photograph by Alexander Gardner. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ds-18561. Public domain. Cropped.
Letter to America: an American writing home from Australia
The series

Letters to America

I am an American who lives in Australia, writing home. Each letter answers something said or done in America that the republic cannot afford to let pass. They are judgements, not forecasts.

Every letter is dated, rests on primary records wherever they exist, ends with what you can do next, and is published as a PDF edition for printing and passing on.

The title echoes Alistair Cooke’s Letter from America, the fifteen-minute talk he gave on the BBC every week from 24 March 1946 to 20 February 2004, 2,869 times in all. Cooke, an Englishman who became an American, explained America to Britain. An American writes these letters to America.

The letters

Letter to America, No. 1 · 21 October 2026An Election Is a Promise to Accept Defeat. Trump Refuses to Make It.

In August 1864 Abraham Lincoln had his cabinet sign, unread, his promise to hand over power if he lost. In February 2026 Donald Trump, asked whether he would trust the midterm result if his party lost, answered: “I will if the elections are honest.” In September 2026 he had a convention crowd raise their right hands and pledge to “cheat like hell.”

Read the letter

Letter to America, No. 2 · 22 October 2026Killed, Jailed, and Disappeared: The Human Record of US Immigration Enforcement

Since January 2025 at least sixty people have died in ICE custody, a record thirty-seven in the last fiscal year. Federal agents have shot dead American citizens on American streets, and no agent has been charged with any of those killings. County medical examiners, federal inspectors and federal judges, Trump’s own appointees among them, have recorded the punishment the law forbids.

Read the letter

Next. Letter to America, No. 3 follows the midterm elections of 3 November 2026.

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