Parks and Recreation is a show not many knew what to make of at first. In its first season, it seemed like something of a ripoff of The Office. And why wouldn’t it? It was co-created by Greg Daniels, one of the men behind the American version of The Office, and even one of Parks and Recreation’s leads, Rashida Jones, had a sizable role in The Office for a bit. The sense of humor was similarly awkward, and Leslie Knope felt like a carbon copy of Michael Scott — an insecure, people-pleasing, oblivious middle manager.

That started to change in Season 2, most notably in its last few episodes wherein characters Ben Wyatt and Chris Traeger were introduced to the cast. Along with this injection of new blood came the departure of Mark Brendanawikz — a character who felt like the proverbial appendix of the show in that he was important at one time, but as the show found its identity, it became all to clear taht he had no part in its future.

From there, the show went full-tilt into good-humored fun. Leslie Knope transformed from a Michael Scott clone into a smart, hard-working, civil servant destined for greatness. In many ways she and her co-workers were the voice of common sense in a ridiculous and stupid city. The show ended on a solid final note, covering decades of material in the span of a single season. In short. There was no more story to tell, and the characters were laid to rest.

But, of course, in the wake of the 2016 election, there are many who feel helpless and scared, and taking advantage of this opportunity, a Parks and Recreation writer took to the internet, writing in the voice of good ol’ Leslie Knope to ease any concerns some may have regarding the election outcome. Of course, given that it’s in the voice of Leslie Knope, expect it to be over-long, overthought, and full of tangents and an abundance of optimism.

Check out the letter below (via Yahoo! News):

“When I was in fourth grade, my teacher Mrs. Kolphner taught us a social studies lesson. The seventeen 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.’”

“After class I was inconsolable. Once all the other kids left, Mrs. Kolphner came over and put her arm around me. She told me I had done a great job advocating for Greenie the Tortoise. Through tears I remember saying, “How good, exactly?” and she said “Very very good,” and I said, “Good enough to—?” and she sighed and went to her desk to get one of the silver stars she gave out to kids who did a good job on something, and as I tearfully added it to my Silver Star Diary she asked me what upset me 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.’”

“Winston Churchill once said, ‘Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried.’ That is perhaps a pithier and better way to get my point across, than that long anecdote about Mrs. Kolphner. Should I just erase all of that and start with this? Whatever. I’m pot-committed now, and is there extra caffeine in that hot chocolate? Because my head feels like a spaceship. The point is: people making their own decisions is, on balance, better than an autocrat making decisions for them. It’s just that sometimes those decisions are bad, or self-defeating, or maddening, and a day where you get dressed up in your best victory pantsuit and spend an ungodly amount of money decorating your house with American flags and custom-made cardboard-cutouts of suffragettes in anticipation of a glass-ceiling-shattering historical milestone ends with you getting (metaphorically) eaten by a giant farting T. rex.

“Like most people, I deal with tragedy by processing the five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. My denial over the election results was intense. My anger was (in Ron’s words) “significant.” My bargaining was short, but creative — I offered my soul and the souls of all of my friends in exchange for 60,000 more votes in Milwaukee, to any demon who cared to accept. (Tom told me it was a terrible deal, but I didn’t care, in that moment.) My depression I have already mentioned. Which brings us to Acceptance.  And here’s what I stand on that:

“No. I do not accept it.

“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. I work hard and I form ideas and I meet and talk to other people who feel like me, and we sit down and drink hot chocolate (I have plenty) and we plan. We plan like mofos. We figure out how to fight back, and do good in this infuriating world that constantly wants to bend toward the bad. And we will be kind to each other, and supportive of each other’s ideas, and we will do literally anything but accept this as our fate.

“And let me say something to the young girls who are reading this. Hi, girls. 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, super-ego!) Our President-Elect is everything you should abhor, and fear, in a male role model. He has spent his life telling you, and girls and women like you, that your lives are valueless except as sexual objects. He has demeaned you, and belittled you, and put you in a little box to be looked at and not heard. It is your job, and the job of girls and women like you, to bust out.

“You are going to run this country, and this world, very soon. So you will not listen to this man, or the 75-year-old, doughy-faced, gray-haired nightmare men like him, when they try to tell you where to stand or how to behave or what you can and cannot do with your own bodies, or what you should or should not think with your own minds. You will not be cowed or discouraged by his stream of retrogressive babble. You won’t have time to be cowed, because you will be too busy working and learning and communing with other girls and women like you, and when the time comes you will effortlessly flick away his miserable, petty misogynistic worldview like a fly on your picnic potato salad.

“He is the present, sadly, but he is not the future. 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.

“Now find your team, and get to work.

“Love,

“Leslie”

There you have it, a letter from a woman who will someday be president of the United States. To those of you troubled by the outcome of the election, hopefully you can find some form of comfort in these words, and the people around you.

But most importantly, if you’ve somehow not seen Parks and Recreation, remedy this now and watch the whole series on Netflix. As stated above, it takes a couple seasons to take off, but once it does, man does it soar.

What did you think of the letter? Let us know your thoughts down below!

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SOURCE: Yahoo! News (via Screen Rant)