Solace and reconciliation after the emotional rollercoaster of a Trump presidency

A letter to my Trump supporter friend

Like many liberals, I have experienced a breadth of emotions since the shock of Donald Trump’s ascent to the US presidency four long years ago, all of them on the negative end of the spectrum. First came denial and disbelief. I recall being one of the last folks to leave a bar in NYC’s east village where we’d all piled in to celebrate the election of our country’s first female president, a long overdue milestone. I sat in my perspired-through I’m with Her t-shirt, nursing the remnants of an artisanal beer I no longer wanted, and stared hard at the red CNN map thinking, no, this can’t be happening, there must still be a way. How did this despicable crony capitalist with no political experience win 304 electoral college votes, more than enough for him to overtake Hillary Clinton who — with her vast experience, and not to mention sharp intellect — we assumed was a shoe-in? Who on earth would vote for an unhinged megalomaniac whose widely documented history of sexual misconduct made Bill Cosby seem like a saint? How did an overt bigot and misogynist, who had made a pastime of circulating misinformation and lobbing herculean insults at everyone throughout his campaign, including mocking a disabled reporter, end up the leader of the free world, a role model for our children?

To put it more bluntly, how did this lunatic just end up in the White House?

It was surreal.

It was the darkest of nightmares, except it was our reality.

Sure enough, depression and self-pity followed soon after. Riding the subway to work the next day, tears streamed down my cheeks as I looked at my fellow commuters, mostly black and brown, seeming weighed down by life, all of us feeling like we were sucker punched in the gut.

Then came a cocktail of fury, frustration, anxiety, terror and sheer exhaustion, all of which I have felt on a near daily basis since November 2016. None of these feelings did wonders for my so-called mind / body / spirit, but none of us imagined that Trump would have lasted his entire term. In spite of illegal hush money payments, tax fraud, bank fraud, extortion attempts, high crimes and a myriad of misdemeanors (as well as warranted inquiries around his sanity and mental health), we were not able to get rid of him, even after an impeachment attempt. If the average US citizen had done any one of a dozen things that Trump has done, they’d be in jail by now.

So we all galvanized, we all became activists as much as we could, even as a preventable pandemic swept across our nation, taking lives and overtaking our lives, and we waited, with hope, with anticipation (but also with fear) for a landslide victory for Joe Biden on Tuesday. The polls indicated Biden was overwhelmingly favored to win, but we had been down that road before; we were cautiously optimistic but we also had rocks in our stomach. Trump had done more harm to the country, to our standing in the global order, than we could have ever imagined. We had become the laughing stock of the world. Surely, his supporters would see that, and if they couldn’t or if they didn’t care about that, if they were blinded by his swirl of lies, Trump’s dismissive and botched handling of coronavirus pandemic would be his final straw — viruses don’t discriminate against Republicans or Democrats. Surely enough Trump supporters would have lost loved ones to Covid-19. Couldn’t they see that all of Trump’s ‘super spreader’ events, his carelessness in the name of his own political agenda, meant that contrary to what they had long believed, he really didn’t care about their well-being nor that of their families? Donald Trump only cares about himself, and he was ready to bring the whole country down with him.

Yet when I crept into bed late Tuesday night knowing that millions upon millions of Americans still supported a man who encourages violence and condones white supremacy;

Still supported a man who has — through both actions and words — shown sheer contempt for humankind, in particular people of color, and the environment;

Still supported a man who had finally revealed his totalitarian and dictatorial aspirations in a deranged speech claiming he won the election before millions of ballots had been tallied, stoking distrust in our democracy and our electoral process —

All I could feel was heartbreak.

***

Yesterday, Joe Biden became President-Elect after a tumultuous week during which we were all on edge; I feel waves of elation, joy and relief. Like many people I know, I cried when I saw the CNN projection. Our children will have the future they deserve. I squeezed my baby girl, spun her around in circles and told her she too could be President one day — even if she is a woman, even if she comes from Indian and Persian bloodlines, a possibility that seems unlikely under a Trump-like administration. For months, I had nightmares; another four years of Trump would be like The Handmaid’s Tale — a bleak world in which women become sex slaves and are divested of all their rights.

We won, but we have so much work ahead of us. More than 70 million Americans cast their vote in Trump’s direction, in spite of what he stands for. We are so polarized as a country. And yet I am so tired of feeling angry and frustrated at Trump and his supporters. It’s unconstructive, and it hasn’t helped me. Yes — anger can catalyze; anger can serve a purpose, and I believe it has served us well here, especially when it came to voter turnout. But, like the Buddha said, it can also poison you. I don’t want to poison myself with anger anymore. I want to try a different approach, to reach out to a Trump supporter, and try to show them that maybe, just maybe, we care about the same things in the end. So here is my attempt below. A letter I have written to a friend in my orbit, a mother and neighbor, who supports Trump. We haven’t known each other long and we decided early on that to preserve our friendship in this polarizing climate, we wouldn’t go near the subject of politics.

If this resonates with you, please feel free to use any parts of the letter below and send it to your loved one, who may fall on the other end of the political spectrum from you.

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Dear Alison –

I know I have been out of touch over the last few weeks, and I apologize for that. I’ve been anxious about the election. There was so much at stake, for our children, the country, and the world even. You know what end of the political spectrum I’m on, and I didn’t want to accidentally say something hurtful to you. It’s true I’ve felt quite a bit of anger towards Trump supporters, but I want to move on and do whatever I can do to bring us together. As Biden said so eloquently yesterday, “This is the time to heal in America.”

I know that you must feel disappointed today — I can’t imagine. While I am admittedly relieved at the outcome of the election, I am not writing to gloat — that’s the last thing I want to do. I don’t know the specifics of why you support Trump but I do believe that we are not so different in terms of what we want for our children. All of this goes beyond the label ‘Democrat’ and ‘Republican’ — I don’t care about labels, and I would happily create a new party if it meant we could all make this country a better place, put the past behind us and move towards healing the nation.

First of all, I think we both agree that there should be no place for racism in our country. Yet what the last few years have shown us is that racism is alive and well in America, and Trump has emboldened these racists — to bully, to use the N word. I often wonder how you feel about that — I know you are white but your husband is Latino, an immigrant. Your child is beautiful, with her dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes. I loved when we photographed her at the lake last summer for the modeling portfolio you are creating for her. Yet I don’t understand how you could vote for someone who built a campaign around racist rhetoric and intolerance — his infamous Muslim ban, his failure to condemn white supremacy, the birtherism lies, his disdain towards non-white immigrants. Do you remember when he called undocumented immigrants “animals”? Mexicans rapists? I don’t want our girls to grow up in a country where racism is the norm, and I don’t think you would ever want your daughter to be discriminated against because of her skin color. If you want your daughter, a young woman of color, to be able to thrive in this country, we need leaders who prioritize racial justice, not stoke racism. We can agree on that can’t we?

I remember the day we walked along the river near our homes, how your daughter splashed in the water looking for rocks to skip while my one-year-old watched on in awe from the stroller. You were holding a special camera that you had purchased for your daughter so that she could take portraits of nature, and any wildlife she came across. I know that you, and every mom out there, wants their children to be able to breathe fresh air, to drink potable water, to be able to swim in uncontaminated water. Climate change is very real, and it’s leading to more hurricanes, heatwaves and droughts; it’s worsening air pollution, causing forest fires, and even increasing the number of infectious diseases. It is already affecting the way our children live, especially in poorer countries. We must protect the environment; it’s paramount to our girls living healthy lives. Pulling out of the Paris Agreement was a disastrous move (which will soon be reversed, fortunately). I hope you agree that, for the sake of our children, it’s important for us to choose leaders that take environmental responsibility seriously. You want fresh air and water for your daughter don’t you? We all need to be environmental stewards, and that means choosing leaders who don’t scoff at climate change but address it as the very real threat to our children that it is.

Even if you supported Trump because of tax cuts (and again I don’t know why you support him), is that more important to you then protecting the rights of women? As a mother of a daughter, I am infuriated that Trump was able to pack a Supreme Court with conservative justices who potentially want to roll back women’s rights and overturn Roe V Wade. What would come after that — would we lose the right to vote? It’s a slippery slope. Trump has shown us that he is a misogynist and sexual predator (with dozens of allegations of sexual misconduct including a hush payment made to a porn star), that he sees attractive women as disposable play toys that he can — in his own words — ‘grab by the pussy,’ and smart women who threaten him as ‘nasty women.’ I don’t want our daughters to think it’s okay to be treated that way by men, nor do I want young boys to grow up thinking the way that Trump speaks about women is acceptable. I’ll never ever be able to understand how women can support Trump (is it some sort of internalized misogyny?) but we can agree that women are equal — arguably superior — to men, and that we deserve the same rights, same salaries, can’t we? Don’t you want to help create a country where gender equity is the norm, so that our daughters no longer have glass ceilings? I’m thrilled about Kamala Harris being the new VP-elect, and I hope you understand how important that is for our daughters, to know that the sky’s the limit for them and that they can aspire to the highest offices in the country should they choose to.

I’m not a religious person, and as far as I know, neither are you. In my view, organized religion always has been and remains the greatest enemy of women’s rights. I believe people are entitled to their own religious beliefs but I think it should be left out of political discourse in this country in order for America to become the inclusive country envisioned by its founders, the kind of country we want for our daughters. I don’t know when we will be ready for that, and sadly we have taken several steps backwards under Trump. The separation of church and state — as encapsulated in the First Amendment — has all but collapsed under his reign. This principle is part of our constitution for a reason — so that the government cannot favor, provide funds or give privileges to religious organizations beyond what is available to nonreligious groups in similar circumstances. The irony is that Trump has never read the Bible, he is entirely ignorant of its contents, and yet he has used the Bible as a political weapon for the last several years. Christian evangelicals believe that God chose Trump to fulfill His prophecies, and yet behind their backs, it is widely reported that Trump speaks about these fanatical supporters with cynicism and contempt; he ridicules them, but they are too blinded by faith to see how he is using them. The Bible is loaded with ridiculous assertions that I won’t go into here (all of them serving to preserve the white patriarchy of course, while subjugating women). Can we agree that, for the sake of our daughters’ futures, right-wing religious conservatives should have zero influence over the law, and even though a handful have sadly made it into the Supreme Court, we need to work together to make sure that they never again get the same level of power and influence as they had under Trump and Pence?

Can we talk about guns for a minute? I would be surprised if you didn’t support gun control, but in case one of the reasons you support Trump is because he is pro-gun, pro-violence, we need to talk. Gun-related violence is at an all-time high. I live in fear of the day I have to send my daughter to school in this country — how can I ever be sure that she will be safe? The mass shootings in this country are reprehensible and the lack of prevention equally so. Yes, the right to bear arms is enshrined as a right in the constitution, something I wish we could revoke, but we don’t have the power to do that (I have a no use for a gun, and nor should anyone else in my opinion). We do have the power, however, to demand strict gun control laws. Let’s agree that we want our daughters to be safe when they go to school. That we want to create a society where we don’t live in fear of mass shootings. We are on the same page here, aren’t we?

And finally, can we talk about decency and character? Trump created an era of meanness, of bigotry, of using hate speech and inflammatory language. One of the many reasons you could probably hear the collective sigh of liberals when Biden was announced as the new President-elect yesterday is because we are so damn tired of this culture of hate. We are all humans sharing this planet. We should take care of each other! How does this culture of hate and divisiveness impact our poor children, when the man who holds the most prestigious job in the country behaves in this manner? I am so lucky that my daughter is too young to understand what transpired over the last four years, but I feel for those parents who have had to explain to their children that bullying is wrong, yes even if the POTUS does it all the time; mocking a disabled person or Gold Star family or anyone for that matter is wrong, yes even if the POTUS does it all the time; lying is a wrong, yes even if the POTUS does it all the time. Don’t we both believe in the integrity of truth-telling? Don’t we both want a role model in the highest office in the land, man or woman, who is decent and kind, who our daughters can look up to? Someone who can set an example for them — show them what it’s like to have empathy, to put the needs of people over a personal agenda? Yes, I do think that we agree on this. I really do.

I’m not sorry your guy lost. To the contrary, I think it’s time for a reckoning among Trump supporters — this was a very dark time for our country, for our democracy. I can’t force you to come around to my way of seeing things, but we need to make choices that put our children first. I hope you see why I am anti-Trump, and why I don’t align with the Republican party in general. I will always want strict gun laws (or a full ban), for the sake of our children; I will always support immigration (both my mother and my fiancé are immigrants!); I will always believe we should spend more money on social programs, or on helping the less fortunate or on protecting the environment than on supplying our military with more guns, on waging more wars; and I will always believe in a woman’s right to choose. It’s not because I’m elite; It’s not because I am a socialist. I’m just a mom with a little girl who wants the absolute best future for her.

We can agree on that, can’t we?

Yours truly,

Natasha