Our New Cold War: We May Need to Cut Ties With Trump Supporters

Photo by Mantas Hesthaven on Unsplash

I really hate this.

I mean, I really didn’t want to be here, to be feeling this, to be writing it, to be saying it.

I’ve always believed in meeting people where they are, in trying to understand those who don’t agree with me. As a pastor for decades, I worked to bridge the divides between people, to champion diversity as our highest calling. My first book called A Bigger Table, was centered around respecting each person’s story and making room in life-giving community, so that each human being was seen and heard and respected.

Then he began his first presidential campaign.

Since them, I've devoted nearly a decade of my life trying to convince people who I thought were decent, rational, and loving, not to be deceived by his phony religious pandering or his transparent fake patriotism; to avoid being tricked by the bigotry and fear he trafficked in. I worked tirelessly to let them know that I was for them, that I opposed him because I cared for their safety and well-being more than he ever could.

I realize that in many ways I failed to read the room, even if it was a room I’d spent my entire life in.

I’ve finally had to admit that many of these people were not all that decent, rational, or loving after all; that his his cruelty, his violence, his hatred were what they wanted.
It wasn’t about them not understanding him, but about me not understanding them. They weren’t manipulated by him, they were empowered by him.
In so many cases, he didn’t poison their hearts, he reflected them.
They didn’t get fooled by a bigot, they got freed by one.

Honestly, that all feels impossible to process. I have a feeling you understand. Tens of millions of us are sitting with these heartbreaking truths right now.

And as we watch every conceivable assault on our systems of finance, education, personal liberty, national security, and human rights being laid to waste in Hell: The Sequel—we need to talk about cutting the tethers to his supporters for good.

It’s only consistent.

We’re boycotting companies who align with and fund him, refusing to patronize local businesses that contribute to his predatory Administration, turning-off news channels that have bent the knee and kissed the ring long before election, unfollowing people on social media who’ve become his nonstop surrogates.

And yet, these things are rather benign in what they require of us, relatively minor in the sacrifice we make for such stands.

In this true Constitutional and existential emergency, I’m afraid we’re gonna have to dig deeper than that.

It’s time for people of faith, morality, and conscience to hold the people in our lives accountable for their willing partnership with this filth.

We may need to finally sever ties with our family members, friends, neighbors, and co-workers who still champion him.

If they're going to continue their unwavering allegiance to him as he openly tears apart the very foundation of our democracy, sabotages our economy, preys upon vulnerable people, and alienates us from our long-faithful global allies—at some point we’re obligated to declare unequivocally that this isn’t something we’re willing to compromise about.

At what point does our silence, our tentative peace, and our relational head-turning constitute complicity with the historic barbarism this President is unleashing on this entire planet?

Now, you may have largely disconnected from people over these things long ago, or yourself been excluded by them when they declared your love for diverse humanity, confirmation of your Stage Four wokeness. But there are tens of millions of us who have danced around difficult conversations, endured awkward holiday gatherings, and held our tongues in order to avoid conflict with people who we’ve still ultimately let off the hook by our presence.

Pardon my language, but the time for that shit has long passed.

The harassed, vulnerable, terrorized human beings in this world who deserve willing, visible, and vocal advocates, need to matter as much to us as the perpetually cruel, intentionally ignorant, hopelessly malicious people whose hands we’ve held for ten years, trying to persuade them to be decent humans and to actually care about other people.

Tolerance to a degree is a noble pursuit, one that people on the Center and on Left have always practiced, which sadly, is part of the reason we’re here.

For a painful, frustrating, joy-sapping decade now, many of us relentlessly believed in people’s ability to come to their senses, to have their humanity appealed to, to reject this man’s brutality—if we could only find the right words, if we could just help them see clearly. We believed that given time, their goodness would eventually kick in.

It breaks my heart to say it, but that ship is long gone and it’s filled with years of our lives we’ll never get back.

It turns out, all these efforts at understanding were wasted. I’m not saying they weren’t the right thing, but they led us to where we are now.

And as we stare into the abyss, we’re past the point of healthy compromise or a simple agreement to disagree on debatable topics.

These moments are about things that are not up for discussion:
the inherent worth of every human being,
the beauty found in real diversity,
the dignity each person merits,
the right for people to define themselves as they choose, to love the person they love, to not need to apologize for their sexuality or their pigmentation, or their place of birth.

On fundamental issues that define us, his supporters, by virtue of their decade-long, undying, almost gleeful allegiance are morally incompatible with us and it’s OK to admit that.

The path forward for this nation won’t be about everyone coming together, and it doesn’t need to be. It will be about those of us who will not abide this brutality, standing together against those who are celebrating it.

You may choose, as a matter of faith or moral conviction to keep trying to preserve your relationships with people you know and love who still support him, and I respect that.

But maybe, just maybe, our faith and morality need to show up now, in spines and strength and in voices that finally say: enough.

Where are you in all of this? Let me know in the comments.