Joy? No Joy. Only Grief.
On January 6, Public Callouts, and the (Hopeful) End of the Trump Era
I originally planned on writing a different essay this week, but the events that took place on Wednesday caused me to set that piece aside.
To former friends who are still proudly in the camp of Trump supporters and old acquaintances I haven’t talked to in months or years, I hope this essay speaks something to you.
“Listen. We are adults. Let’s agree to disagree. I don’t understand how this brings you joy. Just know I’m praying for you and love you regardless of what you say about me and my family. Hope you are well. Take care.”
These are the words you sent me this morning in response to something I said publicly on social media about your beliefs. Beliefs which you shared openly, in the form of conspiracy theories, in a public venue. They could’ve come across my feed innocently, shared by someone else, although I’ll admit I sought them out.
I was in the midst of an absurd, perhaps perverse curiosity about how you might spin this. What your thoughts might be. How you would rationalize it.
We’ve disagreed on matters of political substance for years, but this is more than that.
The behavior of the rioters who stormed the United States Capitol building on Wednesday is abhorrent, and the religious fervor with which they did so is equally horrifying.
The beliefs espoused by these people—and, indirectly, yourself through their enthusiastic amplification in your newsfeed—is untenable.
On a surface level, these are the facts: We had an election. Your candidate lost the election. A new government takes office on January 20. Things should, at least in theory, improve for people who share my policy positions.
But that’s not the substance of the argument, and it hasn’t been for some time.
I have seen you share conspiracies about so many dreadful things this year that what was once mild annoyance and bemused disdain has turned into pity, fear, and horror.
You are not dumb, despite what I’ve said in the past in an attempt to build myself up by virtue of comparison. There are things that you can do that I can’t; things that you know that I don’t. If there is a God, we can assume—no, trust—that He’s molded you to some purpose and with innate talent for something. That’s partially why I am so confused at your embrace of not just lies, but dangerous ones.
That’s why witnessing your devotion to Trump—even in the midst of a global pandemic where his mismanagement has cost hundreds of thousands of lives—is so disheartening. Notwithstanding the fact that Trump refuses to concede and has ginned up his followers into a violent frenzy, there is a sort of alien religious fervor to support of him that I can’t comprehend. When the election season ends, people usually put away their yard signs! They take down their election stuff! But not Trump supporters. They leave their flags and signs up all year long. I don’t understand!
I do not like the anxiety I’ve lived under in the past five years. I don’t care for the feeling of seeing the rights of people I love be stripped away in the name of “religious liberty.” I don’t like the constant state of anxiety I live in, wondering if this trip to the grocery store is the one where I’ll somehow catch COVID-19 and bring it home because we’ve turned interpersonal care for one another and responsibility for the societal good into a matter of personal liberty.
My LGBTQ friends and family were right to weep when Trump won the election. My cisgender female friends—not to mention my own wife— who were worried about bodily autonomy knew what would come, in the form of ideologue Supreme Court and Federal judges who would strike down abortion and reproductive rights. We foresaw that police officers would be able to shoot brown and black men and women with impunity and get away with it because no one would stand up and protect them, or that mass shootings would continue without consequence.
That doesn’t even begin to cover the Nazi symbols and white nationalist elements of Wednesday’s events (and, if we’re being honest, the constant thrumming vibrations of anti-semitism that have been openly coalescing since Trump’s election).
I was personally vindicated in my fear when Republicans attempted to tear down the framework of the ACA, the law that keeps insurance companies from leaving sick people to die. From denying coverage to people (like me, you, and everyone else who’s ever been sick) with pre-existing conditions.
Sitting at my daughter’s bedside as she fought for her life and struggled for every breath, I sent out tweet after tweet and Facebook post after Facebook post urging people to defend the law that would keep insurance companies from forcing us into bankruptcy if she ever made it out of the hospital alive.
Everything that we told you would come to pass with Trump’s election has come true, and worse than we had expected.
Wednesday was just the culmination of those fears.
You ask me if this gives me joy.
I don’t feel joy right now. I feel an overwhelming sense of grief. A kind of Biblical, garment-rending and heartbreaking sadness that washes over me from time to time.
See, the Trump era hasn’t just thrown a bomb into familial relationships. There are people I haven’t spoken to in years—people I at one time counted among my closest friends and confidants—and our relationships have been shattered by what has taken place in the intervening years. People I used to talk to daily, I sometimes don’t even think about anymore, because it’s harmful or hurtful.
That’s what I’m grieving: the fear and the loneliness that stems from realizing I don’t know or understand the place I came from anymore.
I don’t know if there’s a way to fix this. I don’t know how to make good or repair relationships that have been damaged by fundamental disagreements over issues of morality. Because we can’t just agree to disagree in this case. As far as I can tell, we have totally separate and distinct value systems based in treating people with kindness, decency, and respect.
You don’t have to respond to this. In fact, I’d almost prefer you didn’t. Let it sit for a second. Really think about why people have such a visceral reaction to the things that your president did and does and encouraged on Wednesday. Don’t chalk it up to sin or ungodliness or whatever you want to call it. Try to understand why people are and continue to be afraid of what he and his supporters have done.
Once you’re willing to do that—to inspect and interrogate the violence of your actions (and inaction), your emotions, and even your faith—then we can start to have an honest conversation.
Required Reading
There’s a lot of reading you could do about what happened on Wednesday (among other things), but these are some of the standout pieces I’ve worked through this week:
This piece, penned by Representative Jamie Raskin and his wife, Sarah Bloom Raskin, is a beautiful and moving portrait of their son Tommy, who died by suicide last week. There’s another interview with Raskin about what happened Wednesday in The Atlantic.
Dave Weigel is one of my favorite political writers, and he’s been particularly vocal about what happened on Wednesday. This edition of his regular column, The Trailer, details what he saw and heard as the riots began to brew that morning and spilled into the Capitol building.
This article from the New York Times details the experiences of three Times journalists on Wednesday. For anyone who thinks it’s a hoax or some kind of Deep State cover-up, this is definite required reading. These people were in danger.
Ella Dawson is one of my favorite writers when it comes to understanding social media and its impact. Whip-smart and always with her finger on the pulse, Ella writes in this piece that our obsession with productivity—even in the midst of an unprecedented, horrifying attempted coup—should be cast aside.
Anne Helen Petersen is fast becoming one of my favorite writers (I’ve linked to her work here before), and in her latest edition of Culture Study she too tackles the expectations of working through harrowing events.
Final Thoughts
My first workweek of 2021 is over and I have gotten just a fraction of what needed to be completed done. To be frank, I wrote this on my lunch break because I wanted to get something out to stay on some sort of publishing schedule. Next week—no earth-shattering horror permitting—I’ll be introducing the Retail Therapy series of essays.