I’m sure many of you have been experiencing similar feelings and emotions that I’ve been feeling through during these dark times of Trumpism and MAGA. The most difficult feelings for me are ones of betrayal, not as much towards myself as an individual but against fellow neighbors, communities, and humanity itself. People who I once thought were decent people or at least semi-decent people have either changed, or they were always this hateful and bigoted. I never thought they would celebrate the deaths of innocent people simply for being minorities or stay silent during school shootings yet scold those who didn’t grieve Charlie Kirk’s death the way they demanded.
Losing people I’ve known and loved over a lifetime to Trump and MAGA, both inside and outside former religious spaces, has been the greatest loss I have experienced. This somehow helps me connect to the people who resisted Hitler and Nazism in the 1930s. If losing friends and family to MAGA is the greatest loss I’ve ever experienced, I need to be grateful for what I have now. So many have lost so much more during these difficult times.
Thankfully, I’ve retained a small number of old family and friends, and I have gained new friends and chosen family during the Trump era which together make the best family and friends I’ve ever had. I’m most thankful for the retention and renewed strength of my nuclear family consisting of my adult children and husband. I believe we are closer than ever, but this could have easily gone south. If my husband and I would have chosen to stay ignorant about how to properly support and affirm our LGBTQ+ kids, we would have potentially lost our children due to our past more conservative belief system about LGBTQ+ identities. Educational resources and parent support make our affirmation journeys a success. The necessary changes were also easier due to the increasing danger of American fascism because it broke open the truth about injustices all around us in plain sight. Anyone with eyes and ears can see and hear what is currently happening. There are silver linings in this dark MAGA cloud. Maybe some of you have been able to find your own silver lining in the darkness of MAGA. My silver linings are, my eyes were opened enough to see the truth about white conservative American Christianity and all people involved with it which allowed me to make the necessary changes for my LGBTQ+ kids and in myself to become a better human being. Those are enormously good changes from within myself that I wouldn’t have experienced without Trump and MAGA. If it had not been for my long-standing aversion to racism and a full career in the disability field, my transformation to becoming a full progressive may not have been possible. This process helped me see that I was both a bad and good person in my more conservative days. Now I want to become a better human every day and realize that I am a work in progress.
Maybe some of you have lost everyone and everything dear in your life because of Trump and MAGA; I grieve for you. If you have, please find community again but good community. I believe some of the healthiest, most loving, and safest places are those who are in the business of serving the broader community while being affirming and welcoming of every single person. If you don’t have community with these characteristics, please find at least one. This can be an affirming faith community who is giving back significantly to the broader community, a secular non-profit doing charitable work, or even a coffee shop which creates safe space for those society has rejected. If you have lost people near and dear to you because of Trumpism and MAGA, there is a whole world of love, community, decency, and humanity out there. The Divine can be found in so many places.
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