The Person You Were Before the Red Hat

I miss the best of you.

This is not my actual family, but this photo has similar vibes to my feelings today.

A note to my red homestate, MAGA friends and family members, sorting through complicated feelings:

You helped me tie my shoes, we hunted Easter eggs together, you cheered me on at my soccer game. You held me when I was a baby, we explored Grandma’s backyard together.

I grew up and made mistakes. You grew up and made mistakes. We learned, we changed. We had good in us. We had our demons. We tried our best.

And somewhere in all of this, we diverged. You went away from the feelings of family, lessons of caring and compassion, values of courage and teamwork and generosity. All the things it felt like enveloped our world before.

It’s like you picked up a pair of glasses and put them on, and suddenly all the things we once saw so similarly, became distorted in your eyes. Right and wrong got flip-flopped. The clear, comforting connection we had became shaky.

It’s like you put on a pair of headphones playing songs with words that contradicted what we knew, every second of every day. The lyrics said that you deserve more, that cruelty is power, that anyone in your way is a threat. That anyone different than you is wrong.

And I can’t understand it, because I don’t wear those glasses or headphones. All I see is you, a shadow of who you used to be. A resemblance of the person I knew, acting out the worst parts of you. I see you as someone capable of horrific things.

I see you backing criminals, I could see you fighting in their armies. I can imagine you justifying a hateful murder and smirking in its aftermath.

I could see you, with a mask on your face, kicking an immigrant. I could see you in a rage, pulling the trigger on someone who challenged you.

I could picture you, afterwards, praying in a pew and not seeing the irony.

And I know that seeing you this way, though it may not be too much of a leap, is the worst of me. The best of me seems too naive—hoping that you would take off the glasses and headphones and remember how it used to be. See how simple a world of love and kindness and decency could be.

That seems impossible now.

So I grieve for the lessening of you and of me. My heart aches, as I doubt yours feels anything. And I wonder endlessly about how we can go on with a world so divided and distorted. I wonder, with my faith so shaken by you, how I trust that we can ever be whole again.

As I write this confession, I can feel you rolling your eyes and laughing it off. But I still hope you care enough to prove me wrong. I still hope—against everything—that you will surprise me.

And I guess that’s something.

With love and hope for the future,

Stephanie

How has your world view endured or altered in Trump’s America?