I have three daughters. Two are Democrats. I have been voting as a Democrat since the 2016 election because I could not in good conscience vote for trump. My middle daughter; however, is a trump Republican. We are fine if neither of us brings up politics. Once in awhile it does happen, and we end up screaming at each other over the telephone and hanging up on each other. She lives in Alabama and my other two daughters and I live in Virginia. I do not know what it will take for her to see trump for what he is.
Oh, and all four of us believe in God. We are Christians. I do wonder how Christians support trump though. There is so much hate with him.
It's always so interesting to me when family members can vary in their ideologies so profoundly. I'm fortunate that most of my immediate family, and even extended, feels pretty similarly to me politically. My girlfriend has a twin who's a Trump supporter, despite her being arguably even more left leaning than I am. But you'd be glad to hear that her twin has recently been showing signs of turning! It definitely feels like these past few weeks have been a turning point for a lot of people.
It's always great to see when people can draw such helpful takeaways from their religions. That so many people cite Christianity as a reason for their support for Trump never fails to baffle me.
I think you are mocking either me or my faith. trump is a criminal and an evil person because of what he says and does. He needs to be punished for his crimes. I don’t wish him dead and I hope he repents for all of the evil he has done. That is the best that I can do.
He had six bankruptcies when I read up on him before the 2016 election. Also, he was a serial adulterer, and there was that Access Hollywood video. That is when I changed parties and voted for Hillary.
MAGA believed that his television show was real! I never watched it but I saw the commercials. I knew it was phony. I guess those people believed it.
But Isn’t a belief in some supreme deity in the same category as not seeing the Orange Fool for what he is?
I understand maintaining and aspiring to a set of values informed by a personal moral compass. Some might describe such things as Christian or Islamic values, but clearly not everyone agrees what they are!
So, what I don’t understand is linking those precepts to some religious framework which is underpinned by a notion of eternal damnation for not abiding by a spaghetti of over-interpreted and contradictory rules and commandments.
I try to pick my battles these days. I think the monotheisms of the world have done a lot of collective harm to our ability to think critically, I won’t deny it. What I like to see in any Christian is an earnest attempt to embody the supposed teachings of Christ, which is a high bar to live up to. And I think the MAGA ideology is so antithetical to them that I don’t believe it for a minute when a Trump supporter tells me they believe in the teachings of Christ.
But all that about eternal damnation for failing to accept Christ… yeah, that never sits right with me in any believer. I can’t speak for Virginia, but I’d like to believe she’s not in the camp of Christians who believes I’m hellbound for not buying into her belief system. I can appreciate a lot of the teachings that are attributed to Jesus even if I’m not all that convinced he was a real person.
No, I do not think that you are hellbound because you don’t believe as I do. We all have free will and our own beliefs. No judgment from me on that at all.
No, believing in God and Jesus is not the same as not seeing trump for who and what he really is. trump is a human being who shows what he is to the entire world. You believe what you believe. I am not going to try to change what you believe.
Yes, I agree they are not the same, but I’m suggesting they are in the same category, in that both positions pick and choose from a set of contradictory elements to give substance and justification to their belief.
Earlier, it was said, ‘Fortunately, […] does not justify her support […] with her Christian faith’, but plenty of people do exactly that and use their claimed faith to find excuses for all the obvious discrepancies in behaviour. They see the orange one as part of a divine plan which justifies the means towards an end. Essentially using evil to create a good, in their eyes, which sounds like a curious mechanism of doing things for an omnipotent being.
Further, they reinforce their belief in these things by calling upon their knowledge and fervent, deep, personal relationship to Jesus (definitely a human in His own words) and His teachings. Many even claiming that ostentatious wealth is a sign of devotion and reward. None can successfully argue against this for instance by referring to the camel and the eye of a needle metaphor because it is countered by the claim that the opulent wealth is being used to ‘spread the Word’, and so on. This again is another example of evil being used to create a good. Yet I don’t recall that being anything like Jesus’ teachings.
These are not insignificant discrepancies, but are a common element of all ‘belief systems’, where claim and counterclaim are all cloaked and defended ad infinitum ending up in the workings of mysterious ways and belief in things that defy logic, reason and possibility, hence, a miracle!
All claims are irrefutable. Argument is pointless and it’s futility is admitted when saying such things as, ‘you believe what you believe, and I’m not going to try and I’m not going to try and change your belief’, because inherently they are not grounded upon substance beyond anything that is self-evidential.
The opinion or belief can only change when the person’s self-evidence provides them with a greater level of justification to do so. Even then, it is countered by saying their doubt is a crisis or test of their faith, which is all part of their faith. For instance with the question of The Problem of Evil: ‘If God is loving, good and omnipotent, why does he allow evil?’ Answer, ‘To test our faith’.
See? The position cannot be lost. It’s all part of God’s plan, which needless to say contradicts any idea of free will, but we can add it to the mix.
This is not mockery of anyone or anything. A perception of it possibly being so is an indication of an inner acceptance that things may not just be quite right, which again feeds into it only being a test of faith.
Feeling defensive is understandable when one feels as if they are being challenged in any way. Yes, I get that.
I also get the satisfaction in knowing that a daughter’s ridiculous following of someone is not underpinned by their faith in Christianity but by simple greed and selfishness in the financial department. Okay, hand up, I admit that last sentence was a bit mocking, but I hope you see what I mean.
Most importantly, though at least from my perspective, I mean no harm, nor wish to offend, nor wish to challenge the way your beliefs and tenets inform your loving, kind, well-meaning and unselfish actions, which I am sure there are many. And that is definitely not me being mocking or sarcastic. Virginia, I wish you only well in all things 🙏
Demetri, I also wish you only well in all things. We do agree on one thing, that trump is an evil man who is thoroughly and totally lacking in morals and goodness.
Bro, you are inspirational in fighting the good fight, and I respect you for it. I'm more along your line, although in a much more private sense. My sister is a trumpista, not surprising given her commitment to Evangelical Christianity, and while I didn't communicate with her for a while after the election, I have resumed and am trying to love her through the nightmare. We avoid politics because she will not discuss it. My husband takes an opposite approach, which makes me sad for some reasons, but I support him because he can't act otherwise. If someone is a known trumpista, he will cut them from his life if they are family or friends, or if it's a public person, he will cancel them and not read their books or watch their movies. But to one of your points, we spoke to a Haitian woman shortly after the dogs and cats remarks, and we were GOBSMACKED to hear her say that she and her husband were voting for Drumpf. OMG. We didn't know what to say to that.
It's always perplexing how so many of the most embattled minorities are among his biggest supporters. The immigrant community's continued support for him just stumps me.
I definitely understand how your husband feels! For my trans friends especially, I don't fault them one bit for needing to remove Trump supporters from their life. In some ways it really is a luxury to not feel that dire of a need to myself. Having a Trump supporter as a sibling I imagine is a really tricky tightrope walk. I'm also fortunate to have a family full of pretty far-left progressives. I'm not sure if there's a single Trump supporter in even my extended family, truthfully. Our family get togethers can be a little circular when we broach politics as a result, but it's a small problem to have.
Thanks so much for reading and for the kind words, Rayna!
Another excellent piece. Time for me to widen my heart when I am so afraid of what’s happening. Your words always help me take a deep breath and begin again.
It's an issue I go back and forth on quite a bit. I try to reason with them, and very occasionally, we can cover a bit of ground. But it's not the most common.
Good one Ben. I think it is important to still keep the door open and maintain civil conversation even with those whom we may strongly disagree with, or some of whose views we find abhorrent. Looking for any common ground, whether it is the weather, traffic or sport can be the way to build rapport. People are more likely to be persuaded by love than by invective, which just closes doors and minds.
If you want to talk about reaching people you have to also impose responsibility. For instance this point: "It’s a shame that our two party system has forced Eisenhower-brand conservatives to vote for an increasingly far right series of politicians and celebrities in order to retain their status as so-called Republicans." Is something I disagree with.
Noone forced them to vote for Trump. The booth is private, they can do what they want. They could have voted differently in the primaries, voted Republican downticket but not up, or just recognized that they can be true to the beliefs they ascribe to the party but not the party itself. If your commitment to a team is so high that it overrides the principles you claim to defend then you are just seeking to evade responsibility and that isn't about being in a cult, it is just childish.
I for one am conflicted about reaching out to people, especially if they want to hide behind the team.
Can it be said that most MAGA supporters are also frequent church visitors. In fact these days they get all their information from church (which is 2000 years old) or WhatsApp (which is unedited and unreliable) or Fox type channels. The later two also are run by people who are regular with Church and wear a cross as far as possible.
Is it not that the present regime in USA is Church's progeny? Science and technology that made America great has been dumped, burnt on crossroads!
Sometimes when I talk to people that don’t listen to facts, I ask them what fact would change their minds.
If they can’t think of anything, then I point out that their belief is indistinguishable from religion.
They have every right to believe it purely as an article of faith. But in this case, do they really want to admit they put Trump on an equal footing with God?
At worst, they might legitimately try to think of a deal-breaker for them, which might be the first step towards thinking about it rationally.
After all Trump has said and done, I feel that anyone who still likes and supports him at this point is completely lost, and I want nothing to do with them. I've also concluded that the primary reason for Trump's undying support from those people is that he hates and attacks the same people and ideologies they hate.
Ben, I have read several studies that show that ultra conservative and right wing religious people have different brains than those who are more open minded. When they are presented with information that contradicts their narrative, the blood to their brain slows down and it is washed in chemical chemicals that are not present under normal circumstances. They literally cannot hear you. It’s truly a waste of time to engage in any kind of dialogue with them. People who voted for Trump because they didn’t think they had other options might be a different story, as long as they are not hard right MAGA.
I applaud your optimism and I had it once several years ago; now, I am not too sure. I worked for a wonderful, kind, knowledgeable doctor who was all in for trump during his first term. We’d have lively discussions about this or that. He truly believed that faux news was the most unbiased source of news. My brother has become full MAGA, though we came from the same womb. He cannot be reasoned with faced with any facts. People who support trump cannot even admit there is any validity to facts. They are beyond logic. It’s all what-about-isms unless it supports their narrative. There is no reasonable debate with them. It has become cultish. Yes, there are many who leave cults with much deprogramming. But, in this case, there are so many and they are constantly bombarded with the conspiracy theories, misinformation and disinformation and it’s blatantly normalized. I hope with everything that we can get through this period.
I have three daughters. Two are Democrats. I have been voting as a Democrat since the 2016 election because I could not in good conscience vote for trump. My middle daughter; however, is a trump Republican. We are fine if neither of us brings up politics. Once in awhile it does happen, and we end up screaming at each other over the telephone and hanging up on each other. She lives in Alabama and my other two daughters and I live in Virginia. I do not know what it will take for her to see trump for what he is.
Oh, and all four of us believe in God. We are Christians. I do wonder how Christians support trump though. There is so much hate with him.
It's always so interesting to me when family members can vary in their ideologies so profoundly. I'm fortunate that most of my immediate family, and even extended, feels pretty similarly to me politically. My girlfriend has a twin who's a Trump supporter, despite her being arguably even more left leaning than I am. But you'd be glad to hear that her twin has recently been showing signs of turning! It definitely feels like these past few weeks have been a turning point for a lot of people.
It's always great to see when people can draw such helpful takeaways from their religions. That so many people cite Christianity as a reason for their support for Trump never fails to baffle me.
Fortunately, my Alabama daughter does not justify her support of trump with her Christian faith. For her, it is business economics. 🤦🏻♀️
Probably means she's more reachable than the standard "Christian Trump supporter"! Really hope she can find her way out of that rabbit hole soon.
I sincerely hope so! I loathe trump and his entire administration. They are all, including trump, a bunch of losers to put it bluntly.
Ooh, that doesn’t sound very ‘Christian’, what happened to love thine enemy? Just askin’! 🤷🏼♂️
I think you are mocking either me or my faith. trump is a criminal and an evil person because of what he says and does. He needs to be punished for his crimes. I don’t wish him dead and I hope he repents for all of the evil he has done. That is the best that I can do.
Right. The umpteenth time bankrupt is a business genius. Still waiting for someone to explain this to me..... just saying.
He had six bankruptcies when I read up on him before the 2016 election. Also, he was a serial adulterer, and there was that Access Hollywood video. That is when I changed parties and voted for Hillary.
MAGA believed that his television show was real! I never watched it but I saw the commercials. I knew it was phony. I guess those people believed it.
No wonder he "loves the poorly educated." 😕
But Isn’t a belief in some supreme deity in the same category as not seeing the Orange Fool for what he is?
I understand maintaining and aspiring to a set of values informed by a personal moral compass. Some might describe such things as Christian or Islamic values, but clearly not everyone agrees what they are!
So, what I don’t understand is linking those precepts to some religious framework which is underpinned by a notion of eternal damnation for not abiding by a spaghetti of over-interpreted and contradictory rules and commandments.
I try to pick my battles these days. I think the monotheisms of the world have done a lot of collective harm to our ability to think critically, I won’t deny it. What I like to see in any Christian is an earnest attempt to embody the supposed teachings of Christ, which is a high bar to live up to. And I think the MAGA ideology is so antithetical to them that I don’t believe it for a minute when a Trump supporter tells me they believe in the teachings of Christ.
But all that about eternal damnation for failing to accept Christ… yeah, that never sits right with me in any believer. I can’t speak for Virginia, but I’d like to believe she’s not in the camp of Christians who believes I’m hellbound for not buying into her belief system. I can appreciate a lot of the teachings that are attributed to Jesus even if I’m not all that convinced he was a real person.
No, I do not think that you are hellbound because you don’t believe as I do. We all have free will and our own beliefs. No judgment from me on that at all.
No, believing in God and Jesus is not the same as not seeing trump for who and what he really is. trump is a human being who shows what he is to the entire world. You believe what you believe. I am not going to try to change what you believe.
Yes, I agree they are not the same, but I’m suggesting they are in the same category, in that both positions pick and choose from a set of contradictory elements to give substance and justification to their belief.
Earlier, it was said, ‘Fortunately, […] does not justify her support […] with her Christian faith’, but plenty of people do exactly that and use their claimed faith to find excuses for all the obvious discrepancies in behaviour. They see the orange one as part of a divine plan which justifies the means towards an end. Essentially using evil to create a good, in their eyes, which sounds like a curious mechanism of doing things for an omnipotent being.
Further, they reinforce their belief in these things by calling upon their knowledge and fervent, deep, personal relationship to Jesus (definitely a human in His own words) and His teachings. Many even claiming that ostentatious wealth is a sign of devotion and reward. None can successfully argue against this for instance by referring to the camel and the eye of a needle metaphor because it is countered by the claim that the opulent wealth is being used to ‘spread the Word’, and so on. This again is another example of evil being used to create a good. Yet I don’t recall that being anything like Jesus’ teachings.
These are not insignificant discrepancies, but are a common element of all ‘belief systems’, where claim and counterclaim are all cloaked and defended ad infinitum ending up in the workings of mysterious ways and belief in things that defy logic, reason and possibility, hence, a miracle!
All claims are irrefutable. Argument is pointless and it’s futility is admitted when saying such things as, ‘you believe what you believe, and I’m not going to try and I’m not going to try and change your belief’, because inherently they are not grounded upon substance beyond anything that is self-evidential.
The opinion or belief can only change when the person’s self-evidence provides them with a greater level of justification to do so. Even then, it is countered by saying their doubt is a crisis or test of their faith, which is all part of their faith. For instance with the question of The Problem of Evil: ‘If God is loving, good and omnipotent, why does he allow evil?’ Answer, ‘To test our faith’.
See? The position cannot be lost. It’s all part of God’s plan, which needless to say contradicts any idea of free will, but we can add it to the mix.
This is not mockery of anyone or anything. A perception of it possibly being so is an indication of an inner acceptance that things may not just be quite right, which again feeds into it only being a test of faith.
Feeling defensive is understandable when one feels as if they are being challenged in any way. Yes, I get that.
I also get the satisfaction in knowing that a daughter’s ridiculous following of someone is not underpinned by their faith in Christianity but by simple greed and selfishness in the financial department. Okay, hand up, I admit that last sentence was a bit mocking, but I hope you see what I mean.
Most importantly, though at least from my perspective, I mean no harm, nor wish to offend, nor wish to challenge the way your beliefs and tenets inform your loving, kind, well-meaning and unselfish actions, which I am sure there are many. And that is definitely not me being mocking or sarcastic. Virginia, I wish you only well in all things 🙏
Demetri, I also wish you only well in all things. We do agree on one thing, that trump is an evil man who is thoroughly and totally lacking in morals and goodness.
Ben,
love this piece you've written. You so thoughtfully expressed the frustration I have,
and the thin slice of hope that remains, that there will ɓe an event that wakes them up, like a sudden arousal from sleep.
Thanks for this.
Honored to hear that, Linda! So thrilled I could offer that. Thanks so much for reading!
PS So yes, what you're doing is a heavy lift.
Bro, you are inspirational in fighting the good fight, and I respect you for it. I'm more along your line, although in a much more private sense. My sister is a trumpista, not surprising given her commitment to Evangelical Christianity, and while I didn't communicate with her for a while after the election, I have resumed and am trying to love her through the nightmare. We avoid politics because she will not discuss it. My husband takes an opposite approach, which makes me sad for some reasons, but I support him because he can't act otherwise. If someone is a known trumpista, he will cut them from his life if they are family or friends, or if it's a public person, he will cancel them and not read their books or watch their movies. But to one of your points, we spoke to a Haitian woman shortly after the dogs and cats remarks, and we were GOBSMACKED to hear her say that she and her husband were voting for Drumpf. OMG. We didn't know what to say to that.
It's always perplexing how so many of the most embattled minorities are among his biggest supporters. The immigrant community's continued support for him just stumps me.
I definitely understand how your husband feels! For my trans friends especially, I don't fault them one bit for needing to remove Trump supporters from their life. In some ways it really is a luxury to not feel that dire of a need to myself. Having a Trump supporter as a sibling I imagine is a really tricky tightrope walk. I'm also fortunate to have a family full of pretty far-left progressives. I'm not sure if there's a single Trump supporter in even my extended family, truthfully. Our family get togethers can be a little circular when we broach politics as a result, but it's a small problem to have.
Thanks so much for reading and for the kind words, Rayna!
All the other siblings/brothers are progressive, at least mostly, but the sister is not. Go figure.
Another excellent piece. Time for me to widen my heart when I am so afraid of what’s happening. Your words always help me take a deep breath and begin again.
Thanks so much, Lisa!! That really means a lot. It's such a delight to be able to offer that.
There’s no reasoning with people. They have to figure out for themselves that they’re lost.
It's an issue I go back and forth on quite a bit. I try to reason with them, and very occasionally, we can cover a bit of ground. But it's not the most common.
Thanks so much for reading, Andrei.
Good one Ben. I think it is important to still keep the door open and maintain civil conversation even with those whom we may strongly disagree with, or some of whose views we find abhorrent. Looking for any common ground, whether it is the weather, traffic or sport can be the way to build rapport. People are more likely to be persuaded by love than by invective, which just closes doors and minds.
Yes. Invective doesn't work. What works is when the policies trump has hit the trump supporters hard.
That nqqeeds to be the question to trump supporters: Do you support tariffs and high prices?
Firing thousands of government workers? etc.
If you want to talk about reaching people you have to also impose responsibility. For instance this point: "It’s a shame that our two party system has forced Eisenhower-brand conservatives to vote for an increasingly far right series of politicians and celebrities in order to retain their status as so-called Republicans." Is something I disagree with.
Noone forced them to vote for Trump. The booth is private, they can do what they want. They could have voted differently in the primaries, voted Republican downticket but not up, or just recognized that they can be true to the beliefs they ascribe to the party but not the party itself. If your commitment to a team is so high that it overrides the principles you claim to defend then you are just seeking to evade responsibility and that isn't about being in a cult, it is just childish.
I for one am conflicted about reaching out to people, especially if they want to hide behind the team.
Can it be said that most MAGA supporters are also frequent church visitors. In fact these days they get all their information from church (which is 2000 years old) or WhatsApp (which is unedited and unreliable) or Fox type channels. The later two also are run by people who are regular with Church and wear a cross as far as possible.
Is it not that the present regime in USA is Church's progeny? Science and technology that made America great has been dumped, burnt on crossroads!
Sometimes when I talk to people that don’t listen to facts, I ask them what fact would change their minds.
If they can’t think of anything, then I point out that their belief is indistinguishable from religion.
They have every right to believe it purely as an article of faith. But in this case, do they really want to admit they put Trump on an equal footing with God?
At worst, they might legitimately try to think of a deal-breaker for them, which might be the first step towards thinking about it rationally.
Brilliant! 🙌💕✨⛓️💥🇨🇦
After all Trump has said and done, I feel that anyone who still likes and supports him at this point is completely lost, and I want nothing to do with them. I've also concluded that the primary reason for Trump's undying support from those people is that he hates and attacks the same people and ideologies they hate.
Ben, I have read several studies that show that ultra conservative and right wing religious people have different brains than those who are more open minded. When they are presented with information that contradicts their narrative, the blood to their brain slows down and it is washed in chemical chemicals that are not present under normal circumstances. They literally cannot hear you. It’s truly a waste of time to engage in any kind of dialogue with them. People who voted for Trump because they didn’t think they had other options might be a different story, as long as they are not hard right MAGA.
I applaud your optimism and I had it once several years ago; now, I am not too sure. I worked for a wonderful, kind, knowledgeable doctor who was all in for trump during his first term. We’d have lively discussions about this or that. He truly believed that faux news was the most unbiased source of news. My brother has become full MAGA, though we came from the same womb. He cannot be reasoned with faced with any facts. People who support trump cannot even admit there is any validity to facts. They are beyond logic. It’s all what-about-isms unless it supports their narrative. There is no reasonable debate with them. It has become cultish. Yes, there are many who leave cults with much deprogramming. But, in this case, there are so many and they are constantly bombarded with the conspiracy theories, misinformation and disinformation and it’s blatantly normalized. I hope with everything that we can get through this period.