A letter to my greatest hero… after he broke my heart by voting for Trump.
This one goes out to the broken-hearted babes in the world today… and the fathers and grandfathers who can’t understand.
The drive was one of those moments that I could feel burning into my memory in real time. I wished I could forget, even as it happened.
This painful truth ruined something precious, forever. My greatest hero… my strength through the storms of life… the man who played the role of father, best friend, mentor, spiritual guide… my grandpa…
He voted for Trump.
And… he was proud of it. He thought he was right.
We sat in silence in the car… both of us gentle, compassionate, non-confrontational people… with deep love and respect for each other. Both with a painful awareness of the “TRUMP 2020” bumper sticker glaring from the center console. It was the first car ride I couldn’t speak a single word.
Step on my map for a moment, let me show you:
My family is very… American-dream Christian white folk-ish.
(And even though I grew up kinda separate from my family’s roots — my mom was kinda the black sheep of the family after having me at 16 years old and getting hooked on drinking and drugs for a decade, and today I’m proud of her in her sobriety and courage — I still know where I came from and what my folks were all about.)
I was born in Eastern Oregon. (In other words, a racist, sexist, homophobic hick-town full of drugs, dirty cops, and abusers.) And then I grew up in Idaho… (So… same thing — except for more liberal Boise.)
My great grandpa Bird was a “humble [white] man from Missouri.” His wife, my great grandma Vera, died before I was born. She was a very, very, very Christian woman, and the pillar of my family. (Meaning she practically lived in the kitchen and did all the housework as ‘good Christian women’ did.) Even I knew grandma Vera’s fame within the church and her devotion and faith — her strictness when it came to proper ladyhood and keeping house. She was seen as the ideal woman… (I see now how the patriarchy is the core of my family’s greatest stories to pass down… and I’ll be cursed in my family for daring to taint such precious stories and memories by acknowledging this truth.)
The painful facts are that my family is deeply… in denial, for one. And also… racist. Oh, and sexist too.
(And don’t forget homophobic.) Like, If there’s a way to passive-aggressively hate someone, they probably do.
Except, they think they’re nice people. It’s that sneaky, buried down deep, total denial, clinging to the republican and “Christian” ideal that says something like: if you give everything to someone, you’re doing them a disservice by not empowering them to help themselves… kinda prejudice.
And yet…
I was raised in “good Christian ideals.”
Aside from the abuse happening in my childhood, there was also a strong Baptist community on the larger scale…
I was taught to treat others as I wish to be treated… to show kindness, especially in the face of cruelty.
To stand up for what’s right, even if it’s not what the crowd is doing. I was taught that it’s in our moments of weakness that we grow stronger — and that asking for help, showing vulnerability, sharing your whole heart with the community around you even if it meant they could break you, was a strong and courageous thing to do.
So, to the grandfathers who voted for Donald J. Trump…
Who let us down.
Who don’t understand… and who think we “ignorant, instant gratification seeking, lazy kids” don’t understand…
Tell me… because I’m confused.
I’m confused and it hurts. I’m shocked at you, I’m scared of you.
Because, grandpa, you taught me to be kind.
You taught me to help people.
You taught me to sit with the person alone in the lunch room, to stand up for the kid being bullied, to never let a man abuse me.
You taught me to stand up for what’s right, even when it’s not popular.
You taught me that, when things are scary and unfamiliar, I should lean in to my higher power, and trust myself. That I should act bravely from faith, and not from fear. From love, not from hate.
You taught me to be myself. To be all me, always, and to help others to shine their light in the same way.
So… grandpa, how could you?
How could you vote for a man who openly jokes about “grabbing her pussy?” What if it was me he’d grabbed? Would you have voted for him and “his strong immigration policy” then? Would it have mattered to, if it had been me?
(Because I already told you my #MeToo story, and I know what it did to you knowing those men hurt me like that. And yet… you voted for this man who laughs on the news and on Twitter about sexually assaulting women. So tell me… what’s important, please? What world are you leaving behind for me when you are gone? And why?)
How could you stand up and say, “hi, I am a proud supporter of this man,” knowing that man would slap my ass if I happened to walk by?
How does it make sense to vote for a man who would have his own people die — who would risk that — rather than make the simple sacrifice of putting a piece of cloth on his face?
(Grandpa, I have a chronic illness, and you’re an old man now. These rules… they’re in place to help us. The WHOLE world is taking precautions. And you voted for the man who would call it “survival of the fittest” if I died tomorrow because he told millions of his loyal fans that health precautions were unnecessary and infringing on our natural freedom.
We’re not scientists, and if you believe for a moment that this man looks at actual scientific data for health decisions, you’ve already died, I think. Because you’ve been smarter than that all my life and you know it.)
If this were a movie, what would be the right thing to do? And why is that so different from this real life?
I know that we have different opinions on things like immigration policy and gun rights… but you’re standing up and supporting a man who promotes the senseless killing of my friends. My friends who have weakened immune systems, my friends who are elderly. My friends who are Black, transgender, and Muslim HUMAN BEINGS. PEOPLE. They are PEOPLE.
(And didn’t your Jesus teach to ‘turn the other cheek,’ and that forgiveness is not just a one time thing, but something that must be done ‘seventy times seven times’? In what world does that mean bring in bigger guns? I turned the cheek when I was raped. I forgave my rapists, and wrote a book about it to help survivors AND their rapists find healing.
YOU inspired me to do this, to be so strong. To share, for the sake of others. To care for others, even when it felt scary and meant putting a part of myself out into the world.)
You might not understand their culture or their language, they might have different beliefs. But they’re just like you and me. They have babies and mothers and favorite foods and family stories and they miss their kids just like you do.
And if my life was crumbling apart and I was alone in the world and I was afraid and I needed help, they would extend their hand. They would share their food with me. They would bath me and dress me if it came down to it, they would. I know, because they have, time and time again when I couldn’t turn to my own racist, sexist, homophobic, judgmental and unforgiving family.
(It hurts to acknowledge… we’ve never really said it out loud, huh? But it’s true. How much do we hide from them? How alone do we feel among my aunts and uncles, my cousins? And why? We used to have each other, at least.)
All this talk of faith and Jesus and Christianity coming from people who follow Trump is so confusing to me.
Because I don’t know what I believe about your Jesus anymore, but I know that everything I ever learned about him says he would not be on this side. He would not in a million years stand up and say, “I support this man.”
Your Jesus would look at us all and weep, I think.
Because this battlefield, this system — not just in the 2020 election, but in the entire history of the United States — in the entire history of our family, the legacy passed down to us from your dad and his dad before him and the many moms too… it’s built on the backs of black and brown people… and now, such a strong and wealthy nation as we supposedly are, such a great nation we supposedly are, we don’t even have the decency to give it back. We say the American dream is working hard for everything you’ve got… but you forget how much was easier for you, how much was handed to you — not that you never worked hard, but you were at least given the opportunity to do the work where many Black people were not — and you and I know that.
And when you see that Black man begging in the street, a part of you feels ashamed and guilty because you know…
if you had been born into a different skin, that could have been you too. And you tell yourself it’s not your job, that you worked hard to make your life better and that he should have done the same. But you know. I know you know, because you taught me to put myself in other peoples’ shoes. You taught me to show grace and understanding. To take care of myself, but to then help my neighbor and to never judge someone until I walked in their shoes.
We’re so busy trying to protect this stolen victory… that we’re turning our backs on our brothers and sisters.
We’re telling our neighbors it’s a simple difference in political opinion… but it’s not.
It’s racism.
It’s sexism.
And those… those shouldn’t be negotiation points. Those should be deal-breakers. Because my life, my right to exist, my right to vote, to have property, to make my own medical decisions, to be paid equally for jobs… that’s not debatable… (is it? Would you vote away my rights like that? … because you did. That’s what you just did.)
I’ve studied my history, psychology, and political science, and I know that this the kind of apathy and ignorance that leads to genocides and hate crimes… that tells others “okay I wish you’d be nice to everyone, but I guess it’s a little less wrong to hurt these people who are different. They chose to stand out, so I guess they kind of asked for it. They should be smarter. They should know better.”
This man you voted for… this puppet… this unfiltered representation of the core values of a racist patriarchy… he’s the bad guy. (Can’t you see that?)
And that’s so clear to me that it hurts my heart. I’m not weak, I’m not naïve. I’m not stupid. I’m not demanding instant gratification.
I am hurting, and I am demanding better of the future.
I’m demanding better from my family… from the ones who taught me so much all my life… who taught me that family was the most important thing, and then later showed me that pride matters even more.
I am hurting because my friends say they can’t wait for people like you to die off… and I’m devastated that I can’t help but agree that the world may very well be a better place when the stuck-in-their-ways racist old republicans are gone from us. (When did that start to include you? Not you. That shouldn’t be you! That’s not you. Please say it isn’t true.)
I am destroyed knowing that my mission in this world could become easier with you and everyone you grew up with… gone.
I cannot leave this letter in such heart-broken disappointment. I want the world to know that I have loved you more than I’ve ever loved anyone… and that I am grateful for you, despite how you have fallen in my eyes this year… And how scared I am that you may never be who I thought you were.
I don’t know how to face this world without you… and yet, I feel like I have to now. I have to stand up, I have to do better. And this is how I’ll start… by telling you how I really feel, here in this letter…
Because J.K. Rowling wrote that “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to our friends.”
So… imagine just how much it took to stand up to you, my grandpa, my hero, the person I’ve loved more than life from the day I was born.
I want to thank you for always teaching me to be a better person than you knew how to be.
I am grateful that I got to learn from you before the world made your heart colder, your light dimmer.
Before you became weaker and depended on ego-boosting algorithms and learned to love confirmation bias over unbiased research and open-hearted learning… before you gave up your commitment to kindness and compassion.
I know that you’re tired.
I know that life is heavy and lonely and confusing and hard…
And this year, it got so much harder… because I miss you more than you know, but I don’t know how to open my heart back up to you right now.
How could you believe more in the bad people coming to get you, out to ruin you, out to steal from you… than in the goodness of people, the importance of showing your whole heart and acting in faith and love… I know you think the end is coming soon for you… Grandpa, how could you leave me a world in this state?
This isn’t about Trump. Racism was a problem before him and it’s a problem after him too.
We have so much work to do. I have so much work to do.
I just… thought we were doing it together. I thought we both cared.
I thought that you were a source of love in the world.
Please come back.
And… if this has crushed you to see… if you’re ashamed, or just lost. Please… come back.
This doesn’t have to be the end… just… be you. Surrender to your faith again, to something bigger than yourself. Be brave again. Be brave with me.
Love,
Your granddaughter who knows better, this time, and hopes she’s made you proud.
