after the election: on loving our enemies

 “How could anyone possibly vote for Donald Trump?”

The community around me is reeling in shock after this week’s election results.

On my social media, I see people from my own circles saying things like:

“The only thing America hates more than a rapist is a woman.”

“As long as I live, I will never understand how a single human being voted for Trump.”

“I live in a country where I am surrounded by absolute retards.”

“I don’t get it. Are Americans just like… really really really really really f**’in dumb?”

“White republican men hate their wives and daughters.”

“I will never forgive my family members and former friends for voting for him. Never.”

“Anyone who voted for Trump is a racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic bigot.”

“The reality is that the majority of Americans have chosen this abject hatred three times. It was not a fluke or an aberration or a temporary leave of their senses — it was the desire of their poisoned hearts all along.”

“You can follow Christ. You can vote for Trump. But you cannot do both. If you disagree, enjoy burning in hell.”

This — this hatred of normal people toward other normal people — this is not the America I want to live in. This is not an America that can survive.

I live in a blue state and, as the co-host of a podcast for people deconstructing and leaving evangelicalism, I have a large liberal progressive community that I call home.

But I come from Republicans. I was phone banking for the George W. Bush campaign at nine years old. I have prayed outside abortion clinics. My family had a “One Man: One Woman” sticker on our car, my dad listened to conservative talk radio and my mom homeschooled us. I was shaped by the forces of conservativism and evangelicalism. And yet, despite my own changes as an adult, looking back I realize it was also there that I learned values I still hold deeply today: the love of others, the importance of justice, the value of freedom.

It wasn’t too many years ago that I realized I wanted to be affirming of queer people and that I decided to proudly call myself a feminist, despite the pushback from the culture that raised me. When I registered as a Democrat for the 2020 election, my goal was for us to stop Donald Trump from re-election, and we did.

Now the tables have turned. The friends and family of my youth — along with the majority of voting Americans — have the President they wanted. For most liberals, this is absolutely gutting. But what guts me most is not who our country has elected: it is the way so many progressives are horrendously vilifying those who elected him. They are calling people I know and love the most horrible things they can think up. They are building straw men and then burning them down.

I want a country where we can disagree — even vehemently — and still see the humanity of the other side.

So this is my letter to the vocal left.

Do you really think over 50% of the country is malicious and evil? Or completely stupid? You know that is not true. Half the people you see at the grocery store, half the parents at your school fundraiser, half the veterans and half the doctors and half the teachers and half the athletes — evil? Rapist-lovers? Poisoned hearts?

That is not true.

Trump supporters are not evil and they are not stupid. They are normal people with hopes for their family and country and future. They too have complex reasons for why they cast their votes, and those reasons have nothing to do with hatred.

Do you care to know or understand people’s reasons? If not, then I beg you, stop purporting your own perceived hatred onto them. That is the ultimate fallacy: to refuse to hear someone, and then condemn them.

If you cannot understand how any human being with an ounce of sense or character could vote for Trump, that is half of the human beings around you that you say you cannot understand.

Will you try? Not to agree, but just to set down your own judgment for a moment and hear?

You say Trump supporters are:

Transphobic: What if they are people who know and love trans-men and trans-women, but who do not want hormones and surgeries given to children, and are afraid of seeing women’s sports taken over by biological males?

Misogynistic: What if they understand the complexity of the abortion arguments, but still feel a call to protect unborn lives and try to help women in other ways? What if they also despise Trump’s personal track record with women, but also care deeply about other aspects of both candidates?

Racist: Did you know that more minorities — black, Asian, and Latino — voted for Trump in this election than ever? Or that the black unemployment rate reached an all-time low under Trump’s last administration?

Homophobic: Is this just a fun term to throw around? No one is afraid of gay people. Trump made no efforts to repeal gay marriage, and was the first president ever to enter office openly supporting gay marriage.

Bigot: Is anyone who disagrees with you a bigot? If a bigot is “someone who is particularly antagonistic against another person solely because of their membership within a certain group,” then isn’t that the very thing you are also doing?

What is happening here, America?

Hatred gets us nowhere. Trump supporters are not by default transphobic, misogynistic, racist, homophobic bigots. Almost entirely, they are normal people who love their families, their communities, and their countries just like you do. They’re people who sing their babies to sleep, who volunteer in their local schools, who love good music, and who believe in a good world for all. Just like you.

We are at a crossroads. If the opposite sides of the political spectrum refuse to even attempt to understand each other, the end of our nation is in sight. If we hate those who disagree with us, what other outcome could there be?

Someone once said that the best way is to love our enemies. And also that we should do to others what we would have them do to us.

The only way — the difficult path — is love. Radical love. Love of your opposite. Love that says, “I may find issue with everything you believe, but I choose to show you the same level of empathy I would hope to receive from you.”

I have lived much of my life by this mantra: “In general, all people are trying to do the best they can in the best way they know how.” It has almost always proven true. It has helped me see the person behind the beliefs.

So dear left, please press pause for today. Before spewing out hatred at normal people, spend just a day reflecting on those people for who they actually are. Talk to some — not about politics, just about who they are and what they love. Chances are, you’ll find that they are another human worthy of respect, just like you.

Love over hate — that was the mantra of the left, wasn’t it?

Do you really believe it?

Will you love?