When Not Voting for Trump Hurts (Navigating Jesus and Boundaries, Part II)

Today I’m writing about a really strange situation I found myself in, because I’m still processing what happened.

I found myself cutting a mild friendship out of my life – because they didn’t vote for Trump.

Several years ago I became friendly with a coworker with very compatible career philosophies. I made a point of not caring that, like other of my friends, they had opposing voting habits because I “wanted to be above all that.” They were a nice person! I shouldn’t judge people for their personal choices!

So I bit my tongue when they dismissed a friend’s abusive experiences in a church that silenced women with the comment, “Oh I know! That’s why I’m so glad that my church sometimes lets women stand in the aisle and tell a little story.” Mostly because I didn’t know how to say anything calmly.

And I got angry when I heard them boasting about teaching a second grade Sunday School class about preparing to be martyrs because I believe that telling seven year olds to hope to die is emotional and spiritual abuse… but I tried not to think about it too much.

 And I just stewed in my own juices when they admired the (gay) wedding photos of a favorite student, and then two days later said “Of course I’ll vote for Trump if he gets the nomination... but my ideal Presidential candidate would be Rick Santorum.” Good, objective, open-minded people respect people’s right to political differences except that real people get real hurt. Didn’t know how to deal with that.

And then, a few weeks before the 2016 election, the Access Hollywood tape out came out and they decided with a high moral tenor to the decision that they could not in good conscience vote for Trump.

And for reasons I couldn’t access right then – my initial relief turned quickly into rage. A rage that had been teetering on the edge because of what came before, but it absolutely befuddled me that this is what broke the camel’s back. It took another friend’s casual analysis to help me realize what was happening in the backwards land I found myself in.

It was about low expectations.

2016 was the first time I really felt my race in America. It was the first time I ever made any decisions on what to or not do based on my skin color —– when a white liberal friend invited me to go outside of a Trump rally “to see what it was like,” I felt a visceral fear. I’ve felt it as a woman all the time, and now I felt it in a different way.

I believed that this person, as an evangelical Republican, had a giant anti-abortion blind spot, and I used that to excuse a lot of behaviors. A lot of actions. But all the anti-abortion propaganda in the world didn’t mean as much as something far more important to them: filthy language. It wasn’t a blanket blind spot. It could be put on and taken off at will.

Because the guy had over a dozen accusers of sexual assault before that tape – if you care to believe women at all. The new part was the vulgarity.

There is a special kind of hell reserved for people that can recognize vulgar words but not vulgar attitudes towards different kinds of people.

It’s not that the candidate’s actions didn’t matter. It’s that all the actions towards brown and black people and women and people of other faiths didn’t matter as much as using the word "pussy." We don’t matter as much as the surface superficiality of politeness.

And that realization knocked me over. I didn’t even want to go to work for the fear of having to interact with that person and wanting to physically lash out. So, for the first time in my life (it’s happened a few times since), I cut someone out. Completely.

I’m still not comfortable with what I did. It’s not that I think I hurt the other person— – it was a very mild work friendship and I doubt they cared or even noticed. What bothers me, still, is what it says about me.

How much disrespect and devaluing should we take before setting a boundary for ourselves?

How much should the other person’s “good intentions” matter in comparison to their impact?

How much space do we make for ignorance (both natural and deliberately fostered)?

How do we enlarge the circle of allies if we sever ties with others?

And finally— – when we have such high expectations of others, how do we forgive ourselves when we do what we need to for emotional survival?