My friend B. reached out today when the election results dropped to see how I was doing. “Denial then sadness,” I texted. But that’s not entirely true. I’ve never been in denial that I live in a racist and misogynistic country where many Americans take pride in hurting their fellow humans. I think the sadness comes from witnessing such gleeful evil and feeling powerless to stop it.
***
A few months ago, I returned to a local church I had not visited since the early days of the pandemic. The pastor is a democrat, but he doesn’t use his pulpit as a cudgel to beat members into voting blue. The message that day was about forgiveness. In a stunning admission that made me chuckle, the pastor revealed that he feels some type of way whenever he passes a house with an American flag.
I get it.
In my small Pennsylvania town, in the age of Trump, flags can be tangible dog whistles, signaling a perverse patriotism, a belief in the rights and freedoms that red-white-and-blue cloth symbolizes but only for certain Americans.
Continuing his sermon, the pastor shared that he has to remind himself not to have a visceral reaction to Old Glory. “They’re our neighbors,” he said, “and Jesus said to love our neighbors as ourselves.”
Forgive me, Lord, but fuck my neighbors.
As a Christian, I can’t imagine forgiving or loving people who view me as subhuman. When I’m out running errands and I see six-feet high Trump 2024 signs erected in my neighbors’ yards or hanging from their trees, I feel like I’m passing individual Sundown Towns. They might as well post signs that read: “Nigger, keep out. Our Messiah is returning to put people like you in your place.”
To protect my peace, I have resorted to quiet quitting – disengaging from people and institutions who support Trump but closing the door without any announcement or fanfare.
As soon as I woke up to the news that Kamala Harris lost, I reached over, grabbed my cell phone and blocked a friend I’ve known for twenty years who said she’s with Trump. Call it pettiness or cowardice. Misplaced anger. I don’t care. Embracing Trump and all he represents isn’t simply a difference of opinion. Sugar or salt in grits? That’s a difference of opinion. Voting for a felon who is a self-proclaimed dictator (and a VP who believes in race science and doesn’t believe women have value beyond our ability to reproduce or be tradwives), who assaults women, who hates immigrants, Muslims and LGBTQIA+ folk, who dismantles programs that protect our civil rights? That’s not a difference of opinion. Proudly casting a vote for a man who is the decaying embodiment of white privilege, white nationalism and toxic masculinity wrapped up in a slimy bow? That’s not a difference of opinion, beloved. That’s betrayal.
***
I haven’t gone to church much lately, but I do try to catch a virtual sermon most Sundays. For the past two years, I’ve been streaming a church service in Maryland where my friend attends. The pastor is a Black woman and I’ve been moved to tears by many of her sermons. I knew the church was conservative, but they didn’t implore parishioners to vote red. In the months leading up to the election, however, it felt like I had been smuggled aboard the Trump train. Church elders would pepper their messages with phrases like “cancel culture” and “woke.” A visiting white minister interrupted his sermon on David to talk modern-day politics. He looked the largely Black congregation in the face and scoffed at the notion that Trump is racist. Divine gaslighting.
I was particularly guarded one Sunday when the visiting white woman pastor approached the pulpit. It was clear she didn’t graduate from the school of Paula White with a blaccent and pandering prosperity nuggets like “I don’t want no pie in the sky. I want some ham where I am!” But her aura was just as smarmy. As soon as the evangelikaren said “I heard on Fox News–” I switched off the livestream in mid-sentence. Whatever spiritual truth she thought she was going to impart was nullified by her lack of discernment about earthly matters that will have a devastating impact on the poor, the migrant, the downtrodden – the very people Jesus said we should care deeply about.
I stopped virtually attending that church and don’t know if I’ll be back. I’ve unsubscribed from their emails and their YouTube page.
This is my quiet protest. Moving in silence as I withdraw my emotional, spiritual and financial support from people and institutions that ignore the harm that will surely come to the marginalized under a second Trump presidency.
My friend may not understand my decision, but I don’t understand hers either. The church in Maryland won’t even notice they’re missing an email subscriber (but they probably will miss my tithes). I don’t care if I look irrational or not very Christ-like. If it’s rational to elect a fascist, then it’s rational to catch this block. I’m concerned with preserving my peace and my humanity in a society that wants to rob me of both.
Cutting off someone I once considered a sister and leaving a church that once nourished me isn’t easy, but it’s not safe to dwell where I feel unprotected. Just as employees silently disengage from jobs where they feel devalued, I’m withdrawing from relationships where I feel demoralized and abused. And let’s be real: If you enable an abuser, what does that make you?
This hits home! Thank you for capturing what so many of us are feeling. We have strength but we’re tired!
Thanks for reading! I won’t give them my anger, my tears or my fears, but I will hit that block button.