Quiet Quitting

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?