The Doe’s Latest Stories

How does a bastard Mischling millennial suburbanite become a staunch conservative? Is it even possible for a deracinated modern individual to find himself a real community to be a part of? Or is that hope lost forever to the omnipresence of the modern popular monoculture?I had little hope of finding greater meaning or purpose when my wife and I moved to rural West Virginia with our one-year-old son. We sought the peace and tranquility of the mountains with the added benefit of much lower costs of living. West Virginia was another stop added to a long list of locales I have inhabited in my adult life. I’ve come to realize West Virginia, and the Appalachians, are one of the few remaining havens of real culture and community we have left in the U.S. Like many other mountainous regions around the world, the Appalachians provide a protective boundary which sustains the people who live within. During the gypsy wanderings of my adult life, I’ve spent years in Philly, Los Angeles and Amsterdam: huge multicultural metropolitan cities where I lived as an individual usually never aware of who my neighbor was. No matter how many friends I had, or how active my social life might have been, I never felt a part of the place I lived. I was just another rent dweller—easily replaced by a stream of mildly-educated individuals with cash to burn. If my bills went unpaid, I’d have been thrown out on the scrap heap with the countless vagrants we find littering the streets. Whenever I’d pass a homeless person camped out on the sidewalk or sleeping in a closed storefront, I’d ask myself: What makes me so different from him? A few dominoes could fall and there I’d be: camped out on the sidewalk, wondering where it all went wrong. That is the reminder for all city folk. They could be there too. Destitute and alone. Wondering when the misery will end.

We never imagined the strong communities we would find hiding in the hills of Appalachia.

Small Towns Display More Humanity Than Big Cities

Amsterdam was my first glimpse into a somewhat homogenous culture that has maintained traditions from their forefathers. Riding my bike past a brown cafe at night and hearing everyone sing a Dutch folk song always made me grin. Then there was a small town in the Austrian Alps. There the culture remained, protected by the steep, sometimes insurmountable, peaks of the Alpines. There men often wore lederhosen, blouses, suspenders and traditional Tyrolean hats. Stores in Innsbruck specialized in selling traditional clothing. The people we met and lived with were from there and would remain there for their entire lives. They would travel, but there they will always remain. Those people are more than individuals. They live in a community, with a shared culture, which gives them pride of place and purpose; more than a lone individual could ever have. As my Dutch wife and I were uprooted, we dug ourselves up again and moved to more southern climes: to Tenerife, in particular. To a small town on the side of the volcano, El Teide. It was in this small town where we witnessed a very poor people who were richer in family and community than anywhere else I had been. They might not have had money but they were never wanting. Tenerife has a very poor economy which is only sustained by tourism from mainland Europe. The small towns outside of the tourist stops have not developed. But they are a people who are not missing much. They have community and traditions, which bind their people. In such a poor place, I never saw a homeless person. I never saw a person wanting. I never saw someone in need of help who wasn’t immediately assisted. It was in Tenerife where my wife became pregnant and we had to make the decision to return stateside so that I could find a means to earn a living. After living in rural Austria and Spain, we had no desire to live in the city—especially to raise a child. We settled on West Virginia. The low rent and expenses were conducive to my fledgling business. We never imagined the strong communities we would find hiding in the hills of Appalachia.

It is in these rural communities, in Europe and America, where I’ve found the merits of conservatism.

West Virginia Is a True Community in the U.S.

Just like in Spain, the modern economy has not been good to West Virginia. The state has been hit hard by the heroin epidemic. Poverty is rife. Many young adults leave to find wealth and success in the city, as I did at one time. Even so, the strong communities remain. There are churches at every turn, so many at times I wonder how they all can find parishioners. Since the pandemic, many churches are holding periodic food drives. So many so that no one could possibly go hungry. When the mom and pop restaurants were able to open again, their parking lots were full, and they remain so. It is a community that wants to see everyone succeed. There are a few examples of extremely close-knit communities in this area that are worth mentioning: the Amish, Mennonites and River Brethren are conservative Christian sects which maintain traditions from their Anabaptist ancestors who fled Germany so that they could practice with religious freedom at a time when the Catholic Church ruled over much of Europe. These communities are islands amongst the mainstream populace. They maintain their own banks and healthcare. They are predominantly self-employed, many working with their hands; and immensely successful in doing so. The Amish even continue to speak an old form of German which hasn’t evolved with the main dialect. It is in these rural communities, in Europe and America, where I’ve found the merits of conservatism. These largely homogenous communities, with shared traditions, remain vibrant. Even if they aren't rich in a modern sense. They are resilient. They will survive. It was once said that the Great Depression never hit rural America. That their lives didn’t feel the effect. Nothing changed for them. They supported themselves and continued to do so, on the meager production of their land and that of their neighbors. By working together they get through the good times and the bad. There is no saying whether or not I will ever leave West Virginia. We have been here four years now. We have another son now and one on the way. There is one thing for sure: If we do move, it will be to another rural conservative community—where we will know our neighbors and reach out a helping hand whenever possible. Where we have more in common with them than popular mass culture has given us. Where we can feel a part of something more than being a lowly individual in a chaotic and confusing world.

Last year, I helped organize and participate in the largest climate change protest of all time. Inspired and led by famed youth activist Greta Thunberg, the Global Climate Strike brought together millions of people around the world to loudly proclaim that our leaders aren’t doing enough to fight against the incoming horrors of human-caused climate change. In response to this outpouring, the governments of the world came together to fight this common enemy. United in their goal, the citizens and leaders of the world have since worked to end fossil fuel extraction, create unionized green jobs and restore once-wild parts of the world under the guidance of indigenous leadership. Climate change has been averted. Of course, I’m telling two truths and several lies here. Yes, I did participate in this march and, yes, I have been an organizer around issues of climate justice for many years now, but I don’t think that the Climate Strike protest—or any of the large-scale protests I’ve participated in over the last decade—have done anything to halt climate change or any of the other societal ills we’ve marched against. This is a demonstrable fact that many in the NGO-industrial complex who organize these marches will argue against, but numbers don’t lie. We have had more protests and demonstrations of all sorts in the past few years than we had in the previous decade but temperatures keep rising, resources keep being extracted and capitalism continues its death march into the rising sea.

How Effective Are Protests, Really?

I don’t blame all this on my fellow organizers or activists. For me, the ultimate blame lies with the capitalist class that profits off the death of the world and the governments who support it, tacitly or otherwise. I also don’t think the problem with demonstrations only applies to climate work. The Women’s March has boasted record numbers each year since its inception, yet at the same time, strict abortion laws have been passed in several states and protections for LGBT people— particularly trans people—have been under attack. Following the murder of George Floyd, 5,000 people marched in New York City to defund the police, only for the City Council to respond by engaging in tricky bookkeeping and shifting around $1 billion of the city budget instead. We must be honest with ourselves and critical of our tactics, strategy, and theory of change. What we are doing is not working and is, in fact, working against us. Large protest actions like the Women’s March, the People’s Climate March and the School Strikes for Climate—the type of demonstrations that have become synonymous with the Trump era—are at best ineffective, and at worst counterrevolutionary, actively harming any chance for lasting, radical change.Politics is a contest of power. Where this power comes from, and how it’s wielded, are the basis of all political philosophy. If you believe, as I do, that power resides with the working class, your job as an organizer is to educate, activate and mobilize the largest class in the world towards acting in its own best interest. Here is a (very) short course on direct action: You have tactics such as marching, boycotting, strikes, riots, occupations and so forth. You have strategy (how you choose to deploy your tactics over the long term) and you have targets (people in positions of power who can give you what you want and to whom you make demands). In good actions, tactics are aimed at an individual target, in service of a larger strategy, to get to a specific goal. If you don’t get what you want the first few times, you escalate tactics. But this very simple formula is almost entirely lacking in much of today’s spectacle-based marches.

For me, the ultimate blame lies with the capitalist class that profits off the death of the world and the governments who support it, tacitly or otherwise.

If You Could Actually Change Things by Protesting It Would Be Illegal

What I’ve found happens at large marches is that people, especially people who are new to political work, feel liberated, but what they’re really experiencing is catharsis. Catharsis is the sacrifice we offer up at the altar of protest. Whether it is the signs and speeches that proudly denounce one’s own privilege and beg to be forgiven for our original sins, or the fist raised, the chants chanted, the pictures taken of us there, we beg for catharsis. Revolution is uncomfortable, and change is uncomfortable, so we go to marches to seek comfort and some kind of release: to prove, to feel, that deep within us we really are good, and the world really is okay. We can go home after to watch TV and eat our favorite food, but now we feel good, we know we’re good because today we did something.But what did we really do?For many, protests have become a way to generally say, “I don’t like this,” or, “I do like this”—in other words, a way of making your voice heard. But making your voice heard for the sheer point of making it heard, without directing it at a particular target or making a clear demand, is the definition of navel-gazing–pure catharsis. People rightfully mocked the Instagram model who used a Black Lives Matter protest in L.A. as a backdrop for a photo op, but how many people posted essentially that same picture on their own Instagram? All this posing and posting are just talismans against appearing “unwoke,” a smear of blood over the door to show that we are amongst the chosen. Marches, protests and, yes, riots can all be effective ways of channeling and directing collective power, but they must have clear targets and clear aims. Without a unifying left-wing movement, those are difficult to come by, which leaves these demonstrations as little more than spectacle. One can easily see what the capitalist class, and the state that manages it, considers dangerous based on how they respond to perceived threats. To me, it’s very telling that the more liberal, white activists of the ‘60s and ‘70s are mostly alive and out of jail, while the anticapitalist, mostly Black activists of the same era are not just dead, but were actively spied on and monitored by the U.S. government. Today, it is the same story with (mostly) new actors. Let me make this very clear: For all the freedoms the First Amendment grants, if the U.S. government wants you to shut up, it has many tools at its disposal to do so. If you’re an activist who’s alive and speaking with a large platform right now, it’s only because the state allows it. If you go unchallenged, it’s because you aren’t challenging power to the degree that those in power see you as a legitimate threat. If marches occur without incident or arrest, it’s because those in power want it to be so, and if they want it to be so then you really must question the effectiveness of what you’re doing. If you’re not making people in power scared of—at the very least—being voted out of office, you aren’t doing your job.

If you’re not making people in power scared of—at the very least—being voted out of office, you aren’t doing your job.

We Need to Get Real About How We Protest

I’m not saying any of these repressive tactics are right. I’m merely being honest about the game we are playing. I’m pleading that instead of channeling our time, money and energy into sheer spectacle for the sake of emotional release, we instead direct it into building institutional power that can actually challenge the status quo.I don’t think hope is lost. In fact, these new waves of protests and newly activated people give me a lot of hope. But sustainable hope lies in creativity. It lies in admitting what doesn’t work and trying something new—something disruptive, something liberatory. In July, activists in New Orleans blocked the courthouse where evictions were supposed to take place. In the United States and Canada, people have blocked pipelines with their bodies. Political power can—and is—being built through strikes and organizing in the workplace. I am an activist because I believe that people, the world and reality itself are capable of change. It’s time for us to do just that.

“You are not welcome here.”These words are forever tattooed on the inside of my eyelids. Every time I close my eyes I’m reminded that I am different. That I’m an African-American pre-op transgender man.“You are not welcome here.” I hear the voice of the person who yelled it to me when I look in the mirror.It wasn’t some big, country, cis, white male wearing a MAGA hat and driving a Ford with too-big wheels, a cooler of Budweiser in the back and a gun on his hip, like how the media likes to portray bigots. It was the total opposite, someone who is supposed to love me no matter what. My mother. My Black mother.

Why am I now being hated for being me?

Voting for Trump Made Me an Outcast From My Family and the LGBTQ+ Community

I had explained to her how President Trump has my vote, and that it was her idiotic beliefs that made her say those words. I left feeling alone; a slap in the face and an empty feeling in my heart, blocked on every social media account because I support a man she thinks is racist.I turned to my second support system, an LGBTQ+ community group on Facebook. I explained everything and received the same heat. Why? Because I support a man who’s supposedly homophobic? I believe Trump has done more for the LGBTQ+ community than any president ever. I believe Trump cares about Black voices and donates his money to Black charities.Just a few hours ago everyone was happy with me. Why am I now being hated for being me? It’s true I voted for Trump the first time around and didn’t let anyone know. During Obama’s eight years, my family and I were homeless. There were no jobs, and the gas prices were high. Some nights we didn’t eat. I went to school just to get a meal, but thanks to Michelle Obama, it wasn’t enough. I was below average weight, and furious at how our leader was handling it.

I’m Black and Trans; Trump Supporters Have Embraced Me

I turned 18 just in time for the election year. I voted for Trump. He was clearly the right choice. Just because Hillary is a woman does make her fit to be president.People tend to ask me why I defend President Trump when he banned trans people from enlisting in the army. My response is that being transgender means replacing hormones, so we have mood swings and our minds are sometimes cloudy. We have to go to therapy just for the surgeries we want and have to keep going to therapy afterward to make sure we don’t have a mental breakdown. We wouldn’t be able to control our emotions, and if we get captured we would not be able to access the meds we have to take to be who we are.The news portrays Trump and his supporters as racist idiots who only want white supremacy. That's not true. My own community has for the longest time denied me over who I voted for. I am a member of a lot of Trump 2020 support groups, and I get the most love and support I have ever felt within those communities. It’s overwhelming how supportive they are, even knowing that I’m Black and transgender. All lives matter to them. Black Lives Matter is a joke and is causing racial tension in America. Defunding the police will make the U.S chaotic. Retraining police is what I believe in.President Trump is helping jobs come to America. Since he has been in office I’ve been employed, even during COVID-19. Trump is the leader we need for the next four more years to erase all the bad that Obama left. Joe Biden is not fit to be president. I believe that Trump will make the U.S.A. a better-protected place to live in, with more jobs and lower gas prices. We have a president right now who tells it like it is. I see a war happening with Biden in the office because he’s a creep and a weak human being.

The news portrays Trump and his supporters as racist idiots who only want white supremacy.

Four More Years of Trump Might Bring Us Back Together

I am proud to be an American while Trump is in office. He made promises and kept them. I believe the only reason Democrats don’t take him seriously is that Obama endorsed Hillary. If it were the other way around, there would be no problems or complaints.I have faith that President Trump will stay in office because I know there are a lot of undercover supporters like myself who finally came out due to the delusional people with COVID-19 and BLM. I can’t be the only one who sees the liberals get madder and more aggressive when they see a Trump sticker or hat—like we are up against literal babies.This is why I am voting for Trump.Hopefully, with four more years, my mother and my so-called LGBTQ+ community, which is supposed to be so supportive and open-minded, will turn around and agree with me. I am not trying by any means to change anyone's views—I’m just here to tell my story that the real hate is with the people who are against our president, Donald J. Trump.

I work in politics. I've peered behind the curtain upon the organizational and bureaucratic realities of running for office, and I've learned that you fundamentally cannot create change without money.

Campaigns Are Expensive

Ohio, the state I currently live in, use to give taxpayers $50 to make civic donations through a campaign contributions credit signed into law in 1995. This money empowered 11 million people to participate in their democracy in an often inaccessible way. The campaign contributions credit was repealed this year by a Republican supermajority, and Ohioans lost the ability to crowdfund their preferred candidates. In a political era darkened by Citizens United, dark money and corporate interests, people power matters.We will never get new, exciting candidates or representatives if we don't level the playing field for everyday citizens.Our campaign has two full-time paid staffers, one paid part-time volunteer coordinator and one paid part-time compliance specialist. We have to pay for access to bulk email services through the party every month. We pay to use a secured online fundraising platform. We pay to use a speed dialer to connect with constituents and donors as efficiently as possible. We have to pay for yard signs, door hangers, walk cards, envelopes, postcards, letters, t-shirts, buttons, media buys and volunteer resources. In total, we have spent close to $160,000 in a year. If that seems like a lot of money, keep in mind that the average winning congressional campaign spent $1.3 million in 2018. Our opponent currently has just over $1 million cash on hand. We are trying to be as economical as we can with our grassroots budget, and with that comes limitations.

How Money Corrupts American Politics

Like many, I worked from home during the first few months of COVID-19. In my job, I create all of our digital and written content. In a time without volunteer organizing, fundraising events and community outreach, my responsibilities were significantly reduced. I'm lucky to have held onto my job through the beginning of the crisis and the ensuing depression. My team had me spend my time, instead, on fundraising. In March, April and May, I spent 40 hours a week on the phone asking for political contributions, along with the campaign manager and candidate of the campaign. Together we spent 360 hours trying to convince people they should invest in our success.It sucked.Our district's median income falls well below the national average, so our fundraising opportunities are limited in-district and in-state. I had a few devastating conversations while making contribution calls in Ohio. People would apologize because they couldn't make a contribution while their business was closed. An old woman who loves our campaign told me she can't afford to help on her fixed income. Justifiably, one man was livid at a solicitation for money when he had just enrolled in unemployment. Across the state, people couldn't believe that their representatives and leaders were failing them so egregiously: To many, we don't have a system worth financially supporting.We had to change our fundraising strategy if we wanted to run a competitive election, so we outsourced our asks.Nearly all of our highest donors come from New York and California. New York has 27 representatives, California 53. Not only do these states have enormous power in Congress, but constituents also have the money to fund their candidates—centralizing power in our political system. We called these states chasing dollars and begging people to care about rural Ohio.Ultimately, we had to rely on out-of-state money to get through the summer and create a fully operational campaign.

We deserve better leadership.

The Role of Money in Politics Needs to Change

Everyone is suffering right now. Campaigns are expensive. We deserve better leadership. The only solution I can imagine for a district like this is much more extensive than a single tax credit. We need publicly funded elections, or the people will always be too economically disenfranchised to make a difference in their political landscape. This needs to happen at the federal level because I know Ohio can't be the only state where first-time candidates have to claw their way up Everest to make it onto the ballot. We can't change the needs of a campaign, but we can level the playing field.

It’s hard to get hard for Joe Biden. While, in my opinion, any Democratic presidency would be better than Trump’s, he often seems like a watered-down version of Barack Obama—without the charisma or honor of being the first Black president. So, at first glance, it came as a welcome relief when Biden selected Kamala Harris, a Senator from California and a woman of color, as his vice-presidential candidate. However, for sex workers and their allies, the vibe went from hope to nope upon an investigation of Harris’s record on sex work. As a freelance sex writer who has dabbled in sex work on the side (what, you think any writer without a trust fund hasn’t?), I find the pair’s views on sex work not only outdated but a depressing reminder that from drug policy to prostitution, these two are as old school as the pass Uncle Joe gets on his groping. While that may be no surprise for an old, white man, when the sex worker community saw Harris, we expected more. But yet, when Harris was District Attorney of San Francisco, from 2004 to 2011, she built the foundation for her anti-sex worker reputation. As Rolling Stone reported, in 2008, she strongly opposed Prop K, a ballot measure created to decriminalize prostitution in San Francisco. She went so far as to call it “completely ridiculous,” while asserting that it rolled out “a welcome mat out for pimps and prostitutes to come on into San Francisco.”

Sex Workers Don’t Trust Kamala Harris and for Good Reason

During her time as Attorney General of California, from 2011 to 2017, she declared war on Backpage.com, arguing that it was a hub for sex trafficking. While some shady business went down on Backpage, it was, by and large, a safe space for sex workers to not only obtain work but vet clients. Backpage’s closure didn’t do much to stop sex trafficking, but it did cost many sex workers much of their livelihood and force them onto the streets where it’s much more dangerous and difficult to vet a client. “We really do want to protect child trafficking,” says my friend and digital performer and educational sex worker Daya Dare. “We just need a solution that doesn’t conflate both things.” Dare and I met during an online sex party during COVID, during which we were both paid to perform. As any sort of in-person work is becoming few and far between, digital platforms offer hope not just for friendship but for paid opportunities—if the government will allow it. Most recently, as a United States Senator from California, she co-sponsored the infamous FOSTA-SESTA anti-sex trafficking legislation, which once again, did little to curb actual sex trafficking but put sex workers across the country out of work and at risk by holding websites responsible for third-party ads. The bill is one of the greatest attacks on free speech in the online era. “It feels like a betrayal from a woman, and especially a woman of color, but there’s something there that does give me hope,” Dare says. “Maybe she’ll never change, but a woman of color is more open or has the potential to listen to other women of color.”

Some sex workers even prefer Trump.

Kamala Harris on Sex Workers in 2019

Recent comments suggest that Harris’s stance has evolved. In a 2019 interview with The Root, when asked if sex work should be decriminalized, she replied, “I think so. I do.” While “I think so” is a better response to sex work decriminalization than “completely ridiculous,” it’s far from ideal. Whether you’re asking someone if they want to go on a date, work with you or decriminalize sex work “I think so” isn’t exactly an enthusiastic “yes.” The assumption is that should a Biden/Harris administration take on sex work decriminalization, it would likely be partial decriminalization, otherwise known as the Nordic model (because it’s practiced in Nordic countries). This approach criminalizes Johns, those who buy sex, but not sex workers who sell it. So, while a reduction in sex worker arrests would be fantastic, is it even decriminalization if it strips them of their livelihood? “I wouldn’t exist without my clients,” Dare says. Some sex workers even prefer Trump. “I think it comes down to this: Trump has been a sugar daddy and client (not of mine, in general) for years,” says Alice, a sex worker who wishes to remain anonymous. “Biden and Harris are hypocrites who have put millions of sex workers and minorities in prison and will not get my vote.”

Harris Has Shown She’s at Least Willing to Listen, and That’s a Start

However, regardless of Trump’s personal life, it’s clear that he’s willing to sell out to his right, Christian base. And, if we’re directly comparing vice-presidential candidates, let us not forget that Mike Pence is a conservative Christian true believer suspected of even supporting conversion therapy. Dare is right: While one can picture Harris sitting down with sex workers, POC and members of LGBTQ+ community to discuss decriminalization, her Republican counterpart won’t even have dinner alone with a woman who isn’t his wife. “The first thing we have to think about is: Do we want to continue on the path that we’re on or do we want to take a risk? Although she’s in an extreme position of power, having a Democrat in that position means we are in a better place to align the rest of Congress. That should be priority one,” Dare says. I agree. Biden/Harris isn’t ideal for a Democratic ticket. But by looking at all of the evidence, they are more open to listening to public opinion, which means that sex workers and their allies must continue to fight at a grassroots level. A simple walk down the block, filled with closed businesses, discarded face masks and an uptick in homelessness show quite tangibly the Trump administration has failed. It’s even worse than we could have imagined and we must use the next few months to get him the hell out.

I was a college sophomore when I won an award for my academic greatness. Funny thing about the word sophomore: It derives from the Greek words for “wise” and “fool.” That night, to celebrate, I got together with some friends, chugged a 24-ounce Four Loko, and blacked out. When my vision cleared up I was still drunk in the ER with my teary-eyed parents. As I drifted back into unconsciousness, I thought to myself: “This what rock bottom feels like.”The sunlight pouring into my hospital room woke me up the next morning. A doctor stared at me from the foot of the bed. His face was long and tired. He already knew the news that showed how foolish I was to think I’d yet hit bottom.“When your mother carried you in,” he told me, “you had a blood alcohol content of 0.30. Now that you have fluids, you don’t have to worry about that. We still need to keep you for more testing because some of your results weren’t good. While you were out we performed a CT scan of your brain, and we noticed that a growth at the fourth ventricle has caused you to form hydrocephalus.”

They Took Out the Tumor, but the Tumor Was Part of Me

Funny thing about the word hydrocephalus: It also has Greek origins. Its translation, “water on the brain,” is apt. Think of it like this: Vienna naturally floods, but global warming has raised water levels and is now destroying the city’s infrastructure. In my head, a tumor causes the water levels to rise, which mashes my brain tissue. The pressure is so intense that when babies get hydrocephalus, the water bulges through their underdeveloped skulls.Unlike global warming, my problem couldn’t be ignored. Two surgeries, 28 rounds of radiation, over a month as an inpatient, two haircuts, three broken friendships and one employment termination can really change a person.When I awoke from my first brain surgery, equipment taped to various parts of my body blinked and pinged. I saw my mother and smiled.“Today is a good day,” I said.“Yes, it is, sweetheart,” my mom said.At my bedside, I saw a cup of water. I had been in surgery for five hours, and even though it felt like 30 seconds to me, I knew I deserved to treat myself. I reached for the cup, assuming that I still knew how to grab it. Instead, my hand shot in front of me and knocked it over, spilling water everywhere. That’s how I found out I’d lost most of the motor skills on the left side of my body, my dominant side.I needed to relearn how to walk, eat and write. It took two months working at it to see improvement, but I was never the same. I could always feel the tugging of scar tissue in the back of my head, reminding me that one night, while I slept, a strange man came into my house and stole things. Things like plants growing by the windowsill. Things like ash in the fireplace, or ants on the ground. To others, he took something that needed to go. To them he took, as a biopsy stated, “a WHO grade II ependymoma,” or in more general terms, a cancerous brain tumor. Even though I didn’t know I had this mass for most of the time it was inside of me, I missed it when it was gone. I felt like I lost a part of myself.I despised my surgeon. This man who had apparently saved my life had no remorse for what he took. What if, wrapped up in that pesky mass, was hope? My self-esteem? Sensation in the left side of my body? Is that why I no longer felt any of these things? I spent a long time limping around with my numb left leg, expecting it to suddenly feel the floor under my feet or the engagement of my leg muscles. I spent an even longer time waiting for everything to become normal again, waiting to feel beautiful again, only to remain stuck in this ugly, scarred-up, weak form. That bastard did this to me.

Two surgeries, 28 rounds of radiation, a month as an inpatient, two haircuts, three broken friendships and an employment termination can really change a person.

You Can Lose Everything but the Very Toughest Parts of Yourself

I went back to college and was miserable. Class was unbearable. My professors pissed me off. I was friends with white girls who felt comfortable unironically saying the N-word to me in private. And my head pounded constantly. I spent most of my days in bed.Thoughts of death followed me everywhere. I would watch a clock tick and wonder how many people in the world at that very moment were taking their last breath. I saw children playing in the street and wondered whether tumors already were growing inside them.I desperately wanted a mentor. I looked to my mother, but she kept crying at the thought of having almost lost her child. I looked to my friends, but they thought they were invincible and stared blankly when I told them my fears. I looked to professors, but I knew more about my pain than they ever could. At last, I closed my eyes and saw the one thing I assumed no one would take from me, the back of my eyelids. I felt my eyes, tired and bloodshot from sleepless nights, relax under the gentle caress of their protectors. And I realized, in my gratitude for their service, that my assumption was flawed. When it comes to loss, everything is fair game.People tell me that if they were in my shoes, they’d kill themselves. It makes me smile every time. I know I'm a wiser person for having suffered through what I’ve been through. I conquered something. I’m a dragon slayer.Today, I walk down a busy street on a typical evening. I hear the artificial wind of cars speeding past in such a hurry to get home from the daily grind that they clobber potholes in the road ahead. I see friends stumbling together outside the neighborhood bar. I see homeless men picking through garbage, and men in hoodies standing with their backs to the wall of a dark alley. As the sun sets and twilight closes the day, I look down to the pavement and see our shadows, stretching out on the sidewalk, beginning to fade into night.

Between the worn marble floors and tremulous light of a New York courthouse, I found myself at the American epicenter of a nascent, global pandemic. It was March 3 when I—a New York resident, Arizona native and practicing attorney—learned that I’d come face-to-face with New York’s newly identified patient zero in court.Luckily, my quarantine expired without incident before New York even closed. When New York and its court system did close, I retired willingly. As a card-carrying introvert with a hefty reserve of snacks, I anticipated navigating working from home with not only comfort but unique aplomb. Being a homebody meant I could cut my own hair, sew my own masks and repair my own doorknob. I was perfectly content to rewatch episodes of Arrested Development and Monk ad nauseam. By April, though, I found myself fleeing the tristate ghost town for Arizona.

Two States, Two Wildly Different Approaches to the Pandemic

Arizona and New York have always been antipodes to me, the opposing poles of my existential compass. Both are “home” to me, but the two states are as distant culturally as they are geographically. Unlike New York, Arizona is a red state (though purple has begun to bloom around metropolitan centers), with a conservatism born of the confluence of Wild West mythology and Hollywood run-off. In recent months, it was Arizona that assumed the dubious distinction of the epicenter of the COVID-19 epidemic, surpassing not only all other states, but all other countries in new daily cases. And both states’ responses were aligned with their distinct cultures. New York had given advance warning and a decisive policy roadmap to flattening the curve ahead of predictions. Arizona remained laissez-faire. Life in New York City is fast-paced, densely populated and anonymous, but it’s also a city that requires cooperation, and one that is not new to navigating emergencies. Promptly after that first COVID-19 diagnosis, New York began taking serious preemptive measures—measures so serious that they inverted, by necessity, the city’s identifying characteristics. New York City was empty and unified in quiet obedience. Effecting such a drastic pivot was no small feat, especially with no COVID blueprint in existence. In the early, relatively halcyon days of New York’s lockdown, I diligently set alarms early to maintain my regular routine: shower, don nicer loungewear and make myself a coffee with Carnation Instant Breakfast. We were the great, unflappable masses. On the ground, it felt the way my grandmother had described living in Brooklyn, just two miles from my current apartment, during World War II. Where strangers had once moved at a brusque clip, there was now a community united against a common enemy. Sure, you risked a tongue-lashing if you disobeyed mask mandates or the six-foot spacing stickers on subway platforms, but it was okay. Neighbors you wouldn’t have glanced at last month now squinted a smile from under their mask and respectfully crossed the street to create social distance.

Arizona and New York have always been antipodes to me, the opposing poles of my existential compass.

I Had to Leave New York Because of the Pandemic; Arizona Wasn’t the Utopia I Imagined

Ultimately, New York’s efficiency meant that this war was fought in isolation. While my city was showing its fortitude, my own was fading. By early April, I found myself still languishing in bed, snoozing alarms and working by phone at the hour of the governor’s 11 a.m. conferences. Then I started staying once they’d ended. At some point, while enjoying what I thought was a therapeutic warm-water soak, I had become a boiled frog. With my heart in a sling, I defected from the simmering hotspot and, in one blink of an amphibian eye, I was in Phoenix.The cultural sense of isolation in Arizona is a mirror image of that in New York. Neighbors are chummy, but empty desert sprawls for miles at a stretch. In April, the Southwest had already shaken the chilly weather that still clung to New York, but Arizona’s famous heat hadn’t hit yet. COVID hadn’t really, either. I spent my free hours basking on the warm brick of a real backyard, or walking the path beside the irrigation canal, while a salmon sun yielded to crisp constellations. “Shelter” went from a command to a reprieve.Alas, like every utopia, this place existed only in theory. COVID-19’s arrival marked little difference in everyday life. Before going to work at the Phoenix VA Hospital, my mom, a doctor (and my asthmatic, 60-year-old only surviving parent), marveled that as far as public health policy went, Arizona had “all the answers to the test but was still failing.” Arizona didn’t prepare adequate PPE, testing or contact tracing. New York was blazing an effective policy trail ahead of Arizona, and the latter carried the added benefits of a smaller, distributed population without dependence on public transit. But in the vacuum left by the Trump administration’s policy, Arizona’s majority-Republican government refrained from early, consistent leadership. Arizona was late to close, and early and arbitrary in reopening. (The entire state was opening before mid-May when New York lifted its lockdown.) There has yet to be a statewide mask mandate, leaving local Democratic leaders to enforce citywide mandates against polarized constituents.

While my city was showing its fortitude, my own was fading.

COVID-19 Brought Arizona’s Social Problems to the Surface

Before COVID, the Arizona where my heart and voter registration lie bore many blights on its sociopolitical record. It’s infamous for political scandals that bear a patina of the absurd. The headlines Arizona made during recent Black Lives Matter protests were about YouTuber Jake Paul and his rich, white, male cronies using a demonstration as an excuse to loot Fashion Square Mall. Underneath the dark comedy, as always, were the concerning priorities Governor Doug Ducey showed in his swift institution of a curfew, while resisting closures to protect constituents from the much greater threat of COVID-19. Arizona’s status quo is riddled with displays of spring-loaded righteousness which, in an apolitical context, might be funny. The state brought this flair to its battle with COVID-19. For example, a patient was turned away from my mom’s clinic after coming in with his mask around his neck, then responding to requests to wear it properly by putting it on top of his head and cursing out the staff. Shortly after my cousin returned to work at REI (assuming the added enforcement role into which many have been forced), he was confronted by a customer who strode in wearing, over his entire head, that orange plastic netting used to bag clementines. Before retreating, the customer smugly rotated the bag so the label reading “Cuties” covered his mouth. In many ways, New York and Arizona’s different approaches were extensions of their distinct identities. Navigating the gulf between them will always cause some culture shock. When I returned to New York upon the courts’ eventual opening, I made the usual, mundane adjustments. On a walk to the bodega, my outgoing tenant—to whom I’d sublet my home at a quarter of the rental price, due to an affliction I’ve termed “Stuck-Home Syndrome”—asked why I was now saying “hello” aloud to all the passersby. Of course, neither Arizona’s friendly streets nor New York’s grace-under-pressure is a panacea. I would not be surprised if others were left privately reeling from the city’s effective public health policy. Though as someone who loves Arizona, and has watched its government’s avoidable fumbles with dismay, I wish my first home would loosen the reins on that “outlaw spirit.” For now, at least, our lives depend on it.

The story of how I wound up in rehab for addiction to Adderall and alcohol at 19 starts when I was a high school freshman. Through my first three years of high school, for some reason, college never crossed my mind. My parents never talked about it, no teachers—nobody. My grades became an afterthought. Senior year I made a new best friend who was consumed with getting into a good school, and I became a straight-A student. But by then it was too late. The three previous years of bad grades torpedoed my chances of getting in anywhere. After graduation, I partied like everyone else. Going to beach week with my friends—it was a blast. Then the summer ended. My friends went away to college and mostly forgot about me. I felt lost, hopeless and low.I enrolled in community college. In class, I met some girls who, like me, had their own issues that landed them in the community college predicament. We started partying a good amount. I was drinking like a fish and smoking pot while trying to go to school and work. To boot, I was living with my parents, who are heavy drinkers.My sister, in her senior year of high school, was taking Adderall to treat her ADHD. I told her I had been having trouble focusing, so she let me try one. After feeling so down on myself, getting high felt euphoric. I got hooked. For all of 2010, I was on massive amounts of Adderall, alcohol, weed and even designer drugs. Finally, I had a manic episode. My parents took me to the hospital. I stayed ten days in the psych ward. A month later I was back. I went to a rehab home with a bunch of other women for about a month. I got out just before Christmas, emotionally fragile and scared. At my grandparents’ house on Christmas morning, my grandmother struck up the idea of me staying with them for a while.She must have known, as I did, that if I went home I would fall back into a dark place. I told her yes without even thinking twice. I was so relieved. Her generosity would lead to one of the most pivotal times of my life.

Her generosity would lead to one of the most pivotal times of my life.

I Wasn’t the First Person My Grandparents Helped

My grandparents were already known for taking people into their home. My grandfather was in the Air Force, which gave them some means and stability. My grandmother simply had a heart of gold. Together they felt it was their duty to help those in need. They had one biological son before they adopted my mother as a baby, then two more daughters after, all while taking in foster children for various periods of time. Even after my mom and her siblings moved out, my grandparents continued to take in people who needed help getting on their feet.That they embraced me was no surprise. But in hindsight, I was not an easy case. The previous year had shaken me. Thinking back now, I remember how much their home and their routine did to bring order to my chaotic life.My room at their place had a huge bed with a view of the sleepy, tree-lined street, and a full bookshelf for me to read through during my stay. Every morning I’d wake up, make a cup of coffee, and join them under the high ceilings of their living room. There, with sunshine pouring in through big windows, my grandparents would sit listening to classical music on low volume while reading The Washington Post.After breakfast, my grandpa would go to work as a professor, and I’d hang around with my grandmother, a retired librarian who enjoyed the company. She wanted to help me in any way she could. Some mornings I just sat and cried while she listened. Other days I would help her grocery shop, or she would take me to her volunteer gigs. We genuinely made each other’s days more fulfilling. It was the first time I felt completely cared for, genuinely seen.That safe space helped me learn how to live a stable life. I organized my tasks. I went to drug education classes per my post-rehab instructions, took a few community college classes, went to therapy and did a little babysitting. I had relatives nearby whom I visited. My grandparents let me borrow their extra car to do all that, which was nice. But I also spent a lot of time relaxing and reflecting. Most nights my grandma would make dinner, then we’d all watch the nightly news and a British series like Doc Martin on PBS. I would head to bed to read a bit before dozing off.I’d never known life could seem so peaceful. It’s not as if I had a terrible childhood, but I realize now I was always stressed. My parents married young. They had me immediately, and then, not even a year later, had my sister. They owned a business and always bickered about money. I grew to be a quiet, introverted kid, and going to school, being around tons of people, wore on me. Between school, home and trying to be social, I never felt able to truly relax. I was forever in fight-or-flight.My grandmother’s kindness changed all that. I finally had several months of reprieve. The question became: What would I do with it?

I now know how to recover from anything and come back to a grounded space.

With so few distractions, I finally had a clear head to chart my next steps in life. My grandparents showed me that I could have a healthy, successful life despite my past troubles. That optimism let me gather myself. The following summer my sister and I helped to nanny our cousins in London. I came home, soon went away to college, and met my now-fiancé. Looking back, I see my grandmother helped me dig out from rock bottom. I now know how to recover from anything and come back to a grounded space. My grandparents introduced me to a version of myself I can turn to in tough times.Two years ago, breast cancer took my grandmother. Before she passed, I sat at her bedside. I held her hand as we reminisced about trips we’d taken together when my sister and I were kids, driving through New England and visiting art museums in D.C. She was always opening our worlds to culture and showing us how to live full lives.Her kindness was her superpower. And her memory now anchors my happiness. It will for the rest of my life.

I left the United States for the last time in May of 2017. Donald Trump had been the president for just over four months, and I hadn’t personally felt the effects of his rule. I traveled through Europe and Southeast Asia before landing in Australia and decided to settle here, leaving behind what I thought was my sleepy, boring home country.I am a white, cisgender female, and an American citizen living abroad. I was raised in the Deep South of rural Tennessee in the middle of the Bible Belt and Tornado Alley, right along the New Madrid fault line. I wasn’t raised to be a racist, but I also wasn't taught that racist policies and mindsets were so indoctrinated in us that racism and racist people would be unavoidable. Am I the perfect ally? No. Am I as “woke” as I’d like to be? Also, no. Am I actively educating myself and learning how to be a better antiracist? Yes.So, on May 25, 2020, a world away, I watched as people began to flood the streets of Minneapolis and other cities across the country that I once called home. The Black Lives Matter movement was experiencing a revival. George Floyd had been murdered, and that had created a resurgence of support from across the nation and then across the globe.I felt sadness for their losses, anger for their unanswered calls for justice and shame because I could not be there to march with them. Right now there are more U.S. citizens living abroad than ever before. Expat American citizens like me are watching the political and civil unrest that’s happening, and the unraveling of the country that we once called home—but we aren’t there to participate.We are on the outside looking in. So, what do we see? What can we do to answer the desperate call for change that we are witnessing? Because, once again, a movement has been ignited by the unjust taking of a Black man’s life, and we cannot stand idly by.

We See a Country Divided

Social media has been a way for expats to stay connected to home and loved ones stateside, but what else do Facebook and Twitter contribute? Murky political opinions and reposted hyperpartisan headlines flood our timelines. Lines of division are drawn between the feelings of citizens on U.S. soil and the outlooks of those of us who aren’t. Instead of building political camaraderie around racist policy, differing views of the same scene seem to be building a proverbial wall between us.Clearly, the United States is a country divided. So why are its citizens fueling the fire with pejorative words? These hateful, misguided and ill-informed posts on our social media pages are doing no good for our causes.Partisan-driven headlines, biased coverage and political propaganda are nothing new. The dividing line between news and opinion in media has become larger and greyer. This bias has been exacerbated by things like social media, the freedom of idea exchanges and the 24-hour news cycle. If we know this to be true, why do Americans continue to reach out to these undoubtedly prejudiced outlets for our news?

Posting a black tile on your Instagram is just not enough.

We See People Desperate for Change

I can’t imagine that there is a single U.S. citizen out there who doesn’t feel that something—or many things—need to change at home. Maybe you plan to vote for Donald Trump in the hope that he can bring an end to the looting in the streets. Maybe you plan to vote for Joe Biden so we can see a change in racial inequity and systemic social issues.We all agree that change is needed and inevitable, so why can’t we see that devaluing someone’s principles and beliefs, and demeaning them as people, is not the way to increase the value of our own principles and beliefs? With ignorance and hate, we cannot and will not lift them up to what may be, in our opinion, some state of enlightened knowledge or pure good intention.Thousands of people are marching, professional athletes are kneeling, hashtags are amassing, yet the progress is at all but a standstill. Political party affiliation has become more important to us than any moral issue. Many Republicans refuse to acknowledge the quite obvious need for systemic revolution. Democrats are participating, but are they taking any action to implement the policies and institutions that so clearly need to be fixed? Posting a black tile on your Instagram is just not enough. The condescension of a political party, as a whole, is not paving the road to compromise and societal advancement. Republicans are calling for an end to riots, yet refuse to kindly take a seat at the table to understand or learn what these people are fighting for.If we are all so desperate, then why are we still unable to find some common ground?

We See a Country That’s Unwilling to Learn

Traveling the world and living abroad has given me an alternative lens from which I can view the world and my place in it. It is a lens that I am immensely appreciative of. From this lens, I could see how small I was, but also how great of an impact one small person can make on another.In Laos, there was an older lady selling soup on the streets of the village who would always remember my name and reach out to me when I needed a helping hand. I could see how the United States was only one piece of this giant puzzle.Social media and the 24-hour news cycle have presented us with an opportunity to develop, but has that really done us any good? They’ve given us the ability to freely engage and exchange ideas from thousands of miles away and enabled us to create open forums of discussion. But, are we better off, or any closer to cooperation, because of it?Instead of holding salons or informative town halls, we knowingly reach directly into the politically driven arms of Fox News and MSNBC. Maybe we are hoping they’ll give us the comfort of a like mind or a safe space for our ideas. Conservative people must agree with the more conservative-leaning party, no matter how much that may divide us, right?The term “racist” has become an all-encompassing word that puts a person in this very specific box. Instead of calling out someone’s actions as racist actions, or their policies as policies based on racism, we are defining the human being as completely racist. If all of the people are either racist or not racist, then is there any room for growth or evolution? It seems as if every citizen is on guard with their hands up ready to block being called a racist instead of taking the hands of one another to understand the history of racist policy and our responsibility to make amends.So, I am calling on all Americans for action.

The time to be silent is far past us. The time to vote is here.

We See a Country That Needs to Evolve or Perish

The time to be silent is far past us. The time to vote is here. Citizens of all races, religions, economic backgrounds and genders have marched and fought for our right to vote. It is our duty, and our privilege, to see it through and to make our vote count this November.Single-issue voting is no longer a viable option. We must do our research. We must watch rallies and debates and choose the candidate whose views align the most with progress and equity for all Americans. We must listen to the voices of those pleading for change and equal opportunity.Americans abroad can no longer be silent. We may be distant, but we may not be disconnected. Our country and our people need us. Our voice and our vote matter. No matter how difficult, or how inconvenient, we must mail our absentee ballots and encourage and educate others to do so too. Citizens that are holding the fort on U.S. soil must reach out to their supervisors of elections, mail-in vote when possible and inspire your circle to do so as well. Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians and all others must put down the weapons and the hate speech, and come together to vote for the sake of our citizens and our democracy.

Some of my earliest childhood memories were formed in a deer stand with my dad. I was the second daughter, a tomboy who would rise enthusiastically hours before the sun peeked over the horizon, don my warmest layers and baggiest camouflage, and trek into the woods carrying a backpack—holding our extra gloves and binoculars—that was too big for me. There was a rhythm to our routine. I would quietly crawl up into the stand and my dad would follow with the rifle carefully secured over his shoulder. I can still picture him delicately maneuvering the gun—a .30-06 that was far too big for me to manage—to rest on his lap with the barrel on the edge of the window that overlooked an open field.“I’ll click the safety off when we see something,” he would whisper, taking every available opportunity to teach me the rules and the gravity of the weapon that was in front of me. Braving the cold in those uncomfortable fold-out chairs, I learned the significance of the molded and tempered metal and plastic that accompanied us on trips to the deer stand. It was a weapon that could kill. It was powerful and to be respected, but not feared. I grew and learned, but guns were a normal part of life for me for most of my formative years.It wasn’t until I left my rural hometown for college that I learned my norms weren’t everyone’s. My first reality check was learning that my freshman roommate had never even seen a gun outside of TV and movies. It was a significant and confusing departure from my experiences growing up in a place where people got in trouble at school for skipping on the opening day of hunting season. The reality checks kept coming as I found a new home in the often liberal circles of academia and started a career in hard science. My views on guns felt very taboo when I was with my colleagues, and I found myself questioning part of my worldview. These weapons that had come to represent safety, security and personal liberty for me, but represented death and destruction for many others. I struggled to make sense of their polarizing nature. How do you balance these equally valid competing realities?

I Carry a Gun Because Our Society Doesn’t Protect Women

I have always been fiercely independent, a child who refused help from my parents and told them, “I can do it!” That self-determined child grew into a woman who didn’t want to depend on others for things she was perfectly capable of—such as self-defense. When I moved to another state for grad school as a single woman, I wanted to feel safe in my own home. In a perfect world, I wouldn’t even have to consider my own vulnerability or weigh my options for self-defense, but even now, as women gain ground in our society, the looming threat of violence from men still persists. Everyday tasks like running to the store at night or stopping for gas in an unfamiliar place are still dangerous for me. So based on my experience growing up around guns, and my desire to keep myself safe in an unsafe world, I made the decision to get a concealed carry permit.It wasn’t a decision I took lightly. I weighed the pros and cons and decided it was what was best for me. With my decision to own and carry a gun came the responsibility of staying practiced and knowing my weapon inside out. I ignored all of the prompting by men in gun shops to go for the tiny pink gun and did my own digging for something that would work for me. Once I found it, I spent time taking it apart and putting it back together, learning each piece’s function and the safest way to handle it. I practiced with it regularly (and still do), making sure I was as comfortable as possible with my gun should the need to use it ever arise. I did my best to be a model gun owner, knowing the very thought of individual gun ownership is terrifying to many, often with good reason.

Responsible Gun Ownership Begins With Sensible Gun Control Policies

Not every gun owner and concealed carrier take these steps. Many view their Second Amendment rights as sacrosanct and consider any additional hoops to jump through or responsibilities that are tacked on as unconstitutional. So I found myself grouped together with people who shared my view on the right to gun ownership but don’t share my views on gun owners’ responsibilities. I’ve spent a lifetime learning gun safety. I can still hear my dad’s voice telling me “every gun is loaded” or “only put your finger on the trigger when you’re ready to do business.” I spent years learning how to safely own and operate firearms, so taking a test to prove that I have those skills is no skin off my nose. In fact, it makes me feel safer knowing my fellow gun owners are getting the same lessons. It isn’t a bother to get a background check before purchasing a gun because it ensures that I’m doing so lawfully—a very basic and necessary hurdle I am happy to clear if it means guns will stay out of the hands of people with violent criminal histories. These common-sense proposals seem entirely reasonable to me as a gun owner, and I feel no less free for them existing. If making the process of buying a gun and having a license to carry a bit more onerous could save lives, wouldn’t the extra work be worth it?Many folks say no. The NRA and other absolutist 2A groups have fought tooth and nail against such proposals, claiming they’re the first step down a slippery slope of gun-grabbing to be perpetrated by the liberty-hating left. Indeed, the fear that left-leaning groups are out to take our guns has been the cornerstone of the NRA’s business model for many years. They stoke the flames of division over the right to bear arms and refuse to engage ideas or proposals that could lead to mutually agreeable compromises. And so far, it’s worked for them. But the writing is on the wall and has been for some time. A majority of people are now in favor of stricter gun regulations, and the will to push for them will soon follow suit. With the realization that better infrastructure and stricter policies could have prevented some of the worst atrocities in recent history comes a tide of justified anger over what is being allowed to happen in the name of the Second Amendment. Without a bend, there will eventually be a break. Organizations like the NRA being at the forefront of Second Amendment advocacy help run the risk of strong-arming our way into laws that go beyond the modest compromises that are being asked of at present.

While I may not be the stereotypical gun owner, I am one nonetheless, and I believe I represent a growing contingent of us who are willing to bend to avoid a break.

We Need to Build a Big Tent for American Gun Owners

Effective leadership and advocacy groups are not composed of narrow and extreme portions of their base but rather represent the diversity of the people they represent. The most prominent gun advocacy groups cater to a very white and very male base, but that is not the extent of gun ownership demographics in this country. Black gun ownership has surged in recent years, with a large bump after the election of Donald Trump as president. More and more Black citizens are feeling the same need for autonomy in self-defense that I felt when I set out on my own into a world that didn’t feel safe for me. As the prevalence of racially-motivated violence escalates, one would think groups like the NRA would jump at the opportunity to expand support for the right to defend yourself and your property. But the NRA has ostensibly rejected the idea of a bigger tent and has repeatedly refused to extend a hand to the Black community.When Philando Castile was shot dead by a police officer in front of his family for saying he had a legal firearm in his car, the NRA was notably silent. The self-proclaimed defenders of Second Amendment rights had nothing to say when a Black man was murdered for exercising them. When plainclothes police officers entered the home of the sleeping Breonna Taylor and Kenneth Walker in the middle of the night to execute a no-knock warrant (at the wrong house), Walker grabbed his legally owned firearm in self-defense. He fired a single shot at the men he validly presumed to be home invaders, and they fired over twenty. Eight of those shots hit and killed Taylor as she lay in her bed, but Walker was the only one who was sent away in handcuffs to spend more than two months in prison for attempting to defend himself and his girlfriend. The NRA was silent. More recently, when a St. Louis couple illegally brandished their weapons at Black Lives Matter protestors, breaking many of the fundamental rules of gun safety in the process, prominent 2A advocates were chomping at the bit to defend them. Former NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch went on Tucker Carlson to proclaim that they’d done nothing wrong, and even went so far as to interview the couple on her own radio show. These words and actions make it clear that the NRA is only interested in defending the rights of some—but for the right to bear arms to survive, 2A advocacy has to defend the rights of all.Everyone who makes the decision to own a firearm should feel they are represented and know they will be advocated for should their rights ever be infringed upon. Advocacy for these rights should incorporate advocacy for responsibility. Teaching people to be conscientious gun owners would lend credibility to advocates and give them leverage in the ever-changing back and forth over gun laws. Presenting our case in a mature and thoughtful way that emphasizes personal liberty paired with personal responsibility rather than the current “own the libs” strategy employed by many would go a long way in fostering understanding and respect between this debate’s opposing sides. While I may not be the stereotypical gun owner, I am one nonetheless, and I believe I represent a growing contingent of us who are willing to bend to avoid a break. My experiences have made me believe firmly in my right to bear arms, but they’ve also taught me the promise of meeting halfway. For these “inalienable rights” to persist, we must modify the current path of gun advocacy to be more inclusive and more representative of the people who need to be advocated for. From the young girl who was too small to hold her dad’s hunting rifle to the grown woman who loves an afternoon at the range, I have learned that the most productive way forward on this issue is through the middle.

The wealthy businessman sat across the wide, polished table from the high-ranking Trump appointee with a strange expression on his face: cautious, keen and hungry.That’s right, he said. Many of the world’s most precious metals. And, for the United States, key strategic minerals.It was just another D.C. meeting, squeezed between more meetings, like a thousand before and a thousand to come. Late-afternoon sun gleamed into the room, which was furnished with pomp: crown molding, gold-leaf foil, historic photos framed on the walls. An American flag stood near the window, glowing.But something felt different. From a couch in the corner, I underlined those words in my notes: strategic minerals.

What Is a Civil Servant, Exactly?

I’m a civil servant—which just means I’m a permanent government employee, serving whichever presidential administration gets elected. The vast majority of the federal workforce is made up of civil servant positions, managed by a thin layer of political appointees. In January 2017, we didn’t leave; we just got new bosses. Most of the Trump appointees I’ve worked with are good and hard-working people—but with some of them, I’m just not sure. The Trump administration has pulled in a lot of people who’ve never worked in government, including many from the private sector. Some just seem unfamiliar with or uninterested in the finer details of public service.The wealthy businessman leaned forward, planting elbows on the table, fingers tented. He looked intently at the high-ranking Trump appointee, eyes wide and hungry.So I thought, he said, wouldn’t it be nice? For those assets…to be owned by an American?He raised his eyebrows and opened his hands, as if an invisible world bloomed between his fingers.Better us than China, he said, right?I underlined that, too: China.

In Trump’s Government, There Are Meetings That Shouldn’t Even Happen

Just by being here, the businessman was taking some risks. Meeting with the government, asking these questions, poking around these bureau drawers. But he was focused on rewards, not risks. The Trump appointee straightened.Hmm, he said. That’s all very interesting.Whatever it was, the businessman’s idea wasn’t very complicated. For years, a group of corrupt, rich foreigners operated some corrupt, lucrative companies that owned mining rights in corrupt, poor countries. But now the U.S. government—across several agencies, in powerful symphony—was cornering the group. After years in the shadows, they were finally feeling the cold, searing light of American justice.Which was well and good, but the businessman’s idea was: What about the mines? These were natural resources that ended up in cars, smartphones and weapons; they were some of the rarest and most valuable stuff on Earth. Why couldn’t an American—why couldn’t this very businessman—simply acquire the mining rights from the group of corrupt, rich foreigners?Money wasn’t the problem; with assets like these, for a businessman like this, money was no issue. The problem, plainly, was American justice: Buying mines from corrupt criminals was not exactly, well, standard practice. But of course—these days, in this city, nothing was.

Often, My Job Was to Take Notes. Not Today.

The room fell silent except for my pen scratches. The Trump appointee flipped through the memo I’d written, realizing it had nothing about mines or corrupt foreigners—when the businessman asked for this meeting, he hadn’t mentioned any of that. But even if he had—he was barking up the wrong tree. He’d gotten the wrong agency, the wrong bureau drawer. There was nothing this particular high-ranking Trump appointee could do to help him.Suddenly, the appointee turned to me.Interesting, right? he asked.I put down my pen and looked up; his eyes were like dark mirrors, blank and inscrutable. From across the table, I felt the businessman’s gaze like a laser. My stomach clenched.In this meeting, I was a nobody. Technically, I wasn’t even supposed to be there. Like most high-ranking Trump appointees, this one had a staff of junior Trump appointees to do stuff like sit in on his meetings and take notes. I was just the civil servant they asked to write a memo; I had expertise in topics loosely relevant to the businessman’s other affairs, before he came in with curveball questions. But on the day of the meeting, the staffers must have been busy. At the last minute, they called me down.Yes, I said. Interesting. Clearing my throat, I sat up from the couch. But maybe we should check with legal?The two men stared at me, then back at each other.I fell back into the couch, took up my pen, and then realized, finally: Yes! Yes of course, I thought: Legal!Sure, the businessman was barking up the wrong tree. Our agency was powerless; he’d need to circle D.C. again, go knocking on other appointees’ doors. But still—a high-ranking U.S. government official was alone in a room with a wealthy businessman, who seemed to be fishing around for tacit approval to buy mines from corrupt foreigners. Where on Earth were the lawyers?!Right, said the Trump appointee. We could ask legal.The businessman’s eyes flashed at me—wondering, I imagined: Who is this?Minutes later, it was over. An assistant appeared at the large door, beckoning; the Trump appointee’s next meeting was waiting. The two men stood up, uttered pleasantries, shook hands, and agreed to follow up.

Civil Service in the Trump Administration Involves Falling in Line

Closing the door behind the businessman, the Trump appointee turned to me.Well? he asked.My stomach clenched again, and I shrugged my shoulders. There was nothing to say; the businessman had been barking up the wrong tree.Right, the Trump appointee said, staring off into some middle distance. He walked to his desk. Great, he said, gesturing to the door. Thanks.On the way out, I held up my notepad. I’ll type up the notes and send them around, I said.He looked up and seemed to wince a little. Ah, he said, smiling now. No, don’t bother.It’s no bother, I said. And it wasn’t: sharing notes with relevant colleagues is what government employees do. It’s the job.No, really, he said. Don’t send around the notes.There was a long silence. I nodded but didn’t know what to say. It was a scenario I’d never imagined.Look, he said, just ask me in a month.I smiled, still confused. Ask you in a month?His assistant flurried in with a pile of papers. The next meeting was ready.Yeah, he said. Find me in a month and I’ll tell you what happened.He looked down at the papers; his assistant guided me out. A group of other, lower-level Trump appointees milled about in the waiting room. They seemed to size me up—wondering, I imagined, whether I was a civil servant they could trust. I crossed the building, down dimly lit halls and staircases, to my cubicle. The windows in our office looked onto a small interior courtyard—just an empty square of concrete and stone, below a patch of sky. A place the public never sees.

For My Superiors, This Was Just Another Day in the Trump Era

I told my direct supervisors about the meeting; they laughed and shook their heads. Go figure, they said, chalking it up to another strange quirk of these strange times. They were civil servants, too. By that point, nothing much surprised us.I threw away the notes. Every now and then, I google the wealthy businessman and the mines—but there’s nothing.I never asked the Trump appointee what happened. There was no follow up, and his staff never asked me to take notes for him again. The next time I saw him, weeks later, he stretched out his hand and introduced himself with a smile. He’d forgotten me completely.

My father wasn’t a normal dad. He wasn’t the type to come to my school plays, and he certainly never taught me to ride a bike. I don’t think he ever once remembered my birthday.Instead, he would lecture me on the superiority of the British Empire, complain that the left-wing was always wrong, and constantly tell my mother that he didn’t want to eat any “foreign muck” for dinner, muttering under his breath about her being “a silly colonial.”“You know what the problem is with having an open mind, don’t you?” he once asked me when I was 17. I shook my head, ready to take in whatever pearls of wisdom my father would choose to impart after three triple gin and tonics. “The problem with having an open mind is that it’s so open nothing stays in it. It all just falls out. Closed mindedness means you’re smart!”To my father, who served in the British military, “Queen and Country” would always outrank our family, even (and often) at the expense of our happiness. He could have honored his beloved Crown in many ways without sacrificing our needs, but he chose not to. For the majority of my life, I accepted coming second place to Britain in his heart, until one day I broke.

Then COVID-19 happened.

My Dad Was My Hero, Until I Realized How Monstrous His Beliefs Were

For years I idolized my dad. He was my hero. I would always take his side when it came to disagreements with my late alcoholic mother. Following her death, though, I started to see his true colors. He was selfish and narcissistic, always putting his own needs first, but masking it as some sort of noble cause to save the country and society as a whole.It was at that time that I started to wonder just how much of my mother’s problems were rooted in my dad’s behavior.Shortly after her death, my dad entered into a toxic relationship with a new woman. Over the next ten years, I was gradually pushed out of his life—even made homeless at one point—but kept just enough on a string to still be useful to him and his needs.As time wore on, I continued to put myself out to help him, often being reduced to tears through gaslighting, guilt and being made to feel inadequate. He would tell me I didn’t marry “well” enough, or that I wasn’t excelling enough in my career and that I was a disappointment. Sometimes when I took his mail to his house he wouldn’t even engage with me. Without making eye contact he’d tell me, “You can go now,” as if he was dismissing the help.Then COVID-19 happened.His advancing age and declining health coupled with a fall and he was admitted into the hospital during the peak of the crisis. His partner's family kept trying to get us to take over the full responsibility of his care. It was then, supported by my husband, siblings and truest friends, that I decided enough was enough, and I blocked him entirely. It’s taken years to get here, but I finally realized that so much of the guilt I was feeling was societal and self-inflicted. And while numerous people have said that if he dies, I’ll regret not making up with him, I know I won’t—at all.

What I found frightened me.

I Had to Unlearn My Father’s Prejudice, and Cutting Ties Was Only the First Step

I thought that would be the end of it—cut off the diseased limb and you should begin to thrive. But it was only once I was out of his grasp that I realized that I’d spent three decades being indoctrinated in his xenophobia. I began to pick apart my own personality and principles that were shaped by him.What I found frightened me.It’s tempting to try to blame him for some of the thoughts and views I held over the years, but a lot of the responsibility is mine alone. I didn’t question the things he was telling, I didn’t argue against him and I certainly didn’t look for my own thoughts, but merely adopted his. I had allowed this to happen.As a teenager, he encouraged me to vote for a borderline-fascist right-wing political party and I did so without question—something that I would repeat in several general elections. I never bothered looking at the policies, I never thought about their wider impact. I just believed his mantra of “charity begins at home.” The fact that he spent a lot of time at home talking about blue-collar workers as if they were the scum of the earth—even though his own parents and grandparents were working-class—never seemed to bother him.My Canadian mother had ancestral ties with First Nations communities. For years my dad would mock her about peace pipes and cannibalism. He never actually thought to ask her about the community, their culture or their history. To him, they were “foreign” and clearly not worthy enough to matter to him. After a while, my mother gave up. She stopped trying to teach her kids about entire parts of their heritage because it was easier than being ridiculed by a bigot.

I’m Estranged From My Bigoted Parent and I Don’t Regret It

It’s only now that I look back and see his actions for what they were. I am no longer under his spell, and I’m starting to think and make decisions based on my own principles and beliefs for the first time in my life. It’s still incredibly hard, and I have a long way to go, but I’m trying to let go of the guilt and instead move forward.No matter our upbringing, we can continue to learn and grow as people. Just because we grew up in an environment where toxic views were imposed on us, we can still change who we are as adults. The fundamentals and principles that make us who we are at our core can—and more importantly, should—change. We can't blame other people for our views. We each have the opportunity to challenge what we’ve learned. We can always grow.So now every time I waver and think about giving my dad a call, I try to remember that the regrets people feel are often simply a reflection on their place in their community and societal structure. If I reached out and let him back into my headspace, I’d be doing a disservice to myself, my family and the world. I don’t deserve that, and I think the world is a lot better for it.

It was 12 a.m. and we could hear the clear sounds of guns firing on the Strand. “Pah pah pah pah pah.” A brief pause, then, “pah pah pah pah pah,” again. When I described it to my ex-Marine cousin he told me they were training, doing an exercise called ”talking guns.” I didn’t need any more context. I understood.The Silver Strand is a suburb of a suburb, the Coronado Cays, California. It’s the island home of the Navy SEALs. It’s also where I grew up, from age seven to 18, between 1997 and 2008.I’m Iranian and Indonesian. I played Pop Warner football, and for a few years, practice was held on Turner Field at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado. We would sometimes need to clear the field so a helicopter could drop off men carrying guns and large backpacks. The military-industrial complex wasn’t a "complex" to me—it was my reality.

Growing Up Next to a Military Base Taught Me to Worship Guns

Nearby is where applicants for the Navy SEALs were weeded out over the course of a highly competitive selection process that lasted through multiple months of training, eventually culminating in Hell Week. Hell Week was romanticized by many of our coaches and my teammates’ fathers—many had served as SEALs or SEAL instructors—as a time of reckoning. It’s when men became much more than just simply men—they became SEALs.Being on base felt special. Even going to the Subway sandwich shop there after practice felt weird and strange. Then, after 9/11 happened, all practices were moved off-base. It was a security issue. My family was civilian, and maybe a couple of the other kids were as well, but I always felt like it was my fault for being Middle Eastern that we had to practice on civilian land.I grew up playing with WWII soldier dolls that came with a wide variety of guns. I had a toy Jeep that my guys fit into just right, with a machine gun mounted on the back. At the time I could have told you the make and model of the gun in each doll’s holster, on the strap over his shoulder and behind him in the rear of the open Jeep. I loved guns. I thought they were a powerful tool of change. I thought they were cool.

My Journey to the Other Side of the Gun Control Debate

As I grew older and started listening to punk music, I began associating guns and gun ownership with a certain type of person, one who wasn’t very much like me. My attitude toward firearms and the culture surrounding them went from obsessive to critical to disdainful almost overnight. I came to believe the NRA was evil, that gun owners were behind the times and that no reasonable person ever needed to own a gun.That’s the way I felt when I voted for Obama in ’08 and ’12, and all the way through his presidency, up until Trump was elected. My political leanings had been almost universally liberal, but I felt a shift when Trump took office. I noticed the creeping fascism, racism and general intolerance that came with him. I saw how centrists and center-left liberals disdained the right, but I also saw their general impotence in actually instituting change. The machinations of the Democratic National Committee—its contempt for its base and servitude to the establishment elite and interests they cater to—became intolerable. And so I shifted even further left.

I came to believe the NRA was evil, that gun owners were behind the times and that no reasonable person needed to own a gun.

Trump’s Presidency Turned Me Pro-Gun—Again

Seeing federal agents sent to Portland made me realize that our government had become the tyrannical power that conspiracy theorists and card-carrying NRA members had been proselytizing about for decades. These same in-groups of the conservative right are quick to defend the actions of the administration as an attempt to maintain law and order. Nevertheless, the taste of fascism deepened.My attitude towards guns followed a path that any kid who’s taken political science 101 would quickly identify as a horseshoe. That is to say, the further left one slides on certain issues, the more similar they appear to views on the right. In the past six months, I’ve started to really consider gun ownership. When quarantine began, I purchased a machete, a baseball bat and a tactical pen. I asked my ex-Marine cousin what he thought about me owning a gun. He said it would be inadvisable as a means of defense without the proper safety classes, which are currently unavailable due to the pandemic. So now I’m patiently waiting to purchase something that a year ago I couldn’t even imagine wanting: a firearm.

On Election Day 2016, I stepped into the voting booth and carefully filled in the oval next to a third-party candidate. I’d previously voted for John McCain and Mitt Romney, and this was the first time I wouldn’t be voting for a Republican. I was convinced that regardless of who I voted for, Hillary Clinton would win. That evening, as the results rolled in, I sat in disbelief. The shame from my time as a Republican was overwhelming in that moment, eclipsed only by my fear of what was yet to come. In the years after, I’d find myself reevaluating everything I stood for. Call it ignorance or denial, but I didn’t fully see the Republican Party for what it was, or how so many conservative leaders manipulated their followers until Donald Trump was their candidate. When I was a teenager, I was very interested in politics. I was getting into political debates before I could even drive. A proud member of the pro-life movement, I’d go on to not only speak at churches and events about how we must value life, but was even on the board of directors for a pregnancy care center. I began stepping away from the movement in 2014 after realizing that it wasn’t the bastion of morals I had once believed it was, and I found myself drawn to the need to stand up for all life—including immigrants, refugees and victims of police brutality. It didn’t take long to realize that for far too many, being pro-life had more to do with controlling women than saving lives. I witnessed those involved in the pro-life movement vehemently protest policies that were proven successful in reducing abortions and celebrating politicians who signed off on measures that could increase abortion rates—simply because of simple party affiliation. Republicans believe Planned Parenthood to be an “abortion factory,” but pro-lifers blindly support Donald Trump despite record-high federal funding for Planned Parenthood under his watch.

My views of Trump had already dramatically affected so many of my relationships, and I knew his victory would create even more chaos.

Trump’s Presidency Is Tearing My Family Apart

Just as I was on the precipice of reevaluating my political affiliations, Trump came storming onto the stage with his racist rhetoric, blatant sexism and disregard for fellow human beings. I supported Marco Rubio in the primary, and then when he voiced his support for Trump, like the vast majority of his GOP colleagues, I decided to stop calling myself a Republican. When you step out of line in a majority Republican community, and in a majority Republican family, you find out just how dearly they cling to their beliefs—even more so if you’re a woman.My views of Trump had already dramatically affected so many of my relationships, and I knew his victory would create even more chaos. The people I was surrounded by were emboldened by their new leader. One uncle was excited to “kick out all the Muslims,” and a coworker nonchalantly explained that “Mexican kids” should be deported with their parents so that her kids can have their classrooms back. One of the many cops in my family, someone who used to talk about the hand signals police would use to point out Black individuals to their colleagues, was excited to have a pro-law enforcement president. These views were now considered acceptable and could be voiced openly without feelings of shame, the once quiet symptoms of a disease that grew unchecked in Lincoln’s party until it was too late and a nationalist was in the White House. In the years since the election, I’ve been told by my aunt that my dead grandparents would be ashamed of me. I’ve been told my support for the kneeling football players and Black Lives Matter is a betrayal of my mostly cop and military family, many of whom I haven’t seen in years because: politics. I’ve been told that I’m “spitting in the face” of my dad’s 30-year career in the Army—a statement he doesn’t agree with, thankfully. “So disappointing,” my friends told me, “I thought you were an independent woman and free thinker, not a liberal.” Family members I had good relationships with deleted me off social media and sent me notes about how disappointed they were in me for sharing an article on systemic racism or writing a post about refugees or not supporting the “most pro-life president we’ve ever had.”

After years of watching cruelty win the day, I’m exhausted.

I’ve Seen My Neighbors’ True Colors, and They Frighten Me

The Trump supporters in my life didn’t set out to have political discussions. They came with the intention to wound. Some even stopped speaking with my parents for supporting me. Opening up my inbox was a game of guessing who I was now on the outs with, but it also began to feel as though those messages were some sort of welcomed redemption for my part in helping the Republican Party before. I don’t say all of this for pity. The fear of this kind of shaming held me hostage to certain views growing up, but now I have thick skin and I can see these manipulation tactics for what they are. I know so many individuals who faced a similar type of expulsion or distancing from their families and friends for walking away from the GOP. Thankfully many of us have found solace in one another.Now we find ourselves in another election year, with another choice to make. I’m horrified on a daily basis by our president’s actions. I’ve learned to accept the position of “local outlier,” especially at work where the usually playful political commentary often turns into full-on debates. His hold on my area in Northern Wisconsin is as evident as the Trump flag in the yard to my right and the “Back the Blue” sign in the yard to my left. Also evident is the irrational fear of all that is different, including people. Racist remarks are now so frequent that my looks of disgust have become the social oddity, and my rebuttals are left unseconded. If I could compliment the president on anything, it would be in his ability to drive people to reveal their true character. After years of watching cruelty win the day, I’m exhausted. I know I’m far from alone. Trump has brought out a level of depravity in this country that stems beyond mere political disagreement. He’s dehumanized minorities, belittled women and celebrated barbarism. Droves of people now refuse to wear masks because caring for your neighbor is unfashionable in the patriot’s world, while conspiracy theories and a selective dedication to rights flourish.

I’m Pro-Life, So I’m Not Voting for Trump

I currently live in a part of America where my neighbors find it more heroic to fight for the right not to wear a mask than to fight for the rights of minorities who simply wish to live through a traffic stop. Those who claim to be the most in tune with the Constitution dismiss issues like civil asset forfeiture and no-knock raids, but find the energy to make a picket sign if they can’t get a haircut because of the pandemic. Performative patriotism has engulfed the GOP. For many, a politician’s only necessary qualifications are the placement of “pro-life Republican” in their bio, despite the fact that no Democrat in office is forcing women into having abortions.In 2016, I didn’t believe that I owed Trump or Hillary my vote, so I gave it to someone else. I was right—we don’t owe any politicians our vote. But this year I choose to give my vote to the immigrant child who is still separated from their family, the Syrian refugee who had their dreams of coming to America and finding safety, Black citizens who live in fear of the enforcement arm of the government, the victims of our country’s growing white nationalist movement and all the families burying a loved one who died of COVID-19 after our government failed to handle the pandemic. I could go on and on, but it comes down to the fact that having Trump in office has proven to be devastating—even deadly—for countless families. For that reason, Joe Biden is truly the most pro-life candidate. In November he’ll be receiving my vote.

When I first met my future in-laws, I thought they were good people. In my own twisted way, I still do, even though they stand for most things I’m against.I probably would have never discovered our stark differences if we’d kept the casual distance I enjoyed in the first five years of knowing them. We saw each other at the occasional dinner and family function: conversations were kept friendly and social.Everything changed when my boyfriend and I found our dream home. As millennial parents of an eight-year-old—his son from a previous relationship—we prioritized getting a house over getting married. That move was the beginning of the many unpopular decisions I would make, as perceived by my in-laws.Because our lease couldn’t be extended to work with the closing on the house, the reasonable thing seemed to be to stay with his parents until we were set to move into our new space. It would save us some money we would surely need, and it was only supposed to be for six weeks.It’s been over a year.

It’s been over a year.

Tip for Dealing With Conservative Family Members: Don’t Live With Them

To be fair, I had some warnings on what a grueling undertaking this could be. My mother-in-law is a born-again Christian who wants nothing more than for her (uninterested) sons to bask in Christ’s light with her. My father-in-law, a quiet atheist who will only mutter along with prayers on holidays, is an immigrant who has done everything to put his past behind him and embrace being an American—in every painfully conservative sense of the word.If you guessed that they’re baby boomers, you’ve guessed correctly. My boyfriend and I are millennials, and while our beliefs skew liberal, we are respectful of differing opinions. I had never taken my in-laws to task when they expressed views with which I disagreed. I figured I’d be able to continue to bite my tongue through the short time we were living together. When short turned long and our child was exposed to some of their toxic opinions, my patience ran out fast.That said, I never went looking for a confrontation. Once we got past the pleasantries and I started seeing their true colors, I expressed my concerns to my boyfriend. He reminded me that this was why he left the home at as early an age as possible. He encouraged me to focus my energy on finding a new home so that we could get out.I never expected how volatile things would get.

I never expected how volatile things would get.

There Were Problems in the House Beforehand

I discovered that my mother-in-law was one of those people who expresses her displeasure at all facets of her life to anyone who will listen, but is willing to change absolutely nothing to make things better. My father-in-law had a temper that was placated by his wife, who loves to tell others that he, a man over 60, is an only child who isn’t pleased when he doesn’t get his way. Instead of pointing out the absurdity of that, she instructed everyone to just give him what he wants to avoid the fallout.The two minimally interacted outside of arguing and nagging, which is pretty stressful to be around. Sound only happened in extremes: tense silence or shrill screaming. The only thing they could agree on was picking on my boyfriend about anything that brought him the slightest bit of joy. They picked apart our parenting, telling us that we were far too strict. Simultaneously, they pressured us to add to our family, a topic we’d dismissed as none of their business many times before.I tried to stick to my mousy, compromising routine. It didn’t last.

Dealing With Conservative In-Laws Is About Subtlety

On a weekend morning, when I was awoken by a spirited debate on how they put a gay person in every TV show to try to “change people,” I let loose a few words that began my descent into becoming their least favorite person.“Maybe it’s because gay people are real and deserve representation? They’re not just a marketing device pulled out during Pride Month for the sake of diversity dollars,” I uttered. I was shot a look before they promptly tuned me out and continued their conversation.As much as I tried to tell myself their views were none of my business and this wasn’t my house, I couldn’t stand the ignorance our child was hearing. I was also worried about what subtle ways my mother-in-law was criticizing him. Of her eight grandchildren, she was satisfied with maybe two, girls she felt took after her. Hearing the way she would talk both about the kids and around the kids was enough to make me speak up on all sorts of things I was biting my tongue about.One day, my mother-in-law approached me on a day when no one else was home to tell me my liberal ideologies were upsetting her husband and that he outright disliked people who have been in the family for a longer time for lesser “offenses.” Of course, his moral code is based on whatever talking heads on Fox News are saying, so this wasn’t exactly heartbreaking for me. I informed her that I didn’t exist to win popularity contests within her family and that her son shares my viewpoints and supports me in expressing them. She denies that fact to this day. She’s convinced herself that all her sons vote a straight Republican ticket, as they were raised to do.

Just When We Thought the Situation Couldn’t Get Worse, COVID Happened

I wondered how I’d found myself in this situation. At best, it was an All In the Family episode that wouldn’t end. At worst, it was the Facebook comments section of any quasi-political article, filled with people with way too much time on their angry hands.Around the country, many people in multigenerational households experience the same thing. If it wasn’t bad for all of us before, coronavirus lockdowns were enough to drive things to a real breaking point.I learned of the virus in late January and knew the potential havoc it could wreak. Thankfully, we were finishing up renovations on our new home. We had one foot out the door, and COVID-19 repeatedly bashed the door on that foot. When we explained to his parents what this could mean to them, in an age group that was vulnerable and with underlying conditions, they pretty much ignored us. Fox News was labeling this as a Democratic hoax and their followers, my in-laws included, happily obliged.Schools and businesses closed, but they both continued working while taking no precautions. It would take two people they personally knew dying from the virus before they started to consider that it might be serious. For every measure we took to protect them, they seemed to find a greater countermeasure that would stress us out regarding our own health and safety.During this time, they were more annoyed that one of their grandchildren was donning a pixie cut that “made her look like an LGBTQ.” They also made sure to tell other members of the family that our drama about the disease was keeping everyone apart: Never mind statewide mandates, this was us trying to get attention for ourselves.

I Don’t Like Living With My In-Laws, but That Doesn’t Mean They’re Bad People

This story doesn’t have an ending just yet. Just last month, I had to explain that not all people that were imprisoned are violent, or even guilty of a crime, to an eight-year-old after grandma told him all the bad guys were getting out of jail and coming into our neighborhood. I hear my landlord father-in-law lamenting people not paying the rent in a low-income neighborhood and how unfair it is to him.So how exactly do I find a silver lining in this? Honestly, I don’t.I’ve found a perspective that’s somewhere in the ballpark of positive for the sake of the man I love and his son. I don’t believe my in-laws are malicious people. I think that they’re clinging to an idea of a country, of a neighborhood, of a home and a family that no longer exists. Their fear of change has paralyzed them as time has marched on; their comfort relies on not being challenged in their belief systems. In her case, that’s nonstop Hallmark movies and women’s devotionals. In his, it’s food and Fox News.Their children are grown with families of their own, free to experience life and form differing opinions. As hard as they pull at the reins, they cannot stop that. They can’t control who the eight grandchildren they love will grow up to be: proud of their immigrant ancestry, LGBTQ or something else entirely.Millennials are mocked for our attempts to break with generational trauma, to find ways of coping and letting go. Yet, we see how our boomers, climbing in age, see the world after carrying all that baggage. We know it isn’t for us. It sounds dramatic to say the current political climate is ripping families apart, but when every area of life has been politicized, it’s the reality of the situation. Agreeing to disagree seems to be a thing of the past in this never-ending ideological story.

My parents and siblings and I been on shaky ground for a long time. I’m the black-sheep liberal in a family of conservatives. And not just middle of the road conservatives, either, but Trump-loving, gun-toting folks who spew bigotry and conspiracy theories. They’ve come to embody the worst of the Republican party.I’ve butted heads with my family over all the hot button issues. Since Trump took office, we’ve clashed over LGBTQ+ rights, Black Lives Matter, climate change, education, gun control and abortion laws.As an ally to the LGBTQ+ community and an outspoken advocate for women’s health rights, I’ve had my share of differences with my family, but I’ve still managed to set them aside. But the relationship I have with my father started to crumble when he denounced the #MeToo movement.“It was started by an attention-starved, anti-masculinist actress,” my dad complained. “It’s part of the conspiracy designed to control us. These loud-mouthed women just want men to live in fear. A man can’t do anything these days without worrying a woman will report him.”“You mean the same fear that women live with every day worrying that a man thinks it’s okay to grab them by the pussy just because he can?” I retorted. “The same reason why you told your daughters to carry pepper spray on our keychains?”“You’re twisting the facts. That’s just fake news,” he replied, falling back on the mantra of the far-right.

I refuse to back down on anything that keeps my kids safe.

The Political Is Always Personal

As a survivor of rape and sexual assault, I took it as a personal affront. I almost ended things with him over this conversation, but for some reason, I didn’t. Instead, I just set very firm boundaries and limited our interactions to holidays and birthdays. I wasn’t ready to accept that his viewpoint had the ability to hurt my family and my children the same way it hurts me.COVID-19 has changed all that.Like so many other issues, the pandemic has become a partisan one. Only this time, buying into the example set by the far-right is a matter of physical safety for all involved.I refuse to back down on anything that keeps my kids safe. After losing one of my sons, I don’t take chances where the health and well-being of my children are concerned. My children, my husband and I vigilantly follow social distancing guidelines. We do our grocery shopping online and venture out only when necessary. We avoid gatherings of friends and family. We wear masks.A poll published by The Washington Post showed that 73 percent of Democrats are wearing masks, while only 59 percent of Republicans are. The same poll showed that people of color are more likely to wear a mask in public than white people. And another report in The Hill says some men view wearing a mask in public as a sign of weakness. Trump himself, the hero of the alt-right movement, almost never wears a mask or follows the advice of medical experts.

Two days later, I got a text from him saying he had in fact tested positive for COVID-19.

My Dad Is Being Mind-Controlled by the Far-Right

My father views himself as a thought leader, an enlightened man. But in reality, he blindly follows Trump’s lead. He’s one of those men who refuses to see masks as a sign of respect and concern for the rest of humankind. He doesn’t follow social distancing guidelines. My siblings follow his lead, to varying degrees. One of them even went so far as to march in protest of our region’s continued shutdown.They want to know, with restrictions easing, am I going to see them again soon? Can they see my kids?They send text messages like these:“Masks are mind control. If maintaining a six-foot distance works, why wear masks? If wearing masks work, why maintain a six-foot distance and avoid group gatherings? Wake up, sheeple. These libtards have you wrapped around their fingers.”“You’ve gotten a good look at what happens when your freedom is limited. Wake up. Don’t stand for the tyranny.”I don’t reply.Recently, one of my siblings told me my father hadn’t been feeling well. He laid on the guilt and told me I should call him. The guilt got the best of me so I grudgingly did.“I’m fine now. Just tired,” he said and paused. “I’d like to see the kids.”“We could FaceTime tomorrow when they’re up. The baby is asleep for the night,” I said.He sighed, “You won’t let me come over and see my grandchildren?”He hadn’t seen them since Christmas and had made no effort to see them regularly back in the days before the pandemic brought the world to a halt.“No, I won’t,” I said. “It’s not safe for them, for me or, frankly, for you.”“I see the propaganda has worked on you, and you’re going to fall for the ploys of the leftist media,” he said, his voice dripping with rancor.“You know I’m part of the media, right? Besides I’m going with science on this one and not taking unnecessary risks where my kids are concerned.”“I raised you better than this.” His voice was hard. “It’s so disappointing how easily you’re swayed.”“And it’s disappointing to see you ignore what science says.” A pause. “Again.”The phone clicked off. I’m not sure if I hung up first or if he did, but I am sure that I will not waiver.Two days later, I got a text from him saying he had in fact tested positive for COVID-19. There was no remorse for wanting to expose my family to the virus. “It wasn’t even a big deal,” he said. “And I’m the highest risk group there is. It was no worse than the flu.”I texted him back, “Sorry to hear. Feel better and stay home!” I left it at that.In the past, I’ve failed to really consider how the alt-right conservative messages my family spouts could damage me, my children or the rest of society at large. Now I’ve woken up, just not in the way my family hoped I would. It’s just a shame it took COVID-19 to show me.

During the election of 2016, I thought I was a Republican. I was a #NeverTrumper but I would never have voted for Hillary. Now, I find myself so far left that even Democrats wouldn’t claim me. The majority of my childhood was spent in group homes and abusive situations, until I was whisked away into high society at the age of 16. From then on I was immersed in privilege, from dinners at the Four Seasons to tuition at my private school. I was spoonfed a specific narrative that this type of life was only attainable through hoarded wealth, and I took on an appropriate political position to uphold it. I was an 18-year-old Black Republican woman. I was loud about stupid topics on social media, like why Roe v. Wade should be repealed, and soon enough, as a pretty woman and young Republican, I found myself with a platform. From the blog I began with, I grew connections in right-wing journalism circles and started writing for more respectable publications. One piece about seeing Kellyanne Conway was republished by Fox News. I was given a position to share my views, despite having no real authority or expertise. I was given a press pass to the Conservative Political Action Committee. The road to paid conservative punditry was very easily traveled.

I find myself so far left that even Democrats wouldn’t claim me.

College Liberalism Helped Move Me Left, but It Was a Health Scare That Radicalized Me

Soon after, I went to a rather liberal college and had my views challenged by a fantastic sociology professor and, then, a health scare. I have a lifelong condition that is incredibly expensive to treat, and the first time I ran out of my medication and was forced to decrease the amount I was taking, I realized what a considerable amount of my income would have to be delegated to my healthcare. Living as a woman of color with a disability in New York City very quickly made me realize that not only was my childhood unconventional, but that being whisked from trauma to abundance made me feel like protecting my economic interests mattered more than my own access to affordable medication. As a traumatized teen, I had failed to address the emotional conditions that led me to the right-wing community. No one ever asked me why I was a Republican, so I never questioned why I felt so loyal to a political group that actively works against my best interests.In college, I was exposed to leftist thought for the first time. From Marx to Engels to Foucault, I learned how to unlearn my unconscious bias and address hiding behind the economic and social position of conservatism that would protect me from the reality of being Black, a woman and disabled. I was made into a token, given a public platform when I was a literal child and exploited for identity politics from the very party that supposedly opposes them. I moved from a Republican to a moderate, then eventually to a Democrat, where I realized that party lines don’t matter. The two-party system keeps us fighting each other and distracted from reality.

From Marx to Engels to Foucault, I learned how to unlearn my unconscious bias and address hiding behind the economic and social position of conservatism that would protect me from the reality of being Black, a woman and disabled.

The Two-Party System Isn’t Made for Anyone but the Rich

Every time I have a small health scare, a hospital trip, a doctor that I have to pay to see, a prescription I have to pay to pick up, I sink deeper into my socialist ideology—knowing that the both the Republican and Democratic parties are doing next to nothing to ensure the safety of disabled people. I’m not alone. My generation is being radicalized by the harm the two-party system is causing to the environment, national health and people of color. Instead of “voting blue no matter who,” we refuse to believe or engage in a system that routinely prioritizes money over lives. Socialism provides a way out: revolution. There are fundamental inequalities built into the very fabric of America, and partisan politics distract from the fact that the major parties are two sides of the same coin. Party divisions matter more to some people than the issues at hand, and under the influence of lobbyists, accruing and hoarding wealth has come to matter more to some of our legislators than their constituents. Politically, I swung from a Republican to a socialist because I realized that neither the Republican nor Democratic parties would ever represent my interests above their own. American politicians don’t represent the American people—they represent the interest of the rich and powerful. We live in an oligarchy disguised as a democratic republic, and our votes mean nothing in the face of big money and big industry. There is no right party—there is only rebuilding from the ground up.

Election Day is right around the corner, and I’m not voting. It’s okay if you don’t, either.As a libertarian-minded person who believes in small government and fiscal responsibility, I will not vote for the “very, very big brain” of Donald Trump. I will not vote for Joe “I’m coming to you to ask for a quick favor” Biden. I will not vote for Kanye “Harriet Tubman never actually freed the slaves” West. And I’m certainly not wasting my precious time lining up in a facemask to write in the name of someone who doesn’t stand a chance.Until and unless there is a candidate who I feel I could vote for in good conscience, I’m not voting. I’m not hiring just anybody to work for me unless that employee meets my standards, and let’s face it, most politicians don’t. I don’t feel represented by the candidates the parties in power keep offering up, and I won’t vote for a “lesser evil.” When conversation forces me to mention my disinclination to vote, I generally run into two lines of fire. There are those who tell me that people “died for our right to vote”—who, specifically, died for my right to vote, I wonder?—and the ones who tell me I don’t have a right to “participate in the conversation,” that “I’m letting other people” decide our fate and, as a result, I don’t get to “complain” about the goings-on of the country.Arguing against this last point is a hill I will die on.

Until there is a candidate who I feel I could vote for in good conscience, I’m not voting.

To Me, Being a Nonvoter Means Freedom

I’m not the one legitimizing the system that got Donald J. Trump elected to the highest office in the land, or that gave him enough power to terrify so many of the people living here. Voting legitimizes the government structure we have in place and demands that the voter accept the outcome, whether they like who wins the Oval Office or not. If you feel compelled to threaten a move to Canada if your candidate loses, it’s possible that the presidency has acquired too much power and influence. How does putting someone else in that office change that fact?Because I haven’t put my vote behind a particular horse in the race, because my world isn’t spinning around any particular politician, I’m freer to order my world and political decisions around a set of values and principles. I can laud politicians when they do something right and I can condemn their actions when they’ve done something wrong. Not voting doesn’t mean I can’t call things as they are—indeed, it leaves me greater latitude to do just that. I can describe in detail how the actions of former President Barack Obama are similar in many ways to the actions of Trump, and how neither should have had that authority in the first place. Can anyone who voted for Obama or Trump say the same? Or has your partisan rage left you blind?My non-vote says presidential candidates and government officials aren’t quite up to snuff. Do better. Be better. And if someone better steps up to the plate, I’ll be first in line to cast my ballot.

I’m not the one legitimizing the system that got Donald J. Trump elected to the highest office in the land.

America Is a Nation of Not Voting

I’m not alone in abstaining from this circus variety of democracy. In February, the Knight Foundation, a nonprofit focused on the First Amendment, released a report entitled “The Untold Story of American Non-Voters” that found that there are “about 100,000,000 eligible voters in our country who do not vote at all.” When looking at the 2016 presidential election between Trump and Hillary Clinton, Knight reported that “the largest bloc of citizens in our presidential elections are not those who vote for one candidate or another, but those who do not participate in the election at all.” As the study points out, Clinton got 29 percent of the votes; Trump got 28 percent of the votes; but the most votes went to nobody, with 39 percent.The reasons for that differ, according to the study. Some 38 percent of nonvoters cited a lack of confidence “that elections represent the will of the people, and nonvoters are more likely to say that this is because the system is rigged.” Others, they say, “are twice as likely as active voters to passively encounter news versus actively seeking it out.”

I’m Not Voting Until There’s Something Worth Voting For

Today’s culture tells us that in order to enact change, people must vote and that those who do have the proverbial moral high ground. I just don’t believe that, in the end, a President Biden would be markedly different from a President Trump—sans rhetoric and Twitter, of course. They’re both partisan cogs in the system. They both spend money like we won’t have to pay it back someday. They both want the government to play a more active role in our lives. There are subtle differences in which government programs they want to prioritize—Trump may prefer military pork spending to Biden’s welfare spending—but the end result is the same. If Americans really wanted to vote for the change we’d run, say, a Republican versus a monarchist versus a fascist—a real one; Trump isn’t an actual fascist—versus an anarcho-capitalist. At least in that election, you'd have a real breadth of ideas and genuine differences of opinion in how government should be run and on the role government should play in the lives of the people. That’s not what this election is. It’s a popularity contest, where the winner gets to decide which special interests get tax dollars—and future generations get stuck with the bill. There’s nothing noble in participating in such a system. And you can get a cooler sticker to wear on your shirt after a visit to the dentist’s office.

Just before lockdown, I started a project. I had a bunch of old cassette mixtapes that I wanted to rip to digital and I thought it might be fun to share them with my friends over the internet. I wasn't sure about the whole IP rights thing—or if my mixes would get taken down because of them—so I decided it would be best to do the whole project on a "friends only" basis instead of posting for the whole internet. There really was only one platform that made sense. I wasn't happy about it, but I was going to have to use Facebook. I started making friends-only posts with the mixes in mid-February. At first, I'd post some short text that mostly highlighted the bands and the music. But as the coronavirus spread and America went into lockdown, I found myself with more time on my hands. The posts grew into rambling missives about what life was like for me and my family in this time where we couldn't see anyone in person—a little family Christmas letter every day. It was great. Old friends, some of whom I hadn't heard from in years, wrote me notes telling me how much the posts helped them get through the week. It was encouraging. I resolved to keep it up.

I wasn't happy about it, but I was going to have to use Facebook.

The Personal Is Political, Even If You’re Just Posting Old Mixtapes

Yet it also became impossible to not talk about what was going on in the wider world. Like many people who use Facebook these days, I tried to avoid talking politics there, aside from the occasional discussion among small groups of close friends. During the 2016 election, I had done my fair share of arguing about politics on Facebook, but since then I tried to keep it quiet. I had unfriended many people who’d started spouting hateful politics, but like many Americans, some of these people were my family—and family is not so easy to unfriend. In those terrifying—but, in retrospect, halcyon—early days of the pandemic, when we were all staying in and sticking “stay home” stickers on our Instagram posts, talking about the coronavirus didn't seem like the same thing as talking about politics. But as Trump encouraged us to drink bleach and reports came in of feds stealing shipments of PPE from states, it got harder to believe that was true. I knew people were cheered up by the distraction, but it felt hollow to write funny posts about gardening and sourdough when friends were losing jobs and homes. I tried to walk a fine line, keeping up the cheery anecdotes but also acknowledging the challenges of this new world.

Posting on Facebook Became My Form of Protest

For a while, it worked. But eventually, inevitably, the wheels came off. As the facts around Breonna Taylor's murder became known nationwide—months before George Floyd's—I wrote a long post about police brutality. A few people commented, and there was some pushback, but all in all, it went all right. It felt good. I was encouraged. Then, after the nationwide protests began, I felt paralyzed. We live far from the nearest city, and have a small baby and my husband’s at-risk mother in the house. It was impractical for us to go to the protests, but I felt I had to do something. It became clear that I could no longer keep up this gentlemanly facade of not talking about politics on Facebook. I had a captive audience of a few thousand "friends,” and I felt it my duty to speak out. I knew from my time on Facebook that most of my friends agreed with me, at least broadly, on most political topics. But I also knew there were plenty who didn't. I’d also had this growing sense of being outmaneuvered by those on the other side. For some time, I'd felt like my previous approach—disengaging and removing those toxic viewpoints from my life—was failing. I felt like us leftists and liberals were ceding the public sphere to more hateful viewpoints without a fight. I was tired of playing defense, and I suspected I wasn’t alone.

I have a bad habit of never, ever letting people forget about Brett Kavanaugh.

How to Have a Civil Conversation About Politics on Facebook

So I plunged in. Not just lightweight affirmations, but long posts about the intellectual underpinnings of defunding the police, about the Supreme Court cases that lead to qualified immunity, about China's treatment of the Uighurs and other topics I thought were important. (I have a bad habit of never, ever letting people forget about Brett Kavanaugh.). I posted about the toxic effects of hate speech, and the pernicious influence of the major internet platforms, including the one I was on at that very moment. I'd read through long legal documents and explain to 3,000 people what standing was in court cases, the current debates that raged around it and how it applied to Oregon suing the feds about their goon squads. I made a few resolutions about how to approach these posts. I would write my opinions, and if someone argued with them, I would respond only once—twice, tops. I would be okay with them getting the last word. I wouldn’t bring the fight to their pages or posts. And I would return to a default polite state with them afterward. I haven't been completely successful with this. One friend and I are some 200 comments deep into an argument about the Harper’s letter and cancel culture as a whole. He keeps it civil, I keep it civil. Perhaps we aren’t changing each other's minds, but I feel like maybe, just maybe, I'm getting him to look at things from a different perspective. I even wrote a meta-post about how well this whole experiment has gone, even though I know there are people out there who disagree. I have a few aunts and uncles I know to be, shall we say, on the far right of the political spectrum. I know they’re reading these posts, because they still comment when I talk about gardening or their nephew or a recipe I like. So far, I've not had to ban anyone. I've not unfriended anyone. What has happened, though, is more friends have written that the posts are still making them feel better. And I can hope that the whole experience has had some positive impact on those aunts and uncles. It's not much, but it's better than saying nothing. It feels hopelessly small, like I could do more. But then one day I realized this isn't the thing I'm doing to help. It's a thing. In John Lewis's final letter to us, he said, "Each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say something."

The photographer was ready to kick someone’s ass.We were sitting in our hotel room on the eve of his first Trump rally. I was watching Fox News while he processed some photos from the Biden event earlier that day. He couldn’t see the television, but he could hear it.“How can you watch that shit?” he asked me from the desk at the back of the room.“You’ve got to know what you’re getting into,” I said.I turned the volume down. He fumed at the sight of Sean Hannity. Maybe he was nervous at the thought of running the gauntlet of a journo-bashing MAGA mob at the SNHU Arena in Manchester, New Hampshire. As a journalist, an arena of 10,000 screaming Trump supporters promised a level of tension. He reacted by preparing for an all-out brawl. In his mind, he would either hear something that would set him off, the same way Hannity was prodding at a raw nerve right then, or he would be the one to trigger a Trump supporter with his visible liberalism.I’ve been going to Trump rallies since 2016, and I’ve never felt comfortable at one.I’ve tried my best to avoid the press box so that I could speak to the red-blooded Americans who attend. The whole time I’ve been trying to understand my family and friends who support him.

I’ve been going to Trump rallies since 2016, and I’ve never felt comfortable at one.

Trump Is a Plane Crash; the Media Loves Him for It

I told to the photographer my plan. We would skip the press credentials and wait in line to enter through the same metal detectors like everyone else. We’d experience what it was like to go to a Trump rally rather than simply covering it. “Just take the photos,” I urged him. “You don’t have to talk to anyone. You’re not going to fight anyone.”Journalists and progressives loathe Trump rallies because they aren’t the target audience. The ideas floated at random by the president are uncomfortable, the jokes are uncomfortable, the “fake news” chants and boos are uncomfortable.You are uncomfortable and everyone around you can sense it.As we stood in a line that zigged and zagged as though some wild ride awaited at the end, a man in a camouflage Keep America Great hat behind us marked us as nonbelievers. We were just about the only two in line not wearing our support on our heads or our backs. What’s worse, we were taking photos. He turned to his wife and said, “Who the fuck are these guys?” Then he turned to us and demanded to know if we were there to show our support or to stir up some shit.At that moment, a fight would’ve been the best thing that could happen to me as a storyteller. I could picture the bold-faced headline: TRUMP SUPPORTERS ASSAULT JOURNALISTS AT RALLY IN NH. It would have given me something to write about, and it would have kept you, the reader, scrolling right down to the last word.As journalists, we seek out these moments—which isn’t to say that we’re looking for a fight. But we’re always on the hunt for anything that might help us compete with everything else on the internet. We’re not just competing with other journalists—at the exact same rally with their cameras pointed at the exact same thing—but also with that “how to build a resin table” video you just scrolled past on your way here. We aim to inform, but we work to pay our bills, so more often than not, we also have to work to entertain.It’s always the most outrageous moments that stand out because presidential campaigns, for the most part, still work the way they did before the internet—at least they did before COVID-19 threw a wrench in everything. Candidates would go from town to town delivering the exact same stump speech as though live streaming and social media didn’t exist. The press followed the program and waited for the candidate to slip up and give us something that breaks from the script that we can pounce on. We have an eye for these moments because our editors and producers demand it, but also because no one ever wrote about a plane that landed safely. That’s why Trump is constantly in the news. According to the rules of good politics, he’s a constant plane crash, but an endlessly watchable one.

Real life just isn’t as interesting as we want it to be.

My Secret to Covering Trump Rallies Is to Ignore How It’s Supposed to be Done

What’s unfortunate is that this game of spot-the-difference often forces us to focus on the most negative aspects of politics: the worst thing a candidate has ever said or done, the worst people who follow them. The loudest voice in the room is the only one that gets heard. Real life just isn’t as interesting as we want it to be. Most planes do land.My first Trump rally was in Davenport, Iowa. I was working for an obscure magazine out of Toronto that wanted to send me to a Trump rally before we missed our chance and his reality TV carnival burnt out. The mood at the time was that the circus might be over soon, and we had to catch it before it packed up, left town and politics got boring again.But Trump never lost, and his rallies became the place you might expect to see a fight. For a time that was true, especially in the summer of 2016, when rallies had to be canceled because the future president was encouraging people to punch journalists in the face.As a writer for a small foreign publication, it was a lot more difficult to get into the press pen at a Trump event. That wasn’t unique to Trump—it was just the way it worked. Local news and the national press got priority because they reached voters. But rejection offered me opportunity, a chance to see the real chaos outside as state police formed the dividing line between seething protesters and the MAGA-capped overflow from an overbooked event.It’s been a while since you could expect fisticuffs at a Trump rally. After he became president, a giant screen loomed over the entrance of each event listing all the prohibited items that would be confiscated at the door. Even if Trump hadn’t tempered himself or his tweets, his campaign team was lucidly aware of how bad it might look if anything outside of the ordinary happened at a rally. They don’t even sell beer at the concession stands anymore.“If a protest starts near you,” an upbeat voice boomed over the crowd from a loudspeaker. “Please do not, in any way, touch or harm a protester.”

Trump supporters are not fringe wackos.

If You Want to Cover a Trump Rally as a Journalist, You Shouldn’t Act Like One

At a Trump rally, having credentials is the worst thing that can happen to a journalist. After the first 6 a.m. email from the campaign team urging you to stay in the designated press area to the moment the headliner leaves the stage, there’s no fun to be had as a credentialed member of Trump’s traveling press. Reporters who enter a Trump rally from an arena’s loading bay—to be frisked by the Secret Service for a lanyard that allows them to enter the cage at the back of the room—might as well be watching from home. After four years, we know exactly what he’s going to say.Any real experience to be had at a Trump rally comes by waiting in lines that wrap around the block. Where Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” blares through loudspeakers as you inch your way toward the front doors alongside folks carrying signs that read “Help Destroy America, Vote Democrat” and wearing shirts that say “TRUMP 2020: Make Liberals Cry Again.”A typical political rally is meant to keep its audience awake long enough to introduce them to the candidate. Trump rallies are a movable circus that orbits three blocks around their center of gravity, sometimes graced by a flyover from Air Force One and always surrounded with merchandise vendors screaming at one another for setting the price of a hat too low. It’s a one-ride state fair and a storyteller’s wet dream.I still remember the man who sat behind me at the Adler Theatre in Davenport in 2016, laughing into his phone. “You’ll never believe what I’m doing with my Saturday night,” he said. “Yeah, no, I’m at the Trump rally. No, I’m serious. I’m there.”At his rallies, Trump is a showman first and a president second. I’ve met head-to-toe MAGA mannequins who profess their love for Trump shortly after laughing at him for mispronouncing the name of their town. They can forgive the slight, they say, because, “He’s done more than any other president.” Trump rallies are something short of a professional standup gig where the characters created by journalists are paraded on stage to sell their books. Trump rallies are the real-world equivalent of shitposted memes to trigger progressives, a cathartic release of ideas that are no longer acceptable in polite society. They’re a political Gathering of the Juggalos for self-identified social outcasts who return to the real world to sell us cars or build our homes or bag our groceries, and to shrug when someone says, “I can’t believe you’re one of them.”Trump supporters are not fringe wackos. There were certainly enough of them to elect a president. They’re often identified with the worst things they believe, and when you hear them say things that make your head reel, you can forget that they’re schoolteachers and football coaches and business owners and millwrights. Instead, you’re left to wonder how such monsters could exist.

It’s a one-ride state fair and a storyteller’s wet dream.

You Can’t Understand Trump Without Trying to Understand the People Who Back Him

I could take my time to list all of the worst things I’ve heard at Trump rallies.“We're ready for war. We’re not scared. Our side has the guns.”“She a cunt! A cunt! She’s a bitch! A fugly bitch!”“We have boys in the girl’s bathrooms now and they’re putting it all in our faces.”I could also write about the time I spent an entire night having drinks with a Trump-supporting family just after a game at Wrigley Field. How close we came to understanding each other as they listened to a Balkan immigrant explain why America is great because it allows us to protest its flag. They disagreed. But six beers in, they heard me out.The past five years of covering America has made me realize that Americans are too far gone to believe anything an outsider tells them about their sworn enemies: other Americans. I’ve also learned it might be worth our time to try to understand why people believe the things they do.Trump supporters see a changing world because we are living in profoundly transformative times that none of us are fully equipped to handle. They’re not just defending racism or jokes made in poor taste. Most Trump supporters see declining marriage rates, young folks who aren’t having children, a growing number of Americans who are “spiritual but not religious” and manufacturing jobs disappearing. Until recently, America was built to be most comfortable for the Christian nuclear, middle-class family. That’s changing, and change isn’t easy for everyone.Altering your entire outlook on life—everything you’ve been brought up to believe—takes time and a whole lot of help along the way. When it seems like everything you know is changing all at once, it’s deeply human to dig your heels into nostalgia. Change is what Trump, in defiance of reality, is sheltering his supporters from. A Trump rally is the one place where the liberals aren’t “putting it all in our faces.” At least not all at once. It’s where you don’t have to feel uncomfortable as a conservative in a changing world. A Trump rally is where conservatives aren’t made to feel stupid for the things they believe. It’s the opposite of the internet, where our headlines remind them how uncomfortable they make the rest of us.Far too many of us who feel perfectly comfortable in a changing world think it’s not worth our time to help a Trump supporter accept change, to concede that they can still have their family, they can still have their religion, although they’ve got to give a little too. It’s exhausting to change someone’s mind. It seems that it’s not worth our effort. Fights make one hell of a headline, but they also force schoolteachers and football coaches and business owners and millwrights to dig further into nostalgia and seek out the static past Trump is selling.Americans, at the moment, are willing to expect the worst of each other. The photographer certainly expected it. But there was no fight that day. He sat next to a hockey mom. They talked about their daughters.