Dear Regretful Trump Voters,
I keep hearing there are more of you, all the time. I have no idea if that’s true, but I do keep hearing this.
I hear old White grandmothers, calling into TV shows, saying they’ll never vote Republican again.
I hear middle aged Latinos, saying deportations of gone too far.
I hear stories from church visitors, describing their own Father’s quiet regret of his vote.
I am trying my best to respond with equanimity to this. As somebody who left the conservative movement as a young man —driven away through what Jesus spoke to my heart— I’m not quite sure what to make of the timing of this apparent change in yours.
As a Christian pastor, it’s a deeply held faith of mine that we really can change. My faith demands I believe this. God demands that of me. My understanding of humanity itself is built on believing we can “turn in a new way,” as Jesus used to say. And my entire adult life truly is something of a proof of this.
But, another deep learning of the past decade is this: Change is much harder than we, all of us, pretend. Both in the Church and in politics, Americans consistently fall for simplistic solutions to complicated problems.
And my deepest worry about this deepest learning is this: I’m not sure our society has spaces any more where folks can admit their change of heart, take steps to change, and then be folded back into civil society itself.
If you truly believe you are “deplorable” or “irredeemable,” then it seems to me this almost forces you into a position of doubling down on your own positions, not repenting of them.
Marc Maron once nailed it with these deep line: “Conservatives never apologize, and Liberals never forgive.”
It would take an entirely different essay to unpack the painful true wisdom of that one line. But I’m focused today on that first part: “Conservatives never apologize.”
And yet…
If it’s to be believed, however, some of you are doing that, right now.
You’re the audience I am writing to, today, as an outsider to your movement.
You’re allegedly regretting your vote.
You’re quietly leaving your party or “Team Red” tribe.
But here is my message today: Change takes more than regret. Change takes more than saying you’re sorry, or expressing shame. In fact, those things can lock is into “shame cycles.”
As a deflection, I continue to hear some of you say “Donald Trump did this…Donald Trump did that…”
But the truth is: YOU, Trump VOTERS, you did this. Millions of you. A year ago, two weeks from now, you blatantly and vocally supported everything that is happening now.
I’m not saying this in anger….although many, if not most, of the people I interact with would say it in anger to your face.
I am saying it as a FACT.
YOU voted for this. Donald Trump may be doing the acting now. But YOU…millions of you…made this happen.
Woke liberals didn’t make this happen.
Joe Biden didn’t make this happen.
Kamala Harris didn’t make this happen.
Migrants didn’t make this happen.
YOU. You did this.
Again, this is where written communication fails us. Because I’m trying to my best to write this as unemotionally and factually as I can. I’m asking you to turn and look at your own actions.
I honestly don’t care whether you have shame for all of this. In fact, my developing pastoral hunch over my ministry is that shame probably keeps you from change. It does feel to me now that much of America today (Right and Left) are like those “King’s Landing” residents, yelling “SHAME!” at a naked Cersei Lannister.
We probably should all meditate on the fact that while it may fell really good in the moment to bring her down…she went right back to her old ways, soon enough. So, holding you in your shame cycle…however strong or weak it is right now…won’t produce real change.
Let me say it another way…
There is an old political expression: “Elections have consequences.”
We typically mean this to apply to how a politician will govern. If they win, if somebody doesn’t like what they do down the road, they say, “hey…elections have consequences.”
But elections have consequences for voters, too. Perhaps you are feeling the weight of that? Perhaps you are feeling the consequence of your vote? I believe this is likely what you mean when you say “I didn’t vote for that.”
As a Wesleyan pastor, I can tell you that real change of heart involves “turning in a new way” not just some momentary feeling “shame” or “regret.”
What you do after that moment of decision…that is what really matters. This is, in fact, what “repentance” really means. The most literal sense of “repentance” is “to turn in a new way.” That implies not a one-moment, moment; but a lifetime of every-day decisions.
Therefore….
As I continue to watch communities ripped apart by ICE raids, and data that majorities of those detained have no criminal record…I keep thinking of this moment from the Republican National Committee.
On that night, months before the actual election day, an arena-full of those of you on Team Red cast their vote for everything that is happening with ICE, right now by holding up signs that read: “Mass Deportations Now!”
THOUSANDS OF DELEGATES…not Donald Trump, alone. This is why I have said, for many years, that even if Donald Trump went away tomorrow, we’d still be wrestling with these issues for years to come.
Donald Trump is not “self made.” American society made Donald Trump. You, me, we all created Trump out of some pre-existing toxic soup in our nation. And a few months after this moment, fully one half of the country voted for exactly what these signs say here.
You are the reason this is happening, right now. You saw the “Mass Deportations NOW!” signs…and you still went out and pulled the lever for Trump. Trump was the candidate, but you were the voters. He’s not in that oval office now, without your willful refusal to believe that he meant every word he said.
Donald Trump said he would deport alleged criminals first.
But Donald Trump ALSO SAID he would deport millions of humans.
Read those two sentences, over and over. And hear how completely incompatible they always were. And how incompatible they are, today.
Hear me when I tell you: You should believe your own eyes, as you watch these stories of people being snatched off the streets.
Yes, that is really happen in the United States.
And yes, you caused that to happen.
You voted for that.
ICE’s own data shows that the majority of humans they are currently snatching and detaining have “no criminal record.” Not just no “serious criminal record;” but none, whatsoever.
ICE’s own data shows that only 10% of the thousands and thousands now detained have “serious criminal records.”
That means: Yes, you voted to authorize indiscriminate and racist profiling of Brown people, everywhere. Rank and file Republicans fell in line with this plan. I can’t get inside their heads. But I’d tend to believe something like the following…
First, some of you are simply, and overtly, racist.
(This essay is not for you…I’m just noting this must, de fact, be true…)
But….some of you justified your support through the following logic: That there were millions of hardened criminals roaming the streets of America…and that they were, somehow, all “Brown.”
This, we must quickly note, is also racist.
Some of you, it seems to me, are now living inside the dissonance of this last sentence. You somehow believed Trump when he said there are millions and millions of Brown criminals on the street. But you failed to consider just how ridiculous, and racist, that claim always was.
Your vote gave him the ability to say, to all of us, “Elections have consequences.” And those consequences are everything ICE is doing, right now.
Some of you are still only half-willing to admit your mistakes. You are still trying to rationalize, “Well…I didn’t sign up for this…but we still have too many immigrants…”
OK…we’ve already covered the first part: You did sign up for this.
So…now let’s talk about the second: No, actually we don’t have too many migrants.
Studies show that migrants commit crime at a LOWER rate than citizens.
(So, that means, if we deport millions of them, you actually voted to increase the crime rate…)
Studies show that migrants contribute billions of dollars to city, state, and federal governments.
(So, that means that, no, they are not stealing government services from you. But, yes, if you deport them, you are both destroying our American tax base, while also stealing from them…)
This is ALSO what you voted for.
No, we don’t have too many migrants.
No, American cities aren’t war zones.
No, there aren’t millions of Brown criminals on the streets, and
No…those aren’t the folks being detained, right now, anyway.
No, none of this will solve America’s addiction to Fentanyl.
There are real solutions to all of these things. But those real solutions are complicated. And, yes, both political parties have failed to fix the system.
Mass deportation was never the solution to whatever actual problems we have. Mass deportation won’t even “solve” whatever societal problems you think they will solve. All mass deportations do is to rip apart families, communities, neighborhoods.
That’s it. They are a tactic of fear and intimidation, designed to turn neighbor-on-neighbor, and destroy the last remnants of trust Americans have in each other.
So…in sum…
No…mass deportations won’t work.
No…we don’t have too many migrants.
And finally, yes, you did vote for this.
What does the rest of country need from you, right now?
We need you to show true repentance, not just issue a statement. True repentance is “turning in a new way.” It means not just showing regret, or a feeling shame. It means acting in ways that help everyone else…especially our Latino neighbors…survive this hard time.
True repentance means calling your elected officials, and demanding they act with compassion and justice.
True repentance means working to elect people committed to stopping this harm.
True repentance means demanding that ICE act under the rule of law.
True repentance means demanding comprehensive immigration reform.
Let’s see some of that from you, now.
Because you really DID vote for this, and you really can change, and yes….our whole nation needs you to do that, right now.
Just before the election I wrote this essay: “The Dangers of Voters Who Don’t Believe Trump”
It might be good time to revisit that too.