"Why Won't My Democrat Friends Talk to Me after I Voted for Trump?" An Explanation from a Liberal
December 7, 2024
So you voted for Trump and you don’t understand why some of your friends have stopped speaking to you? After all, you’re still the person you always were—a good person, a kind person. And it’s ridiculous to throw away a relationship over “just politics,” right? Well, If you genuinely want to understand and not just brush it off as liberals being “sore losers,” you can read through the following. Basically, it’s like this:
In 2016 you voted for the equivalent of Stage 1 cancer. Trump obviously fomented racism, had a history of sexual assault, and had clear aspirations to be a dictator. But you voted for him either in spite of or because of these attributes. He won, and we liberals stayed friends with you anyway. The cancer seemed to be treatable—the country’s institutions, courts and Democratic elected officials held him accountable and reined in some of his worst, most chaotic impulses. And, the truth is, we LIKE you…you’re often kind, loyal, funny…the kind of people who would give the shirt of their back to their friends. So we didn’t want to let “politics” get in the way of our friendship. We gave you the benefit of the doubt that the malicious real-world consequences of your vote for Trump were unintended.
So then in 2020 you voted to plague the country with Stage 2 cancer. You saw how he pitted us all against each other and botched the pandemic response, resulting in countless preventable deaths. You saw how he tried to use the power of his office to extort Ukraine in order to stay in office. But you still voted for him, knowing that if your vote was successful, the authoritarian cancer would spread, wearing down the institutional defenses that had thus far maintained our democracy. But we liberals stayed friends with you anyway, because, fortunately we were able to send the cancer into remission—the powers of good prevailed, and Joe Biden was elected. And, again, we stayed friends with you because, despite our political worldviews being polar opposites, we LIKE you…there are many aspects of your personality we admire…you may be fiercely loyal…you may be quick with a compliment and to say “I love you” to friends…we may have a shared history of good memories that we cherish. So in 2020, our friendship still seemed to be more important to us than standing up for the marginalized groups that your MAGA movement seeks to oppress.
So then in 2024 you voted to inflict Stage 4 cancer on our country. You saw how, after he lost in 2020, Trump mounted a violent insurrection against the lawful transfer of power that is at the heart of democracy, injuring police officers (killing one) in the process. You heard him promise to be a dictator “on day one.” You heard him use Hitler-esque language to dehumanize minority groups and those who oppose him. You saw his TV ads demonizing Latin American immigrants, essentially re-purposing the kinds of racist tropes that white southerners used to justify lynchings in the post-Reconstruction/Jim Crow South. You saw his obvious mental decline, as he nonsensically spewed vile “they’re eating the dogs!” racism. And yet you still voted for that, claiming that it was about the economy, despite the fact that his idea to reduce inflation was to (checks notes)…get us all to pay an additional tariff on top of already high post-pandemic prices so that he can give further tax breaks to his millionaire and billionaire cronies. And you won. So now we’re all potentially dealing with Stage 4 cancer. And now—probably too late—many of us on the left can’t bring ourselves to forgive you for inflicting this cancer on us.
I’m sure you don’t believe that Trump is a malignant cancer. I don’t expect you to. But if you truly want to understand why many of your former friends and relatives are cutting you off “because of politics,” this is why. Because now, we’re not only livid with you, we’re also angry at ourselves for maintaining our friendship with you throughout the past 8 years, because in doing so, we’ve given you the impression that it’s perfectly acceptable to keep voting for cancer. If Harris had won, and she could’ve moved ahead with restoring the health of democracy and building up middle-class prosperity, we probably would’ve forgiven you again. But now we can see that this forgiveness also would’ve been wrong. Because in remaining friends with people who support an ideology that transcends politics and seeks to assert in-group (i.e., white, male, straight, “Christian”) dominance over everyone else, we’ve given you the false impression that because YOU are at heart a kind, good person, the movement you’re supporting can’t possibly be cruel and oppressive. By continuing to stay friends with you, we’re giving you the impression that the movement you support is perfectly fine. And then you keep fucking voting for cancer.
Listen, I know Trump isn’t exactly Hitler. (And that’s probably the nicest thing that can be said about the convicted felon/adjudicated rapist/lifelong grifter.) My point isn’t to make you believe that he is. But I just want to point out that the majority of Germans in the 1930s were probably decent, kind-hearted people as well…I’m sure many were fun, funny, loyal, helpful…most of them probably went to church dutifully every Sunday. Very few of the people who initially voted the Nazi regime into power could’ve possibly believed the extent of the inhumanity that would be unleashed. They just wanted to make Germany great again, and to make sure that their “in-group” was in control, held above those they considered outsiders. My point isn’t that MAGAs and Nazis are the same exactly, but that good people can easily support something that is evil, and the fact that good people support it doesn’t make it any less so. And now I’m angry at myself for not making this clear to you much earlier.
If Trump doesn’t necessarily want to be Hitler, he definitely wants to be the American Putin. To explain liberals’ post-election anger to you another way, on election night, we all went to bed as residents of the United States and beneficiaries of our long history of democracy. On the morning of November 6, because of YOUR vote, for all intents and purposes, we woke up in Putin’s Russia.
While I’m not a Lee Greenwood fan (or a country music fan in general) I genuinely have always been proud to be an American. I’ve been grateful to live in a nation with a free press, where people can speak out against and protest different issues and freely speak truth to power. While not perfect, the democracy put forward by our founding fathers really was revolutionary in its aspirations for self-governance and equality. Until now, our history has been geared toward protecting and expanding that freedom….fighting against the wealthy southern plantation owners who profited from chattel slavery during the Civil War…fighting against fascism in Germany and Italy during World War II. And now I’m deeply ashamed to be part of the generation that most likely just threw our freedom away.
Instead of real freedom, MAGA opted for the “freedom” as defined by Elon Musk and other internet trolls as “the right to bully and harass online without facing any criticism, and the right to spread false information without any pushback.” Now that you’ve won, you’ve potentially gutted the true freedom of speech that the founding fathers enshrined in the Constitution. Because of your vote, from now on, it’s going to be really difficult not to wince at flag-waving MAGAs obliviously singing the lyrics “’cause at least I know I’m free!,” as if that’s still true. Lee Greenwood’s lyrics being sung by Americans now will ring as hollow and absurd as if they were sung by people in Putin’s Russia or Kim Jong Un’s North Korea.
When Trump and Project 2025 start stealing all the money you’ve paid into Social Security all your life so that co-President Elon Musk can become the world’s first trillionaire, do you think you’ll feel any regret about having given the fascist regime the ability to squash protest and dissent? (You do realize that because your candidate won, the chances of anyone in GenX or younger ever seeing a dime of their social security benefits is virtually nil, don’t you? Trump hasn’t taken office yet, and Musk’s DOGE and Republicans in Congress are already salivating about raiding social security. Can you start to see a little bit why we’re furious with you?)
And who’s to know how long this fascist authoritarian regime will last? This past summer I took a trip to Spain (which may be the last vacation I ever take if Trump implements his economic plans, which Nobel-winning economists agree will increase prices and potentially tank the economy). On several of the tour excursions in and around Barcelona, the tour guides joked about how the best thing their past dictator Franco had done for them was to die. They were effusive about finally being able to start enjoying the freedom of democracy in the 1970s after decades of dictatorship. As a U.S. citizen, it made me cringe to listen to these guides celebrate their relatively newfound democratic freedom, knowing that in the U.S. we were on the brink of throwing away our own.
As a MAGA voter, you must believe that living in a dictatorship benefits you somehow—you must believe that you’re part of the privileged “in-group” that will benefit from the oppression of the “out-group.” But I have to ask, when in modern history has a fascist dictatorship benefitted the majority of its citizens? Hitler’s Germany? Mussolini’s Italy? Putin’s Russia? The U.S. right wing praises Hungarian dictator Viktor Orban for his demonization of immigrants and oppression of gays and independent women in the name of “family values.” But Hungary consistently ranks at or near the last in terms of the happiest first-world countries. It’s almost as if an oppressive culture that promotes cruelty to marginalized groups doesn’t actually enhance the overall happiness of the average citizen. Go figure.
Obviously, being a 78-year-old who is already exhibiting symptoms of dementia inherited from his father, Trump himself can’t stay dictator as long as Franco did in Spain. Considering how often he spent his first term in office golfing, it’s unlikely that he’ll have much interest in governing this time around. Aside from using the office of president to further enrich himself and to pursue vindictive retribution against those who tried to hold him accountable for his crimes, the convicted felon probably will outsource most presidential duties to someone else (Musk?) so he can spend his days at Mar-a-Lago or at his Bedminster club, where he can now ride his golf cart back and forth over the grave of his first ex-wife.
Bearing that in mind, maybe you don’t think there’s really any harm in letting Trump have the powers of a dictator. Maybe you think he’s harmless and funny, just a more pompous version of Abe Simpson, a semi-senile oddball who nonsensically bloviates about Hannibal Lecter, windmill cancer and low-flow toilets while dry humping the American flag and simulating fellatio with a microphone. What could go wrong??? But to whom are you really ceding power? Elon Musk? Peter Thiel? And do you think they’ll willingly relinquish that power once Trump is out of the way, one way or another?
There’s a quote from journalist/lawyer/presidential historian Seth Abramson on Bluesky that resonates with me. “You know how in your forties or fifties everything in and about your body just starts becoming a bit crappy and you know it’s not going to get better in your lifetime? That’s what happened to America starting in 2015—we may have hit the point at which the generation that’ll fix this isn’t alive yet.” As a fifty-something Gen-X’er, I feel this statement in my bones.
Even if you don’t believe you’ve ushered in a dark authoritarian era, can you at least start to understand why liberals like myself are too angry to want to have anything to do with you at the moment? In the summer and early fall, we knew the polls were tight, but we were optimistic about electing a presidential team that would represent us—all of us, including you. We were looking for the economic policies that would’ve taken further steps toward dismantling Reagan’s “trickle-down” economics that have exacerbated economic insecurity during the past decades. We were looking forward to a more demand-based economy, which is fueled by a healthy middle class that has the security and disposable income to spend on goods and services, thereby spurring business and overall economic growth. We looked forward to having a government that would act in our best interest, kind of like a union, protecting us from being exploited by wealth-depraved sociopaths.
But you won, and now we’re all at the mercy of the union-busters, the genocidally wealthy parasites who want to turbo-charge a supply-side economy in which economic “success” is based on allowing the wealthy to gorge themselves on the fruits of our labor until they’re satisfied (which they never are), at which point they may condescend to allow the rest of us to fight over their scraps.
So now people like me are scrambling to figure out what we can do to protect ourselves.
No doubt you and your MAGA friends have mocked rich liberal celebrities who’ve said that they’d leave the country if Trump were to re-gain the presidency. But it’s not only celebrities who are seriously considering this option. Two years ago, sensing the rising tide of fascism in the U.S., I went through the paperwork to get citizenship in another country based on my grandparents’ place of birth. I know I’m lucky to have that option. You may mock this as an extreme overreaction to my candidate losing and roll your eyes, suspecting that I won’t actually go through with it. And it’s true, I probably will be too paralyzed by uncertainty and by my commitment to my family, friends, job, and my lifelong ties to the country of my birth to completely uproot myself and make such a huge move—at least for now.
So now there’s a part of me that’s looking at the things that I LOVE about where I live—being close to family, elderly parents, etc.—as shackles. And, I have to be honest, I kind of hate you right now for making me feel encumbered by the things I should be able to unequivocally cherish.
I’ll probably take a wait-and-see approach, while fearing that the longer I wait, the fewer options I’ll have. I also have to consider that if the “hardship” that co-president Elon Musk has promised us creates a depression that is worldwide, I may be better off here where I have contacts and references rather than in a country where I know no one. Right now I feel like I can see an oncoming car careening in my direction, and my choices are to hit the brakes and brace myself for impact, hoping that my seatbelt and airbag will save me, or I can try to swerve into the other lane where there’s a good chance I’ll be hit by an oncoming truck. Your vote put me in this un-winnable situation.
As a middle-class middle-aged hetero white woman, I know I won’t be as negatively impacted as other vulnerable groups (unless couch-fucking weirdo VP-elect has his way and rounds up all the childless cat ladies). I reassure myself by reminding myself that there are millions of people in Russia and North Korea who must be able to get by and live okay lives. I take consolation in the fact that my grandparents made it through the Great Depression. But still, I can easily picture a series of economic consequences of living in the kakistocracy of billionaire oligarchs that might eventually doom me to losing everything. I can easily imagine dying in a ditch being kicked in the teeth by a thug in a red hat who has been brainwashed into blaming ME for his own economic insecurity, instead of the genocidally wealthy bazillionaires he has put in control. And yes, I blame your vote for making me feel this way. Can you understand at least a little why I’m not enthusiastic about talking to you now?
You’re undoubtedly thinking that my reaction is overblown…that I’ve been warped by liberal propaganda…that I’m wrong to believe economists and strategists who say that Trump’s plans, if implemented, may lead to a recession, as opposed to believing your “stable genius,” the serially bankrupt former casino owner/reality TV game show host. My point here isn’t to convince you to share my fear for a Trump-led future. I know you don’t. I’m only trying to help you gain an understanding of why your liberal friends/acquaintances don’t want anything to do with you right now. I hope MAGA hasn’t already taken away your capacity for empathy.
The truth is, I don’t know how bad it will get. Obviously. No one does. No one has a crystal ball. And although liberals like myself have spent election season scream-quoting Maya Angelou’s “when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time!” there IS a possibility that Trump won’t enact all the economy- and democracy-killing initiatives he’s promised. MAYBE he won’t crush the economy with tariffs. MAYBE he’ll just coast along with the strong economy Joe Biden has left him in terms of high stock market and historically low unemployment. MAYBE the mass deportation of Latin American immigrants won’t be as “bloody” and violent as he’s promised his most racist supporters it would be. (Not you…of course not you…you voted him IN SPITE of his promise to enact “bloody” violence against immigrant men women and children, not BECAUSE you wanted the cruelty, right?) So maybe…maybe the worst possible outcomes of a Trump presidency won’t come to pass.
In contrast to the “snowflake” post-election response you may have received from liberals like myself, you’re probably patting yourself on the back for how magnanimous you’d be if the shoe were on the other foot and Harris had won. You wouldn’t have been so upset over “just politics.” You wouldn’t have cut off your liberal friends. And I believe that’s almost certainly true. But, here’s the thing—I think you know that if Harris had won, your life would’ve remained essentially unchanged. At worst, the price of groceries would’ve stayed the same without a corresponding uptick in wages. And you wouldn’t have cut off your liberal-leaning friends because of the price of eggs.
The thing is, I don’t actually think you’re as racist/bigoted as Donald Trump and other white nationalist MAGA politicians believe you are. Throughout the campaign season, they saturated the airwaves with fearmongering racist ads meant to whip their voters—you—into believing that the greatest danger you faced (probably in your non-border state) was violent roving gangs of strong brown-skinned men whose sole motivation was to abduct and rape your delicate suburban white women. While you’re obviously racist enough that you weren’t repulsed by these blatant appeals to racism, I don’t think you’re racist enough that you actually believed this to be a real danger to you or your family. If Harris had won the election, it wouldn’t occur to you to consider relocating your family out of the country. You wouldn’t be trying to devise ways to protect your delicate white women from Latin American rapists when they venture out of the house to go shopping. You wouldn’t be looking into backyard security systems to protect your pets from being eaten by Haitian immigrants. You know you’d all be safe. You know and always knew that this racist fearmongering was all bullshit.
If Harris had won, you wouldn’t have been fearing that your churches would be shut down. You wouldn’t have contemplated pulling your kids or grandkids out of school for fear that public schools would randomly conduct gender reassignment surgeries on them. You’re smart enough to know that that was ridiculous. You wouldn’t be googling how to relocate to more “family friendly” countries like Russia or Hungary that align with your white “Christian” values.
You also wouldn’t have cut off your liberal friends if Harris had won because you would’ve realized that a vote for Harris wasn’t a vote to intentionally hurt you. You may be a kind person, but can you honestly say that your fellow MAGAs weren’t enthusiastic about inflicting some kind of pain on liberals? (Gleefully celebrating liberal tears?) We liberals have no interest in Republican voter tears. (Yes, we would’ve basked in the schadenfreude if the criminals at the top of the fascist MAGA party had faced any accountability for their grotesque crimes, but that doesn’t mean that we would’ve taken joy in the tears of their voters. We just wanted you all to share in a higher quality middle-class life with health and dental insurance.)
I know that I’m privileged and don’t have as much to worry about as marginalized groups do from a white supremacist Christofascist regime. And still, I’m worried enough about my future to write this long open letter. So, MAGA voter, how do you think your “friends” who are in more vulnerable groups than I am feel about you right now? You may consider yourself open-minded and accepting of gays and lesbians. You may even have celebrated with your gay/lesbian relatives/friends/co-workers at their weddings and birthday parties. You may be patting yourself on the back for your tolerance (I can’t be a homophobic bigot if I went to a gay person’s party!) instead of acknowledging the hypocrisy of celebrating with them while simultaneously voting to take their rights away and make them second-class citizens. The Christofascist branch of the MAGA-Republican party is on a crusade to take away LGBTQ rights to marry, to not face discrimination, to just buy a wedding cake. So can you begin to understand why they might not want to humor your hypocrisy now that your MAGA political movement—the political party that wants to demonize them and destroy their lives, rights, and livelihoods—has won?
“But that’s not REALLY what I voted for!” you might be saying. And, maybe not. Late-Night comedian John Oliver made a good point that partially redeems the MAGA voter—he said that, because Trump spews such a flood of lies and contradictory promises, people who are inclined to vote for him can pick and choose the Trump they want. So you might not believe (even though he says so) that Trump will be an actual dictator…you might not really think the deportation of Latin Americans will be as “bloody” as he promised…you might not believe that he’ll implement any of Project 2025s oppression of gays, women, etc. You may have just voted for him because you thought that he would be able to magically wave a wand and set grocery prices back to what they were before the worldwide pandemic happened. You may have voted for him because you thought that prices would go down if modern-day J.R. Ewing-types could plunder the planet for maximum profit. But you really didn’t vote for all the fascist/racist/authoritarian dictatorship stuff… that’s not what you signed up for.
Well, great then. At least you seem to agree that those things are wrong. Maybe we can still be friends at some point. But only if you agree to the following. (And if you’re starting to balk at me wanting to impose conditions on our friendship, please remember that I stayed your friend after you voted for our country to go through stage 1 and 2 cancer. I liked you that much.)
1. Stop watching Fox “News”/Newsmax. Really. This is non-negotiable. If you’re willingly subjecting yourself to your own brainwashing, then there’s no way you’ll be open-minded enough to even consider accepting the next items in any real way. By watching the MAGA propaganda networks, it’s basically like you’re watching Kim Jong Un’s State TV praising “Dear Leader” 24/7 even though you still (for now) have other, more neutral options. I’m guessing that right now you’re thinking to yourself “but MSNBC/CNN do the same thing from the Left!” You have a point, to a degree—in outrage-baiting bias/tone, etc., MSNBC/CNN may be the equivalent of Fox/Newsmax, but there is one important distinction, and that’s that despite their bias, the liberal outlets are at least beholden to facts. Fox and Newsmax flat-out lie to you. That is a fact. Fox has lost multi-million lawsuits based on their lies. And they’ve WON other lawsuits when their lawyers have argued that no sensible person would REALLY believe that what former Fox personality Tucker Carlson was saying would be taken seriously. Fox lied to you when they faced legal and financial consequences for doing so. How much MORE are they going to lie to you now that the regime in power WANTS them to? I’m not saying you should watch MSNBC/CNN or any outlet deemed “liberal.” Get your news from sources that are ranked as more neutral in terms of media bias. If we’re going to be any kind of friends in the future, you need to stop being complicit in your own brainwashing. And you know what? I’ll agree to seek out more impartial news sources as well.
2. Fact-check yourself. Again, do you WANT your worldview to be based on things that are provably false? It’s not hard. Really. It’s as easy as a google search of key words. It takes about a minute or less. The rule should be, if you don’t have time to fact-check something, then you don’t have time to post it. Just think, you don’t have to be embarrassed by your liberal friends fact-checking your posts if you just take a few seconds to fact-check yourself first! Seriously. You’re an adult—an adult who has probably been on some form of social media for nearly 20 years now. You can figure it out. And, at the risk of sounding like a snarky condescending liberal, yes, if you post memes that are stating things that are obviously false, you DO look dumb.
3. Determine what your line is in terms of cruelty and stick by it. Trump promised his most racist, bloodthirsty supporters that his deportation of “illegals” would be “bloody,” and has now appointed Stephen Miller (essentially Josef Mengele reincarnate) to carry out this mission. You think it’s ridiculous that liberals would make any comparisons to Nazi concentration camps? (Remember, according to the Nazis, Anne Frank and her family were “illegals” too.) You think it’s absurd that liberals like myself fear a modern-day SS storming into communities, committing violence against good people, and dragging them into forced labor camps? Good! I’m glad to hear that! At least that means you still agree with me that that scenario would be bad. I don’t expect you to oppose mass deportations as I will—you voted for it, after all. But if we’re to ever be friends again, I DO need you to commit to standing up against this deportation being enacted in a way that’s bloody and violent and harms or kills men, women, and children who just came to the U.S. seeking out a better life. Please take a moment now to determine for yourself how much bloodshed you think is acceptable, and promise yourself and me that if this regime goes beyond that, you’ll stand with me and do what you can to stop it. The degree of cruelty to immigrants right now is in your hands. I already know where my line is, and it’s well before this. If the cruelty/death/dehumanization crosses your line, please commit now to calling your Republican representatives and telling them that you voted for them because they were supposed to make life better for you, and that’s not the same as making life worse for others. Commit to telling them that you haven’t given them a mandate for cruelty, and they shouldn’t try to enact it in your name.
(And, I can’t say this enough, back to point #1, you have to agree to STOP allowing yourself to be brainwashed by Fox/Newsmax. Fox talking head Jesse Watters is ALREADY, even before the white nationalist MAGA regime is sworn in, auditioning to be the modern-day Goebbels by telling viewers that they should think mass deportations are "hysterical." He’s ALREADY telling you to steel yourself against having any empathy or compassion for your fellow human beings. If you continue choosing to get your “news” from the white nationalist MAGA propaganda network, history isn’t going to give you a pass for being purposely oblivious to the suffering your vote created.)
4. Similar to the point above, determine what your line is in terms of taking away rights from your LGBTQ friends and relatives…those people whose weddings and birthdays you celebrate. If you really only voted for Christofascist MAGAs because you wanted lower grocery prices and NOT because they would take away rights from the gay and lesbian people you supposedly care about, you should be willing to stand up with me for their rights when those rights are threatened. You should be ready to tell your Republican representatives that hurting others is not the same as helping you, and they should concentrate on lowering the cost of living and protecting things that you want—like Social Security—instead of taking away the rights of your fellow citizens.
5. Defend democracy with me. I’m sure you believe my fears for democracy are unfounded—probably even ridiculous. Great! That means that you still agree with me that democracy is good and fascist authoritarianism is bad! But my liberal fears for this country are as ridiculous as you let them be. If the Trump/Musk MAGA regime punishes journalists and clamps down on free speech, will you join me in standing up for 1st Amendment rights? Or will you brush that aside as no big deal since an exclusively pro-white-nationalist MAGA media tells you what you want to hear? Will you remember that whatever power you allow Trump to seize in terms of suppressing dissent will also be used by his yet-to-be-identified Christofascist successors? Will you be as outraged as I am if the white nationalist MAGA regime targets and arrests Trump’s political opponents and critics? Or are you already so far gone that you don’t understand the difference between Trump using his power to attack people for criticizing him, and the prosecutors and politicians who tried to hold felon Trump and his corrupt cronies accountable for the crimes they brazenly committed?
I understand that you believe my fears are overblown, that you haven’t REALLY plunged the U.S. into a dystopian, Orwellian, Christofascist white nationalist autocracy. So can you, at a minimum, make a commitment to the five points above? Just think—if my fears are truly unjustified and there’s no fascism/cruelty to protest, then you won’t have to do much to honor this commitment! Because I believe that the only thing stopping the worst offenses of a Trump dictatorship from happening is you. Please start to identify at which point you’ll push back against authoritarian oppression and violence. Because, to be honest, I don’t have a lot of confidence in you right now. I’m skeptical that you’ll even SEE what is happening until it directly impacts you, at which point you may have ceded so much power to the billionaire-led autocracy that it’ll be too late. But I’d love it and welcome it if you’d prove me wrong. And then we can talk.
