Dear Trump Supporter,

This year has been a doozy, hasn’t it? It started with some news about something called COVID way over there in China around December 2019. I know, like you, I didn’t think too much of it. Then Australia started burning. Weren’t you moved by pictures of homeless koalas with charred paws bottle-fed by rescue workers? Me too. They are homeless because their homes—Eucalyptus trees—lit up like tinder in the blazes. So many fires, floods, and other natural catastrophes erupting—quite literally—all over the world. It’s as if something is going on in nature, you know?

By March, the world was locked down. Who’d have ever imagined it? Gyms, bars, nail salons, even churches, etc.—all closed. How badly did you feel about small business owners who lost their sources of income? Employees of larger companies who lost their jobs due to necessary downsizing—I know several of them. I know you do too. There was so much information going back and forth about what we could do to stay safe—I know it’s been confusing.

Someone said we’d be rocking and rolling by summer. We weren’t. It’s November and we still aren’t. But that’s nothing compared to the more than 200,000 families that have lost ones to this mess of a disease. Did you hear Europe is going on lockdown again? Yeah, numbers are going up, not down. Here in America as well.

I know you watched all the protests this summer in the wake of George Floyd’s death. It was the catalyst that tipped the point for a lot of Americans. I think Black lives matter and as a people in the United States of America, they have gone through unthinkable horrors that no one should have to go through. I think you might agree with me on that.

I could go on and on recounting all the things that have made many of us want to cancel 2020. But there’s just too much. Way too much.

But I want to know, after everything—four years of crazy stuff that has been well-documented—by both national and international press, the impeachment, after all the deaths, after the fact that as long as this pandemic goes unchecked our economy won’t survive; after the failure of the president to denounce white supremacy, all the rape allegations, Jeffrey Epstein and that mess, after his infidelity to all of his wives, after his tweeting insults at anyone who doesn’t agree with or worship him, after the way he’s appeared to hijack Christianity to suit his purposes, after the fact that he’s the candidate of choice for the KKK, why did you still cast your vote for him?

I am well aware all Trump supporters aren’t all waving giant flags off in boat parades, insulting people of color at the local Starbucks, or trying to run Biden buses off Texas highways. I know that. Within your political community are people who love their families and friends, value their faith and places of worship, and genuinely want America to prosper and be peaceful.

So, please help me understand your choice.

A lot of the issues that seem to divide us are actually things we can work together on—even under a democratic administration. It doesn’t have to be do or die—there is a way to meet somewhere in the middle. It will take compassion, kindness, patience, and compromise, but it’s doable.

To move forward, we’ve got to understand each other better. So I’m asking you: help me understand.

Sincerely,

A friend