On Love and Trump

By Kailey McDonald

“…and I think what angers me the most is that he’s infected everyone. He’s made me hate, too. Because I do, I hate them. I hate them, Kailey, and that’s not supposed to be what I stand for. We’re supposed to be on the side of Love, and he’s turning us into this.”

I’ve been thinking about these words from a friend of mine since she uttered them on Wednesday evening, the night after Trump was elected. They’ve left a stain on me, because I can’t say she’s wrong. I feel a despicable kind of contempt taking root in my soul, and I don’t know what to do about it. Frankly, I’m not sure if I want to do anything about it.

Because I think what I hate is not the people who despise me, who fear me, who want to violate my rights, my body, my claim to a beautiful and free-thinking mind. Those people, I have managed (after long days of deep self-reflection) to find sympathy for. They too, feel afraid, and have been taken advantage of in one way or another by systems that are, just like in my case, out of their hands.

I don’t hate them; at least, I’m trying not to. I hate what they stand for.

I hate what they believe in and I hate what they symbolize, and it’s ripping me apart, because we all know he has encouraged hate among his supporters like wildfire, but I didn’t know it had infected me, too. That wasn’t how this rhetoric was supposed to work. And yet here I am. I hate their fear, I hate their anger, I hate their hatred, I hate, I hate, I hate.

This is not how I am supposed to be. Above all other things, what I stand for is the respect and acknowledgement of human dignity. That humane treatment is not a privilege but a right, something I am obliged as a fellow human to give to everyone I interact with. This is the reason I speak, and write, and protest, and educate myself: so that I never fall prey to the easy road of denying someone dignity, simply because I was too lazy, or too biased, or too close-minded to try to learn from them or talk to them.

I cling to this with everything I have, and I always thought this was love. But when I see people telling me to embrace the rampant post-election hatred with love?

I can’t.

How can I love that which seeks to destroy me, that which seeks to see me hurt, in pain, sent away to be “fixed” of my queerness, who sees my body as an object of someone else’s pleasure in which I have no say. How can I watch testimony after testimony of people who have been attacked, murdered, shot at, threatened, harassed, and give my love to the perpetrators?

I’m not ready yet. I’m not strong enough. I don’t know if I ever will be.

I will talk to them, I will try to engage with them, I will continue to treat them with dignity because I see no other way forward, but I cannot love them right now. Especially not when I so clearly see them as a “them.” There is a reason for that, and that reason frightens me.

What does this mean? On the one hand, it’s a form of self-love. I will not expose myself to continued abuse out of a sense of moral superiority. That will not get my voice heard, nor will it protect my rights, my safety, or my life. But at the same time, it hurts. It hurts to admit that Trump has taken my ability to love from me. It hurts worse to think I’ve given it freely. It feels wrong; it feels like I’ve consumed a piece of myself, like oxygen fueling a fire. Is that self-love? I don’t know.

What I do know is that offering my love is not the same as offering my civility, my conversation. This I can and must continue to put forth, even more aggressively. I must make an effort not to expect my words to happen across these people, but to go to them and initiate the dialogue myself. We must bridge this gap somehow. I cannot bridge it with love, not today, but perhaps one day, all sides will have healed enough to embrace one another with love. As far as my spiritual wellbeing, that it seems must be a constant work in progress, and I’m not sure what is in store. But when it comes to my physical safety, and the wellbeing of people (regardless of political affiliation), I will always fight to put a stop to violence. If it means limiting my own exposure, or stepping in between someone else’s violence and their target. My inability to embrace Trump supporters does not mean I will not loudly condemn violence against them, or step in to protect them if I see it happen.

I cannot love them but I will not hate them. I will only hate what they stand for, and that makes all of the difference.

Lada: I met Kailey at LMC. She was one of the most passionate student leaders I had ever met. Seeing her speak and hearing her ideas and finally seeing these new innovative ideas come to action was attractive and strengthened me to continue to push forward past my own struggles. She wrote this piece shortly after Trump was announced the new president and I think it is still relevant to the climate we are in right now. Thank you Kailey, for putting what so many of us are thinking and feeling into powerful words.