For the last several weeks, I feel like I’ve been existing in a perpetual silent scream as I watch people defend Donald Trump and his increasingly inhumane and inexcusable acts since he became president. 

The hardest part is seeing this defense come from people I used to be very close to: extended family, old friends, and people I used to be in faith community with. All of these people would claim to be Christians and followers of Jesus. This has been baffling to me, as I see Trump’s beliefs and actions as completely antithetical to the teachings of Jesus. The cognitive dissonance is unlike anything I have ever personally witnessed in my lifetime. 

However, stewing in continual rage was not serving me, so I’m (trying) to lead in my mind with curiosity and compassion before jumping to conclusions. As a result, I believe I’ve gained some insight as to why some people from evangelical or other high-control sects of Christianity seem to support this man no matter what he does or says. 

I was raised in the evangelical church, (very much a high-control religious environment), and while I’m not a part of that world anymore, it was a world I was deeply entrenched in for most of my life. In that belief system, one thing you’re taught is that men in leadership ought to be submitted to, whether you understand them or not. There’s also an extreme emphasis on trusting in God completely, and not relying on your own thoughts, feelings, or understanding. Distrust of your own intuition and emotions is a core belief, as the self is seen as inherently sinful and corrupt. 

Masculinity in these spaces is, very often, toxic. Men can be taught that strength looks a lot like what we’re seeing from our president: forceful, unapologetic, misogynistic, and even abusive. On the other end of the spectrum, many people I knew had deeply traumatic experiences with extremely passive men who allowed them to be harmed and never intervened, causing them to overcorrect and seek out what appeared to be a version of strong masculinity and leadership, with often heartbreaking results.  

We were regularly taught that God could use “imperfect men” to do great things, such as King David, a “man after God’s own heart” who was also a rapist and murderer. For example, I learned in adulthood that my high school youth pastor was an active sex addict the entire time he worked in leadership over teenagers at our church, regularly cheating on his gorgeous wife, with the full knowledge of our senior pastor who just kept giving him more chances to “get right with the Lord.” This was apparently never an issue to the rest of the church’s leadership, as they thought that this person was perfectly suitable to be in charge of a large group of minors. 

Women were taught to submit: to obey their husbands, their fathers, and their pastors above all else, no matter what harm they may cause. Women were taught to be beautiful, meek, quiet, and to keep our opinions to ourselves. We were also taught that no matter how bad things appeared to be, if we just trusted God enough, everything would work out for “God’s glory” in the end. This removes all personal responsibility from the believer, puts it all on the believed in, and covers a multitude of sins. 

I would be remiss not to mention the roll republican loyalty plays here as well. I was raised to believe that conservative Christians voted republican, period. It didn’t much matter who was on the ticket, as long as they “aligned” with the republican values we claimed to support: pro-life (of course), pro-God, and pro-America. The irony here is that I don’t believe that Donald Trump is actually any of these things. He continually shows his blatant disregard for human life, he is absolutely not a follower of Jesus, and it seems like he wants to flat-out dismantle the constitution and bill of rights. But even so, that indoctrination to the republican party and the way it has become inextricably linked with Christianity is difficult to dismantle.

Combine all of this with a continual emphasis on heaven, one’s eternal home, and reminders that the earth will perish and we will be leaving it very, very soon, and you end up with a recipe for letting the world burn and doing very little to help stop it. 

When you are entrenched in high-control religion, you are regularly gaslit and bullied into believing things that don’t necessarily make sense. The president is a very good bully, so it’s no surprise that he pulls so many people from high-control religious spaces to be his most vehement supporters. I used to be there; I know what it’s like to be brainwashed into that belief system.

It’s why it is so incredibly difficult to have a logical argument with a Trump supporter about political policy: their beliefs are not built on logic, but on emotion and fiery religious conviction, and that is far more difficult to uproot than an illogical argument. 

In that sense, I have the upmost compassion for those who have been folded into the cult of MAGA. It’s a very slippery slope, and it’s extremely hard to climb back out once you’re at the bottom. And believe me when I say, it is a cult, and as such, we have to treat its members as what they are: people who’ve been manipulated by a cruel and uncaring tyrant. 

Treating our highly religious friends and family like they are inherently hateful and stupid for supporting Trump isn’t getting us far, but I do think that approaching our loved ones who have slipped too far down that slope with a bit more compassion and curiosity as to how they got there is a better way forward. 

May we go forward being more gentle with ourselves, more curious with others, and absolutely vicious on the politicians and systems that hold so much power.

*A critical caveat*

Don’t take any of what I’ve written to mean that you ought to let unhealthy or unsafe people into or back into your life. Firm boundaries are loving, for yourself and for those around you. I wrote this piece to articulate thoughts that had been bouncing around my head for weeks. Still, please understand that in my own life, I’ve had to draw strong boundaries and limit (and even eliminate) contact with many unsafe people like those I’ve written about here. Having compassion for where these people are coming from is not the same as condoning their beliefs or actions; having empathy for the fact that they’ve been hoodwinked by a grifter is not a good reason to stay in an unhealthy relationship dynamic. Set your boundaries. Protect yourself. Protect your peace. Compassion is not the same as justification.

By Kimberly Poovey