The next one up is usually the most contentious and consequential election in modern American history. The Doe jumps into the political waters.

Blue vs. red and everything—and everybody—in the middle, we hear from insiders, politicos, voters and neighbors. Strap in: Things are about to get fiery.

Anonymous narratives discussing everything politics. Whether Republican, Democrat, or other, read stories regarding the challenges due to political alignment.

Anonymous Political Narratives - The Doe

Politics

The photographer was ready to kick someone’s ass.

We were sitting in our hotel room on the eve of his first Trump rally. I was watching Fox News while he processed some photos from the Biden event earlier that day. He couldn’t see the television, but he could hear it.

“How can you watch that shit?” he asked me from the desk at the back of the room.

“You’ve got to know what you’re getting into,” I said.

I turned the volume down. He fumed at the sight of Sean Hannity. Maybe he was nervous at the thought of running the gauntlet of a journo-bashing MAGA mob at the SNHU Arena in Manchester, New Hampshire. As a journalist, an arena of 10,000 screaming Trump supporters promised a level of tension. He reacted by preparing for an all-out brawl. In his mind, he would either hear something that would set him off, the same way Hannity was prodding at a raw nerve right then, or he would be the one to trigger a Trump supporter with his visible liberalism.

I’ve been going to Trump rallies since 2016, and I’ve never felt comfortable at one.

I’ve tried my best to avoid the press box so that I could speak to the red-blooded Americans who attend. The whole time I’ve been trying to understand my family and friends who support him.

I told to the photographer my plan. We would skip the press credentials and wait in line to enter through the same metal detectors like everyone else. We’d experience what it was like to go to a Trump rally rather than simply covering it. “Just take the photos,” I urged him. “You don’t have to talk to anyone. You’re not going to fight anyone.”

Journalists and progressives loathe Trump rallies because they aren’t the target audience. The ideas floated at random by the president are uncomfortable, the jokes are uncomfortable, the “fake news” chants and boos are uncomfortable.

You are uncomfortable and everyone around you can sense it.

As we stood in a line that zigged and zagged as though some wild ride awaited at the end, a man in a camouflage Keep America Great hat behind us marked us as nonbelievers. We were just about the only two in line not wearing our support on our heads or our backs. What’s worse, we were taking photos. He turned to his wife and said, “Who the fuck are these guys?” Then he turned to us and demanded to know if we were there to show our support or to stir up some shit.

At that moment, a fight would’ve been the best thing that could happen to me as a storyteller. I could picture the bold-faced headline: TRUMP SUPPORTERS ASSAULT JOURNALISTS AT RALLY IN NH. It would have given me something to write about, and it would have kept you, the reader, scrolling right down to the last word.

As journalists, we seek out these moments—which isn’t to say that we’re looking for a fight. But we’re always on the hunt for anything that might help us compete with everything else on the internet. We’re not just competing with other journalists—at the exact same rally with their cameras pointed at the exact same thing—but also with that “how to build a resin table” video you just scrolled past on your way here. We aim to inform, but we work to pay our bills, so more often than not, we also have to work to entertain.

It’s always the most outrageous moments that stand out because presidential campaigns, for the most part, still work the way they did before the internet—at least they did before COVID-19 threw a wrench in everything. Candidates would go from town to town delivering the exact same stump speech as though live streaming and social media didn’t exist. The press followed the program and waited for the candidate to slip up and give us something that breaks from the script that we can pounce on. We have an eye for these moments because our editors and producers demand it, but also because no one ever wrote about a plane that landed safely. That’s why Trump is constantly in the news. According to the rules of good politics, he’s a constant plane crash, but an endlessly watchable one.

What’s unfortunate is that this game of spot-the-difference often forces us to focus on the most negative aspects of politics: the worst thing a candidate has ever said or done, the worst people who follow them. The loudest voice in the room is the only one that gets heard. Real life just isn’t as interesting as we want it to be. Most planes do land.

My first Trump rally was in Davenport, Iowa. I was working for an obscure magazine out of Toronto that wanted to send me to a Trump rally before we missed our chance and his reality TV carnival burnt out. The mood at the time was that the circus might be over soon, and we had to catch it before it packed up, left town and politics got boring again.

But Trump never lost, and his rallies became the place you might expect to see a fight. For a time that was true, especially in the summer of 2016, when rallies had to be canceled because the future president was encouraging people to punch journalists in the face.

As a writer for a small foreign publication, it was a lot more difficult to get into the press pen at a Trump event. That wasn’t unique to Trump—it was just the way it worked. Local news and the national press got priority because they reached voters. But rejection offered me opportunity, a chance to see the real chaos outside as state police formed the dividing line between seething protesters and the MAGA-capped overflow from an overbooked event.

It’s been a while since you could expect fisticuffs at a Trump rally. After he became president, a giant screen loomed over the entrance of each event listing all the prohibited items that would be confiscated at the door. Even if Trump hadn’t tempered himself or his tweets, his campaign team was lucidly aware of how bad it might look if anything outside of the ordinary happened at a rally. They don’t even sell beer at the concession stands anymore.

“If a protest starts near you,” an upbeat voice boomed over the crowd from a loudspeaker. “Please do not, in any way, touch or harm a protester.”

At a Trump rally, having credentials is the worst thing that can happen to a journalist. After the first 6 a.m. email from the campaign team urging you to stay in the designated press area to the moment the headliner leaves the stage, there’s no fun to be had as a credentialed member of Trump’s traveling press. Reporters who enter a Trump rally from an arena’s loading bay—to be frisked by the Secret Service for a lanyard that allows them to enter the cage at the back of the room—might as well be watching from home. After four years, we know exactly what he’s going to say.

Any real experience to be had at a Trump rally comes by waiting in lines that wrap around the block. Where Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” blares through loudspeakers as you inch your way toward the front doors alongside folks carrying signs that read “Help Destroy America, Vote Democrat” and wearing shirts that say “TRUMP 2020: Make Liberals Cry Again.”

A typical political rally is meant to keep its audience awake long enough to introduce them to the candidate. Trump rallies are a movable circus that orbits three blocks around their center of gravity, sometimes graced by a flyover from Air Force One and always surrounded with merchandise vendors screaming at one another for setting the price of a hat too low. It’s a one-ride state fair and a storyteller’s wet dream.

I still remember the man who sat behind me at the Adler Theatre in Davenport in 2016, laughing into his phone. “You’ll never believe what I’m doing with my Saturday night,” he said. “Yeah, no, I’m at the Trump rally. No, I’m serious. I’m there.”

At his rallies, Trump is a showman first and a president second. I’ve met head-to-toe MAGA mannequins who profess their love for Trump shortly after laughing at him for mispronouncing the name of their town. They can forgive the slight, they say, because, “He’s done more than any other president.” Trump rallies are something short of a professional standup gig where the characters created by journalists are paraded on stage to sell their books. Trump rallies are the real-world equivalent of shitposted memes to trigger progressives, a cathartic release of ideas that are no longer acceptable in polite society. They’re a political Gathering of the Juggalos for self-identified social outcasts who return to the real world to sell us cars or build our homes or bag our groceries, and to shrug when someone says, “I can’t believe you’re one of them.”

Trump supporters are not fringe wackos. There were certainly enough of them to elect a president. They’re often identified with the worst things they believe, and when you hear them say things that make your head reel, you can forget that they’re schoolteachers and football coaches and business owners and millwrights. Instead, you’re left to wonder how such monsters could exist.

I could take my time to list all of the worst things I’ve heard at Trump rallies.

“We're ready for war. We’re not scared. Our side has the guns.”

“She a cunt! A cunt! She’s a bitch! A fugly bitch!”

“We have boys in the girl’s bathrooms now and they’re putting it all in our faces.”

I could also write about the time I spent an entire night having drinks with a Trump-supporting family just after a game at Wrigley Field. How close we came to understanding each other as they listened to a Balkan immigrant explain why America is great because it allows us to protest its flag. They disagreed. But six beers in, they heard me out.

The past five years of covering America has made me realize that Americans are too far gone to believe anything an outsider tells them about their sworn enemies: other Americans. I’ve also learned it might be worth our time to try to understand why people believe the things they do.

Trump supporters see a changing world because we are living in profoundly transformative times that none of us are fully equipped to handle. They’re not just defending racism or jokes made in poor taste. Most Trump supporters see declining marriage rates, young folks who aren’t having children, a growing number of Americans who are “spiritual but not religious” and manufacturing jobs disappearing. Until recently, America was built to be most comfortable for the Christian nuclear, middle-class family. That’s changing, and change isn’t easy for everyone.

Altering your entire outlook on life—everything you’ve been brought up to believe—takes time and a whole lot of help along the way. When it seems like everything you know is changing all at once, it’s deeply human to dig your heels into nostalgia. 

Change is what Trump, in defiance of reality, is sheltering his supporters from. A Trump rally is the one place where the liberals aren’t “putting it all in our faces.” At least not all at once. It’s where you don’t have to feel uncomfortable as a conservative in a changing world. A Trump rally is where conservatives aren’t made to feel stupid for the things they believe. It’s the opposite of the internet, where our headlines remind them how uncomfortable they make the rest of us.

Far too many of us who feel perfectly comfortable in a changing world think it’s not worth our time to help a Trump supporter accept change, to concede that they can still have their family, they can still have their religion, although they’ve got to give a little too. It’s exhausting to change someone’s mind. It seems that it’s not worth our effort. Fights make one hell of a headline, but they also force schoolteachers and football coaches and business owners and millwrights to dig further into nostalgia and seek out the static past Trump is selling.

Americans, at the moment, are willing to expect the worst of each other. The photographer certainly expected it. But there was no fight that day. He sat next to a hockey mom. They talked about their daughters.

Long Reads

Insiders

I’ve Covered Lots of Trump Rallies: Here’s What I’ve Learned About Him and His Supporters

On Election Day 2016, I stepped into the voting booth and carefully filled in the oval next to a third-party candidate. I’d previously voted for John McCain and Mitt Romney, and this was the first time I wouldn’t be voting for a Republican. I was convinced that regardless of who I voted for, Hillary Clinton would win. That evening, as the results rolled in, I sat in disbelief. 

The shame from my time as a Republican was overwhelming in that moment, eclipsed only by my fear of what was yet to come. In the years after, I’d find myself reevaluating everything I stood for. Call it ignorance or denial, but I didn’t fully see the Republican Party for what it was, or how so many conservative leaders manipulated their followers until Donald Trump was their candidate. 

When I was a teenager, I was very interested in politics. I was getting into political debates before I could even drive. A proud member of the pro-life movement, I’d go on to not only speak at churches and events about how we must value life, but was even on the board of directors for a pregnancy care center. I began stepping away from the movement in 2014 after realizing that it wasn’t the bastion of morals I had once believed it was, and I found myself drawn to the need to stand up for all life—including immigrants, refugees and victims of police brutality. It didn’t take long to realize that for far too many, being pro-life had more to do with controlling women than saving lives. 

I witnessed those involved in the pro-life movement vehemently protest policies that were proven successful in reducing abortions and celebrating politicians who signed off on measures that could increase abortion rates—simply because of simple party affiliation. Republicans believe Planned Parenthood to be an “abortion factory,” but pro-lifers blindly support Donald Trump despite record-high federal funding for Planned Parenthood under his watch.

Just as I was on the precipice of reevaluating my political affiliations, Trump came storming onto the stage with his racist rhetoric, blatant sexism and disregard for fellow human beings. I supported Marco Rubio in the primary, and then when he voiced his support for Trump, like the vast majority of his GOP colleagues, I decided to stop calling myself a Republican. When you step out of line in a majority Republican community, and in a majority Republican family, you find out just how dearly they cling to their beliefs—even more so if you’re a woman.

My views of Trump had already dramatically affected so many of my relationships, and I knew his victory would create even more chaos. The people I was surrounded by were emboldened by their new leader. One uncle was excited to “kick out all the Muslims,” and a coworker nonchalantly explained that “Mexican kids” should be deported with their parents so that her kids can have their classrooms back. One of the many cops in my family, someone who used to talk about the hand signals police would use to point out Black individuals to their colleagues, was excited to have a pro-law enforcement president. These views were now considered acceptable and could be voiced openly without feelings of shame, the once quiet symptoms of a disease that grew unchecked in Lincoln’s party until it was too late and a nationalist was in the White House. 

In the years since the election, I’ve been told by my aunt that my dead grandparents would be ashamed of me. I’ve been told my support for the kneeling football players and Black Lives Matter is a betrayal of my mostly cop and military family, many of whom I haven’t seen in years because: politics. I’ve been told that I’m “spitting in the face” of my dad’s 30-year career in the Army—a statement he doesn’t agree with, thankfully. “So disappointing,” my friends told me, “I thought you were an independent woman and free thinker, not a liberal.” Family members I had good relationships with deleted me off social media and sent me notes about how disappointed they were in me for sharing an article on systemic racism or writing a post about refugees or not supporting the “most pro-life president we’ve ever had.”

The Trump supporters in my life didn’t set out to have political discussions. They came with the intention to wound. Some even stopped speaking with my parents for supporting me. Opening up my inbox was a game of guessing who I was now on the outs with, but it also began to feel as though those messages were some sort of welcomed redemption for my part in helping the Republican Party before. 

I don’t say all of this for pity. The fear of this kind of shaming held me hostage to certain views growing up, but now I have thick skin and I can see these manipulation tactics for what they are. I know so many individuals who faced a similar type of expulsion or distancing from their families and friends for walking away from the GOP. Thankfully many of us have found solace in one another.

Now we find ourselves in another election year, with another choice to make. I’m horrified on a daily basis by our president’s actions. I’ve learned to accept the position of “local outlier,” especially at work where the usually playful political commentary often turns into full-on debates. His hold on my area in Northern Wisconsin is as evident as the Trump flag in the yard to my right and the “Back the Blue” sign in the yard to my left. Also evident is the irrational fear of all that is different, including people. Racist remarks are now so frequent that my looks of disgust have become the social oddity, and my rebuttals are left unseconded. If I could compliment the president on anything, it would be in his ability to drive people to reveal their true character. 

After years of watching cruelty win the day, I’m exhausted. I know I’m far from alone. 

Trump has brought out a level of depravity in this country that stems beyond mere political disagreement. He’s dehumanized minorities, belittled women and celebrated barbarism. Droves of people now refuse to wear masks because caring for your neighbor is unfashionable in the patriot’s world, while conspiracy theories and a selective dedication to rights flourish.

I currently live in a part of America where my neighbors find it more heroic to fight for the right not to wear a mask than to fight for the rights of minorities who simply wish to live through a traffic stop. Those who claim to be the most in tune with the Constitution dismiss issues like civil asset forfeiture and no-knock raids, but find the energy to make a picket sign if they can’t get a haircut because of the pandemic. Performative patriotism has engulfed the GOP. For many, a politician’s only necessary qualifications are the placement of “pro-life Republican” in their bio, despite the fact that no Democrat in office is forcing women into having abortions.

In 2016, I didn’t believe that I owed Trump or Hillary my vote, so I gave it to someone else. I was right—we don’t owe any politicians our vote. But this year I choose to give my vote to the immigrant child who is still separated from their family, the Syrian refugee who had their dreams of coming to America and finding safety, Black citizens who live in fear of the enforcement arm of the government, the victims of our country’s growing white nationalist movement and all the families burying a loved one who died of COVID-19 after our government failed to handle the pandemic. 

I could go on and on, but it comes down to the fact that having Trump in office has proven to be devastating—even deadly—for countless families. For that reason, Joe Biden is truly the most pro-life candidate. In November he’ll be receiving my vote.

I’m a Lifelong Republican and I’m Voting for Joe Biden

The wealthy businessman sat across the wide, polished table from the high-ranking Trump appointee with a strange expression on his face: cautious, keen and hungry.

That’s right, he said. Many of the world’s most precious metals. And, for the United States, key strategic minerals.

It was just another D.C. meeting, squeezed between more meetings, like a thousand before and a thousand to come. Late-afternoon sun gleamed into the room, which was furnished with pomp: crown molding, gold-leaf foil, historic photos framed on the walls. An American flag stood near the window, glowing.

But something felt different. From a couch in the corner, I underlined those words in my notes: strategic minerals.

I’m a civil servant—which just means I’m a permanent government employee, serving whichever presidential administration gets elected. The vast majority of the federal workforce is made up of civil servant positions, managed by a thin layer of political appointees. In January 2017, we didn’t leave; we just got new bosses. Most of the Trump appointees I’ve worked with are good and hard-working people—but with some of them, I’m just not sure. The Trump administration has pulled in a lot of people who’ve never worked in government, including many from the private sector. Some just seem unfamiliar with or uninterested in the finer details of public service.

The wealthy businessman leaned forward, planting elbows on the table, fingers tented. He looked intently at the high-ranking Trump appointee, eyes wide and hungry.

So I thought, he said, wouldn’t it be nice? For those assets…to be owned by an American?

He raised his eyebrows and opened his hands, as if an invisible world bloomed between his fingers.

Just by being here, the businessman was taking some risks. Meeting with the government, asking these questions, poking around these bureau drawers. But he was focused on rewards, not risks. The Trump appointee straightened.

Hmm, he said. That’s all very interesting.

Whatever it was, the businessman’s idea wasn’t very complicated. For years, a group of corrupt, rich foreigners operated some corrupt, lucrative companies that owned mining rights in corrupt, poor countries. But now the U.S. government—across several agencies, in powerful symphony—was cornering the group. After years in the shadows, they were finally feeling the cold, searing light of American justice.

Which was well and good, but the businessman’s idea was: What about the mines? These were natural resources that ended up in cars, smartphones and weapons; they were some of the rarest and most valuable stuff on Earth. Why couldn’t an American—why couldn’t this very businessman—simply acquire the mining rights from the group of corrupt, rich foreigners?

Money wasn’t the problem; with assets like these, for a businessman like this, money was no issue. The problem, plainly, was American justice: Buying mines from corrupt criminals was not exactly, well, standard practice. But of course—these days, in this city, nothing was.

The room fell silent except for my pen scratches. The Trump appointee flipped through the memo I’d written, realizing it had nothing about mines or corrupt foreigners—when the businessman asked for this meeting, he hadn’t mentioned any of that. But even if he had—he was barking up the wrong tree. He’d gotten the wrong agency, the wrong bureau drawer. There was nothing this particular high-ranking Trump appointee could do to help him.

I put down my pen and looked up; his eyes were like dark mirrors, blank and inscrutable. From across the table, I felt the businessman’s gaze like a laser. My stomach clenched.

In this meeting, I was a nobody. Technically, I wasn’t even supposed to be there. Like most high-ranking Trump appointees, this one had a staff of junior Trump appointees to do stuff like sit in on his meetings and take notes. I was just the civil servant they asked to write a memo; I had expertise in topics loosely relevant to the businessman’s other affairs, before he came in with curveball questions. But on the day of the meeting, the staffers must have been busy. At the last minute, they called me down.

Yes, I said. Interesting. Clearing my throat, I sat up from the couch. But maybe we should check with legal?

The two men stared at me, then back at each other.

I fell back into the couch, took up my pen, and then realized, finally: Yes! Yes of course, I thought: Legal!

Sure, the businessman was barking up the wrong tree. Our agency was powerless; he’d need to circle D.C. again, go knocking on other appointees’ doors. But still—a high-ranking U.S. government official was alone in a room with a wealthy businessman, who seemed to be fishing around for tacit approval to buy mines from corrupt foreigners. Where on Earth were the lawyers?!

Right, said the Trump appointee. We could ask legal.

The businessman’s eyes flashed at me—wondering, I imagined: Who is this?

Minutes later, it was over. An assistant appeared at the large door, beckoning; the Trump appointee’s next meeting was waiting. The two men stood up, uttered pleasantries, shook hands, and agreed to follow up.

Closing the door behind the businessman, the Trump appointee turned to me.

My stomach clenched again, and I shrugged my shoulders. There was nothing to say; the businessman had been barking up the wrong tree.

Right, the Trump appointee said, staring off into some middle distance. He walked to his desk. Great, he said, gesturing to the door. Thanks.

On the way out, I held up my notepad. I’ll type up the notes and send them around, I said.

He looked up and seemed to wince a little. Ah, he said, smiling now. No, don’t bother.

It’s no bother, I said. And it wasn’t: sharing notes with relevant colleagues is what government employees do. It’s the job.

No, really, he said. Don’t send around the notes.

There was a long silence. I nodded but didn’t know what to say. It was a scenario I’d never imagined.

I smiled, still confused. Ask you in a month?

His assistant flurried in with a pile of papers. The next meeting was ready.

Yeah, he said. Find me in a month and I’ll tell you what happened.

He looked down at the papers; his assistant guided me out. A group of other, lower-level Trump appointees milled about in the waiting room. They seemed to size me up—wondering, I imagined, whether I was a civil servant they could trust. I crossed the building, down dimly lit halls and staircases, to my cubicle. The windows in our office looked onto a small interior courtyard—just an empty square of concrete and stone, below a patch of sky. A place the public never sees.

I told my direct supervisors about the meeting; they laughed and shook their heads. Go figure, they said, chalking it up to another strange quirk of these strange times. They were civil servants, too. By that point, nothing much surprised us.

I threw away the notes. Every now and then, I google the wealthy businessman and the mines—but there’s nothing.

I never asked the Trump appointee what happened. There was no follow up, and his staff never asked me to take notes for him again. The next time I saw him, weeks later, he stretched out his hand and introduced himself with a smile. He’d forgotten me completely.

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Best of 2021

On March 7, 2020, a few days after I landed in Europe, I voted in the Democratic global primary. I tried to psych myself up for the occasion by wearing a cute blue beret and a white dress that accentuated my bump. This was before masks were recommended, so I added a splash of red lipstick to complete my patriotic ensemble and headed to the murky basement-cum-polling place. The docent reminded me that it was, after all, a building older than our shared country of origin. The ritual of voting was familiar, and it was a relief to hear so many American voices in one place after seven days of Swiss.

As I was leaving, one of the booth volunteers told me that as a person living abroad, my vote counted for up to four times as many delegates as it did in my state of origin. A YouTube video from Democrats Abroad confirmed it; whether you identify as an immigrant or an expat, your voting powers change when you move to another country. I felt a wave of nausea, partly from my pregnancy but also because it felt sickening that I had more say in the path America took from thousands of miles away than other voters did from within its borders. I looked down at my belly and considered what I was running from and what responsibility still sat on my shoulders as an American. 

When I confided in the other Americans living abroad, they were sympathetic to what life under Trump was like. They nodded and frowned, and then they carried on with plans for brunch and events with clever names like the Bacchus Caucus. To read the front pages from your homeland while living abroad feels like that moment after you wake from a dream of a dead loved one, when you realize how impossibly far away they are and how desperate you feel for a hug. The most popular defense mechanism among expats that I saw was regurgitating the terrible headlines and shaking one’s head in pity or performative shame. But many also simply grew more distant from their homeland the longer they stayed abroad, like getting acclimated to an alpine lake.

That summer, the brutal murder of George Floyd sparked protests against the patterns of police brutality that continue to plague the United States. My insular city eventually followed suit. Many of my U.S. friends, particularly in the July 2020 due date groups, warned each other that tear gas is an abortifacient, since protesters were being indiscriminately gassed in cities. I WhatsApped with other expats. “Just stay home,” a few of them said. “Protesting is just for show here.” One came with me to the protest; they were Black and queer, and they didn’t have the luxury of distance I noticed in white expats. Swollen and two weeks from delivery, I panted in the humidity, and they waited with me in the shade when I said I couldn’t breathe. Then they encouraged me to put my mask on since we were non-white femmes at the front of the march and would likely be in photographs. 

Once, I took a philosophy seminar with a college athlete who grew agitated at the generously lenient grades he got on his essays. He told me how it stung to be treated like an inattentive spectator. The swamp cooler droned on while he complained, his words dripping in privilege, and I brushed it off. Later, in Switzerland, I found myself frustrated that the community of expatriates wasn’t demanding I look unflinchingly at the horrors happening on our home soil. Their clemency felt undeserved, and I slowly realized the ways that distance soothes us, the ways it protects us. 

I guess that now is a strange time to mention my uncle died from police brutality. I didn’t truly confront that until I was far from America. Looking back, I have more empathy for the ways other immigrants handled the pain and trauma of that summer. Many expats were disconnected because they had so much else to occupy their time—like language tests or navigating how to open a bank account abroad, processes that can easily eat up two full days or more. Some spent their days on picnics and postcards while our homeland lurched with grief. To live abroad is to become detached, floating in the ether far from the placental roots of a homeland. This isn’t a glamorous vision but rather one I had as a pregnant mother at high risk of my son detaching and drowning inside of me.

When everyone says they’re going to just move abroad, I cringe. I distinctly remember licking Cheeto dust off my fingers in history class, learning all about how people moved to America to escape tyranny. People laughingly referred to former president and failed businessman Donald Trump as a Cheeto Mussolini. When I moved abroad, I realized I had an overly simplistic view of the world. None of the grocery stores in my new city even had Cheetos, which is not a tragedy but an indicator that I didn’t even have a shared cultural vocabulary. 

I had two variants of homesickness. One was for country; this I felt in my gut. Another was for culture, food, language and people; that I felt in the back of my tongue, where it grew from my throat. I wasn’t familiar with the feeling of sparkling Perrier water. My home city didn’t have an Ikea or an H&M. When I did find a fellow American, they frequently lacked the same cultural capital as me. It added a layer of loneliness to the heavy Swiss winter.

As foreigners who made under $100,000, we didn’t have to pay any taxes the next spring. It was like the U.S. government, which begrudgingly fed me with welfare coupons when I was a child, was now treating me like a much-missed guest. Despite the lies you hear from trust fund backpackers, you need to have a certain level of income to move abroad. I went quite suddenly from being a teacher and the sole breadwinner to being an immigrant on a spousal visa that forbade me from working. It was foreign in and of itself to interact with the Google and HP employees who jetted in and out of 12 countries a year on vacation. Yet even though we were making more money than ever, we were considered poor by Swiss standards, which felt discombobulating. Who can ring up their mother and explain to the woman who’s been a janitor all her life that here, you are considered poor? 

Since I wasn’t the breadwinner, I wasn’t allowed to see my husband’s side of our shared bank account, a surreal reminder of the rights I had back in the U.S. that I took for granted. At one point, we considered divorce. The pandemic and living abroad had been cruel to us. But when I checked how to file, I found I wasn’t allowed. In fact, they’d confiscate my passport if my husband asked them to, a way to prevent parents in custody battles from absconding with children.  

If you’ve ever had a hard day where going to the store felt impossible, imagine doing it in another language, getting stared at the entire time, lugging home food you don’t even want with labels you can’t even read. You’ve spent half a paycheck you mistakenly thought was generous, and you constantly have unexpected bills each time you check the mail. We got a bill for $300 each year for the privilege of having a television, even though we didn’t, in fact, have a television. Nobody will pause and explain the laws to you either. If you struggle to place a bottle of wine on the strange conveyor belt and it cracks, remember that you’ll need to ask for help in not just another language but another etiquette system. Everything you do is potentially rude, and every trip to the optometrist or interaction with a plumber is a trial.  

Most of your loved ones stay behind, and few of them will be green with envy. If you’re lucky, they remember which country you moved to. I looked forward to being removed from the hellscape of America, but I realized far too late that you can’t bring your grandma, your trusted pharmacist or your best friend with you in your suitcase. We lost two grandparents and an uncle. I missed weddings, graduations, funerals. One of my former students, a 14-year-old whose mother was my former midwife, died in his sleep. I wished I could have hugged my student one last time. I had to beg my doctor for a prescription for Benadryl just to sleep.

Politics aren’t better. You probably won’t even be able to vote for local elections. What expats rarely tell you is how short the list is of proclaimed paradises, where getting a visa isn’t a dastardly impossibility. Now factor in a scope of freedom far more narrow than politically gotcha headlines would have you believe. You might only read how much minimum wage is or how there are never mass shootings. Nobody tells you when a country doesn’t have any economic opportunities for people of color; some countries won’t let you buy a gun, but they also won’t let you get married if you’re queer. 

I’m back in the U.S. now by choice. There were dozens of reasons. Among them, my experience was humiliating, alienating and impossibly lonely. Don’t be ignorant of our global interconnectedness. If you’re considering moving abroad in the wake of political events, remember to seek out the experiences of Black, Indigenous and people of color, as well as queer and trans people who’ve moved to your chosen country. I had a fantastic support system out in Switzerland, and I still barely survived. 

The grass isn’t always greener on the other side, and if it is, there are signs in another language that scold you to stay off it. You’d do well to listen.

Adventure

I Was an American Expat Living Abroad: It Sucked

In December 2019, a matter of weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, a lot was going on in the world of politics in the United Kingdom. December 12 of that year saw a massive general election where Boris Johnson of the Conservative Party went up against Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party. The election resulted in the Conservatives receiving a landslide majority of 80 seats, a net gain of 47 seats—in turn, this meant they won 43.6 percent of the vote, the highest percentage of any party since 1979.

As a working-class woman in her mid-20s, some of my friends weren’t impressed when they found out that I had voted Conservative. I come from a single-parent household and was a child who benefited from free school meals throughout my education—which means that voting Conservative was and still is seen as a crime by the people of similar backgrounds to my own. Not only are people unimpressed when they find out about me voting Tory in 2019, but when they realize I did so because I supported Brexit and voted leave in 2016, their opinion of me plummets even more. 

Although I regret voting Conservative when I did, this isn’t to say that I regret voting for Brexit or disagree with every single thing that the right-wing party in the U.K. stands for. I voted Tory back in 2019 because I believed this party to be the only one that could finalize Brexit and put a stop to the never-ending leave versus remain discourse.

A select number of people know my political secret, and I feel great shame in talking about my then-political stance—but hear me out because I’ve got my reasons.

When the EU referendum happened in 2016, I was finally of voting age. I was completely overjoyed because this meant that I got my right to exercise my own personal vote—something that the suffragettes fought for women to have in the early 20th century. I can remember being totally engrossed during the run-up to the referendum. I’d watch countless debates, read dozens of articles, weigh up the pros and cons of both leaving the European Union and remaining, and I truly wanted to use my vote for the better. After much deliberation and deep thinking, I knew in my heart of hearts that voting leave was the only outcome I truly believed in. My nan would always preach about our country being self-sufficient when I was younger. This combined with the fact that leaving would allow us to make our own laws without the approval of the EU, all while the country could save paying a hefty membership fee, made it a total no-brainer. 

Putting a cross in the box for leaving the EU was a liberating moment for me, as was the night that followed, when I stayed up until the early hours to see the joyous outcome that meant the United Kingdom would be embarking on Brexit. I was happy that we could control the influx of immigrants and overjoyed that we could make our own rules without approval. Weeks later, everything was thrown into jeopardy when Theresa May moved into Downing Street after David Cameron resigned. She didn’t want Brexit, but she said she would get it done—but could she? 

Then, in 2019, an opportunity arose for a new prime minister to take the reins, and when I saw that Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and Andrea Leadsom were in the running, I was excited about politics once more. Boris Johnson ended up winning the leadership election, and then it was time for the country to decide: Who was going to lead the U.K. out of the EU and into 2020? Boris Johnson went head-to-head with Jeremy Corbyn, with much of my generation opting and supporting the latter because of his socialist approach, cuts to university fees and relatable persona that resonated with so many young people. But I was drawn in and totally blinded by Brexit, which meant that voting for Corbyn seemed like I’d be cheating on Brexit, which is why I backed Boris for the duration of his campaign. I was excited to finally get Brexit done and looking forward to Britain getting stronger as it stood on its own once more. After all, it was the people before my generation and those of my grandparents’ age who voted for the U.K. to stay in the EU all the way back in 1975, which made me even more passionate about getting Brexit out of the way. 

I was a huge fan of my local MP when I supported the Conservative Party in 2019—she did so many great things for my local area—and I knew I would be voting Tory from the get-go. I hung a big blue poster in my window and was beyond excited to vote when the election took place on December 12. I kept out of the political discourse on social media. I could not bring myself to join in and simply did so by putting out subtle remarks like, “I don’t care what you vote, just make sure you do,” because at the end of the day, I didn’t care what anybody voted for, and I still don’t. We all have a right to vote, and I believe it should be entirely up to that person—and I also believe they should be 100 percent free from judgment too. 

Voting for the Conservatives was joyous for me back then and even more so when they won and Boris Johnson was fast-tracked into 10 Downing Street. I knew he would get Brexit done, and at the time, he seemed like a no-nonsense guy and somebody who could fully unite the country after the divisive EU referendum years prior. I took the plunge and became a member of the Conservative Party. I was excited to get fully involved in any way I could and was willing to fully embrace the Conservative Party; I was excited to go canvassing or help out when needed, attend events and socials. But the month that my membership card arrived also marked the month that my trust in the Tories began to waver.

Since March 2020, the Conservative Party has done so many completely unforgivable things that have caused me to feel deep shame and regret for having voted for them and having joined their party, from their lavish cheese and wine parties during the height of the pandemic to easing restrictions far too soon and stopping free lateral flow tests. They mucked up the visa scheme for the Ukrainian people fleeing their war-torn country and have been completely against working-class people—something they promised me they weren't. They gave people on benefits an extra £20 per week during the height of the pandemic but then ripped this from them just as the cost of living reached new heights. And during the pandemic, they didn’t care about school children and the free school meals they might have been entitled to and gave pitiful food packages that contained the likes of a loaf of bread, three yogurts, a tin of baked beans, a tin of tuna, two potatoes, some fruit and some cheese to last a child an entire week of meals. The only way change came about was when footballer Marcus Rashford campaigned for it. Before the pandemic hit the U.K., I was fooled into thinking that Boris and his party actually cared for the working class—all because of the way they shone light on Brexit and made it sound like it was for the working class. But really, they couldn’t care less.

If I were to come out of the Conservative closet, so to speak, I would be hated by the majority of my generation. As a working-class, disadvantaged, young woman, the Conservative Party supposedly stands against everything I should stand for. But, although I regret voting for them in 2019, this doesn’t mean I am a socialist or a born-again left wing.

I do feel so much shame for having voted Conservative in 2019, though, and if I could take it back, I would in a heartbeat. I wish I’d never parted with money to join their party and receive a stupid plastic membership card. And I wish I hadn’t played a part in making disadvantaged families even more so. While I regret voting Tory in 2019, I don’t however regret voting for Brexit. And although I do regret voting for Boris, I wouldn’t have voted for Jeremy Corbyn—not in a million years. But it’s just a shame that Boris Johnson and his clan had to muck up what could have been a prosperous country by now.

I Voted Conservative in the U.K.'s 2019 Election: It Was the Worst Mistake I’ve Ever Made

“People bond more deeply over shared brokenness than they do over shared beliefs.” – Heather Kopp

I worship Jesus Christ. Let’s get that straight right away. 

I cannot remember a time I didn’t believe in this long-haired, white-robed man who walked on earth for 33 years, was crucified, died and buried. He, from the very beginning, was tangible, reachable and relatable.

Even as a little girl, I knew with a kind of knowing only a child has there was somebody all-powerful watching over me; not a measly cloud or a spiritual universe but a real, living, breathing God. I didn’t need to be convinced or brainwashed by those fanatical extremists who shoved their religion down your throat like a bad meal. I only knew a Jesus who loved me unconditionally. That was enough.

Thus, in later years, I was surprised, sort of, that my Christianity wasn’t up to snuff with my fellow Christian soldiers. I wasn’t the right kind of Christian. I didn’t fit into an agreeable box. I was an odd shape of the puzzle that didn’t seem to fit anywhere, any place. And although I tried to squeeze into the frame, I understood I was becoming an inauthentic version of myself.

Some have said I’m not up to Christian guidelines because I voted for Joe Biden, while several members of the church community voted for the twice-impeached, disgraced Donald Trump. I’m positive I’m the only person in the church parking lot with a Biden/Harris bumper sticker, which, by the way, somebody drew mustaches on with vivid black marker. The joke was on them because Kamala was still dazzling with whiskers.

I marched during the #MeToo movement, as well, wearing my “nasty woman” T-shirt proudly like a badass with my girlfriends. I raised my fist high, Gloria Steinem-like, shouting, “Time’s up! Together we rise!” Furthermore, I support LGBTQ rights, which are basic human rights, and I have a massive, melting heart for men and women who live inside the wrong bodies.

I do not agree that if people believe differently than me, they will be descending into the pits of Hell. If so, six million Jews, along with my beautiful comrade Anne Frank, would be there. I cannot comprehend this cruelty, this kind of brutal God.

The God I worship is a lamb, a shepherd, a redeemer and a papa whose lap I sat on for one straight year when my sister was murdered. He comforted me, held me and brushed my long auburn hair. When he promised he would restore my soul and lead me beside the still waters, he wasn’t lying.

I’ve been a member of the same Baptist church for 25 years now. In the past few months, I’ve been contemplating why I stay, why I haven’t walked away, why my heart resides inside the pastel walls even though I don’t fit in any longer.

For one, the charming church ladies, the prayer warriors, the pioneers, who prepared a room for me after my first and second babies were born. The white hair cuties smelling of Avon perfume and Folgers coffee who served me lukewarm tuna hotdish with crushed potato chips, Swedish meatballs, lavish relish trays, rosettes and buttercream cupcakes on delicate white doilies. They cared for me, supported me and, of course, fed me well!

I stay because my parents were on the financial board, the Christian education board and headed up the nursery. As a child, I wanted to sit on the hard, wooden pews with them and sing “How Great Thou Art” and “Bless This House.” Even as a grown woman, I wanted them to be proud of my dedication and attendance every Sunday. I want to hold onto the family traditions I grew up with. I want it all.

I stay for my late pastor’s wife who read Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies and Rachel Held Evans’s Searching for Sunday, my favorite “this is what kind of Christian I want to be” authors. I recall when she told me she had just finished Lamott’s book, how I grasped both of her large hands, jumping up and down in the sanctuary like an excited child who had just been validated and acknowledged for exactly who she was.

The truth is, I respect these people in the church. The Republicans. The women who protest outside the Planned Parenthood downtown. The men who walk through the church gates wearing their vivid red “Make America Great Again” hats. I only ask that they respect me back.

Last year, I changed the profile photo on my Facebook page. I wore my hair in a high bun with chunky, red earrings, and I sported my “nasty woman” T-shirt. Sadly, I received personal messages from so-called Christians stating, “Your faith is upside down and inside out.” “I am sorry you will burn in hell.” “You are a baby killer.” “You are living in darkness.” After reading each message, my heart broke and my spirit diminished. I even received a book in the mail ($15 shipping!) titled The Faith of Donald J. Trump, which I donated to Goodwill. 

One of the individuals who challenged my beliefs said, “You are moving in the wrong direction.” And although I ignored most of these comments, this one I responded to because I had graduated with her from our local high school, and we had been in English classes together. “Can we meet for coffee and talk? I’m buying!” I didn’t hear from her again. 

I’m not sure if I’ll ever fit into this Republican Christianity, but I know one thing for damn sure: My relationships and healing have occurred with the brokenness of the people in this world who’ve hugged me tightly and firmly during my darkest, heaviest hours, and honestly, I have no idea what religious affiliations they belong to or don’t belong to. It didn’t matter if they were Christian or Buddhist or nothing at all because they saw me and listened to my story when nobody else did.

So yes, I worship Jesus Christ, who was resurrected on the third day, extending his arms fully and abundantly for all of us, everywhere. He hosted a lavish banquet for the damaged, hurting, diminished, marginalized, unseen, unheard, despised and invisible.

“Come,” he said. “Sit. Eat. Drink. You belong here.”

Religion

I Worship Jesus, but I Don’t Fit in My Church

My dad is conservative and has always been opposed to abortion access. 

Born just before the passing of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling, he believes, if given the chance, his mother would have aborted him. At 35, she was the breadwinner of her household and found out she was carrying her fifth child during an appointment for a tubal ligation.

Her husband suffered from severe mental illness and was prone to instability. She had to struggle alone to support her family. But my dad doesn't hold any empathy for what his mother went through. He's always strongly believed that women exist to make children and that children are the source of our happiness—despite growing up in poverty, feeling firsthand neglect and the suspicion that he may have been unwanted.

The current attack on women's reproductive rights has brought the issue front and center again in my family, where politics is more beloved than sports. To this day, my father attacks women's rights as unimportant, always advocating for adoption as the right answer. Eventually, it pushed me over the edge, and I let loose with a truth I had kept hidden from my family for 14 years.

I had never intended to tell my family what happened. 

When I was just 14 years old, I started dating my 17-year-old neighbor. At the start, I was pretty determined to be what I thought was the "good girl." I said no to sex and put it off over and over again despite months of my boyfriend's persistence in asking. Soon, he began shaming and guilting me. "If you loved me, you would do it," he would say. "I'm the only person trying in this relationship." He would twist my bodily autonomy and threaten to leave me. Eventually, I caved.

I had sex for the first time when I was 14. I had said no nearly a dozen times that day alone but was coerced. It was statutory rape; it was painful and unenjoyable. And the condom broke.

Afterward, my ex would tell me that we shouldn't be seen together because he didn't want to get in trouble because of me. He told me I should lie to my parents and say I was raped by a stranger if I was pregnant. This way, he would be consequence-free. And at the time, I did feel like I was the burden. After all, I was the one who was probably pregnant. He could walk away with nothing different at all.

My dad asked how I could never tell him or my mother any of this. "Why didn't you come to us? We could have helped you," he said. I told him that in the few lessons relating to sex I ever had, it was resoundingly clear that if I were pregnant, my life would be over. He and my brother had frequently called women slurs often saved for single mothers or girls in shorts. My brother said he would disown me for being a slut. My father had told me that if I had ever gotten pregnant, I would be expected to drop out, get a job and raise the baby.

These were the things I was told in place of any sexual education. I heard these things before I was 14 or had ever had a boyfriend. Not he, nor stolen Cosmo articles, nor the late-night episodes, nor Jerry Springer had prepared me for sex. And certainly not about consent or contraceptives.

I also told my father how I had felt entirely alone and terribly ashamed. I had ruined myself in my family's eyes. I would be bullied at school until I left. I would have no chance at an education. I would have to live in poverty as a result. I told my dad how he and my ex had put me in a position where I had no one and no other options. 

So I did what a trapped emotional teenage girl from an unstable home does. I planned to kill myself if I missed my period. I planned to take my mother's opiates and sedatives and then I would go drown myself in a pond in the woods. My family would be sad but not ashamed. My ex would be burden-free.

The only thing that kept me alive to this day was the fact that I wasn't pregnant. I got my period. I never said anything to anyone about my plan. Living with the belief that pregnancy was not a choice nearly killed me when I didn't actually want to die. I just wanted to keep going to school. I didn't want to live in poverty like my parents. I got to graduate second in my class. 

My dad looked shocked about his daughter almost dying. He said that he wished I would have told them and then he just kind of sat in silence afterward. I hope that my pain and openness touched him. I hope he will quit thinking of potential babies as walking, talking women and children.

What I do know is that, despite never having an abortion myself, I always want that option available to other women and girls. I think of those like me that may have ended up dead. Conversations about this have revealed that I am by far not unique in making such a plan. I think of women like my mother or my paternal grandmother, who may not have been able or equipped to handle another child for any number of reasons. I hurt especially for all the sexual assault survivors. 

My experience with my ex wasn't my first or last experience with abuse or sexual assault. I think of all the ways the adults around me failed to teach me about consent or how to protect myself. How my public school taught us when we would have to shave but not about birth control. How we learned not to flush pads instead of learning that threatening to leave someone over sex is abusive. How I learned that girls who have sex are broken but boys who have sex are "bros."

Women

Fourteen Years Later, I Told My Father How His Pro-Life Beliefs Almost Killed Me

Growing up, my mother and I were really close. My father walked out on us when he and my mother divorced, so, naturally, she and I had a pretty decent relationship. We moved back to her hometown when I was nine and, when she wasn't working, we usually watched movies or went for scenic drives. 

Sometimes we'd have long talks about our family or what was going on in the world. I had a parent, a mother and a friend. I'd come home from school and I'd know that after all the constant bullying, low test scores, struggling to pay attention, I could confer with my mother. There would be no backlash, no ridicule. I depended on her for that.

After I'd turned ten, she met an abusive and narcissistic asshole. He made our lives a living hell. He'd come home from work, sit down, have a beer and watch TV. Three beers turned into ten pretty quickly. He had a nervous disorder and was prescribed an entire list of medications, none of which mixed well with alcohol. One time, I went downstairs to find that he was using a floor lamp as a baseball bat. He aimed a Mason jar at my head like he was hitting a fastball. 

My mother and I were both the victims of his hate.

They were married after four years but finally separated around my junior year of high school. It felt like a completely different world with him gone. He ruined our lives for seven years. However, there was a part of him still with us after he left: his political beliefs.

My mother was a moderate Republican before she met him. And when I say moderate, I emphasize moderate. She was mostly indifferent about the government, never really going out of her way to worry about politics or bring it up around others. She lived in her own bubble. She had hobbies and dreams, she was pretty happy. And when she wasn't happy, she didn't focus on her unhappiness. She'd go through the emotions she needed to and she'd move on. However, she was impressionable. 

He, on the other hand, was insanely right-wing. He worked at a correctional facility and often came home spouting racist obscenities about the inmates. He'd say the hard "r" at the end of the N-word without remorse. I remember asking my mother why she was dating a racist, and she'd go, "No, he's not racist, he just deals with a lot at work." He was very clearly a racist, and I don't know how she could excuse it so nonchalantly. 

His interests started to meld into hers. She started hating illegal immigrants (even though she had been an illegal immigrant for a while until she finally got her citizenship). She said she wasn't racist toward people of color, but that she was just "prejudiced," as if being racist and prejudiced wasn't a possibility—or even the same thing. She would call Latino communities "chimichangas" without a second thought. Seeing both of them carry on like this made me extremely uncomfortable.

I was taught from a young age about that ancient way of thinking, and here it was, in my own environment, the fire being fueled by the people with whom I shared a house. I not only avoided having my white friends over, but I also avoided having any friends over. I didn't want my white friends thinking that I was the spawn of racists, and I didn't want to take the chance that any of my friends in other ethnic groups would be mistreated by my mother and her boyfriend. I'd come home and hear them agree with each other while they watched far-right propaganda on TV, and soon after, I'd hear them get into a screaming match. He was a domestic abuser. They hated each other. I don't know how they were together for seven years. But it seemed like their whole relationship was built on the hatred of each other and the hatred of other people.

After he'd left, I was just finishing up my junior year of high school, which was also my last. I had enough credits to graduate and I wanted to escape the area I grew up in—I wanted to meet new people and, most importantly, I wanted to get a break from my mother. She was still the person he'd transformed her into, even after they separated. I was pretty much a stereotype, at least, for the military recruiters in my area. I was a lower-class white kid wanting an escape.

Sure enough, I joined, shipped out to training, came back home for two weeks (most of that time being spent with my girlfriend), and prepared for a new life. I had a pretty decent run in the military after that, and my mother was doing fine. Until my time in the military came to an end.

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