A call to confession and repentance:

1: Trump contributed heavily to normalizing the Alt-Right and, specifically, White Nationalism; i.e. because Trump actively sought out this faction of voters and pandered to them, these groups were legitimized and empowered. We have just witnessed this reality in Charlottesville. The unashamed massive turnout, along with the explicit violent terrorism perpetuated by these hate groups over the weekend, is a testament to, and the logical outcome, of the message Trump preaches.

2: Good intentions or not, those who voted for Trump, regardless of why they voted for him (e.g. they blindly and faithfully vote Republican; they just wanted a “change”; they hated Hillary; etc.), are at least *somewhat* complicit in legitimizing these abominable ideologies. A vote for Trump was a vote to make America white again; this was always implied and the hate groups that supported him during the election sure as hell picked up on it then and have been making it explicit and obvious ever since.

3: I think Trump voters now have an opportunity (and an important responsibility) to confess to this, recognize that voting for him was a mistake and own up to the fact that he doesn’t stand for the working class, or people of color, or LGBTQ people. If Trump voters can do this then the next step is to repent and attempt to make things right. In my opinion, part of this reparation process will be to renounce Trump (and most right wing conservative ideologies that attribute special intrinsic value to certain groups of people), fight against white supremacism in all its forms and side with our POC siblings, our LGBTQ siblings, our female siblings, our Jewish siblings, our Muslim siblings, and our working class siblings.

Obviously, I’m not without sin. I’m complicit in institutional racism just like everyone else that looks like me. My friend Jake said it well when he wrote recently that “We must hold ourselves and our neighbors responsible for participating and perpetuating this structure.” So, coming together is what we need to do now, but change happens by winning battles of ideas. Yes we must come together, but we must hold each other responsible and come together in an effort to resist and overcome the hateful, demonic ideologies and attitudes that *will* posses us and overrun us all if we let them.

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In disgust, anger, and sadness I wrote the above piece yesterday as facebook post, and some interesting dialogue ensued that is worth checking out.

Tags:confessionJesusJusticeliberationpoliticsrepentanceTrump