I am so Sick of the Mean Ones

I was a poll worker in Spanish Fork for the presidential election. I didn't think there was any chance Trump would win because I underestimated his grotesque appeal. I was busy all day. It wasn't until I was leaving that I started getting texts from my family and it became clear that Trump would win. I was the last one to leave the library. I sat in the parking lot alone and cried until Ellen picked me up. 

Like many, I have felt quite downhearted ever since. If it were practical to do so, I would move to another country. On the whole, I am not proud of this place. But I love my home and my family and my friends. 

The day after the election I was teaching a reading lab at Project Read on Zoom with a woman from Afghanistan who told me the Taliban had burned her school down. Another student was giving a presentation on Martin Luther King a few months ago and cried when he expressed hope that his native country China would change through non-violent means. I have a bright and beautiful Ukrainian student who cries when we read the news about her home. 

There are volunteers and co-workers at Project Read who voted against the interests of our students. And several of our students are Trump supporters. It's a heartbreaker. 

I went to BYU to teach my class after the election and seeing all the boys in the Tanner building made me think about how Trump won every male demographic. I was about to cry before class. The professor who teaches before me, who is a year younger than me, who I taught when he was an undergraduate, gave me a little side hug and said, "Remember what I told you about my best professor?" I did remember. He told me the first day of Fall semester. I hadn't seen him in almost 30 years and he asked if I remembered him and he told me I was his best professor.  When I went home, my neighbor brought some cronuts over for me. We cried together.

There are lots of nice people. There are a lot more mean ones than I thought there were. I am so sick of them.

I recently read The Kingdom, the Power, the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism by Tim Alberta. I wish everyone would read it. Alberta's experience with Trump supporters in his father's church is so relatable. Like me, he learned his values at church and was shocked to see so many members of his congregation espouse MAGA ideals. Truly, it's shocking.

I wish that my church would identify less strongly with evangelicalism, but it doesn't seem to be headed away from it at the moment. Alberta says, "We're not here to change the world, just live like Jesus in the world." He wants to manifest the gospel of Jesus Christ, not proclaim it—manifest it. I've been thinking about it a lot and I can feel a shift in me towards doing that. And just being nice. But not to misogynists. They've had it too good for too long.