I called my mom the other day to check on her, as she hasn’t been feeling well lately. She is an aging baby boomer with poor circulation and a heart condition. She is also a dyed in the wool conservative. Raised in the deep south in rural Alabama, she now lives at the far southern end of Mississippi near the mouth of the Gulf coast. Most of my relatives who also live in and around the surrounding states are huge trump supporters, but not all. I have a niece who lives down there who detests trump, and my younger sister will not be voting for him. As for my mom, well she has some reservations about trump but is still likely to cast her vote for him despite those reservations… unless I have anything to do with it.
It is true that I no longer live in the deep south with the rest of my relatives. I have long since moved away, moved on in life, expanded my horizons. As the years have passed, I have gained quite a lot of clarity, the world has come into focus. I am no longer a prisoner to the deep superstition and ignorance, the disdain for education that so permeates that part of America. However, my parents never left, never moved on, and most of my relatives remain there in the same rural bubble, slaves to cult like devotion, cult like dogma and deep distrust of anything to do with science or reason. Yes, they follow “authority”, it is the only thing they believe in, God’s “authority”, the “authority” of the church, trump’s “authority”. There is no room for reason, skepticism nor education when all one has to do is obey whatever your local preacher says will get you to heaven, and that usually includes voting for trump.
But here is the thing… my mom, even with her conservative evangelical bearings, has an unease about trump, it eats at her even though she tries to hide it, as her son I can sense it. So, what is a good son to do? The good son decided to expose that unease of course, pick at it until it festers and finally turn it into something she can no longer ignore. I used her own beliefs as the catalyst. I reminded her you can judge those who belong to Christ by the fruits they bear, that is the spirit of love, peace, kindness, goodness, etc. I then asked her if that described trump? She was silent over the phone, I knew that she knew trump has the opposite of those traits. I then went on to compare Biden to Trump, and asked her who shows more compassion, who wants to unite people and who is the one constantly demeaning others?
We didn’t even discuss climate change, abortion, gun rights, LGBTQ or any other divisive issues… no I just kept it simple, I went with the eye test, and her own belief system to point out the evil of trump that even she cannot deny. Did I convince her to vote for Biden? No, but… after our conversation she has decided that she just can’t vote for either candidate now. My red state conservative mom is going to sit out this election, trump will not be getting her vote… and that is a win for team Biden no matter how you slice it. Yes, it’s almost impossible to convince a trump supporter to vote for Biden, but now I know it is possible to convince a few to just not vote at all…
If this story ended here, that would be a tragedy… so, I’m calling on all my freedom loving brothers and sisters, those who want to see trump and his cronies driven from power before its too late… I’m calling on you to reach out now to someone you know who is sitting on the political fence, maybe even leaning a to the right.. talk to them now. If you can talk even one of them down from the fence, get one friend, one trump voting relative to sit out this election then you will have achieved another step toward victory.