Andrea Tate said she was doomscrolling the morning after the election, and she found herself frozen in bed while she looked at posts from people who supported Trump. She said it hurt to see it because she had been unfriending people who went against the Democratic candidate, and she felt like everything inside her was tight and heavy.
She said the real shock came when she saw her own husband post a celebration of the victory with the line: “God Bless America. God bless #45, 47.” She said it hit her so hard that she could not even look at him or speak to him, so she texted him and asked him to take it down out of respect for her and her liberal writer friends.
She also told him in the same text that she loved his family, but she would not be going to Thanksgiving, and she would not be hosting Christmas this year, and she said she needed space. She wrote that the anger and sadness made the whole idea of walking into a room full of Trump voters feel impossible for her.
Later that day, her husband brought her a coffee and told her he understood her choice and that helped her start a real conversation with him. She told him: “I am sorry about the holidays, but I cannot bite my tongue like I did with Hillary,” and she tried to explain that she did not want to disrespect his parents or his brother in their home or in her own home.
She told him that he could still go see them but she would not be in a room of fifteen people who voted for Trump and that it was simply better this way. She said there was a moral gap she could not cross because she felt that his relatives had supported things she believed would hurt vulnerable groups.
She wrote that she would not unwrap gifts from people who voted for a party talking about building internment camps and mass deportation. She also said she would not pass the turkey to people she believed voted to take away women’s reproductive rights and push policies she felt were harmful.
Her husband did not push back on the change of plans for the holidays and he did not remove his post. She said it was painful but she felt like she had drawn a line she could live with, even if it made the season feel completely different.
