I see you

The years didn’t change the country as much as they revealed it.

When Donald Trump first ran for office, I remember the feeling more than the headlines. It wasn’t shock. It was exposure. Like someone turned on a blacklight in a room I thought I knew well. Things that had always been whispered got spoken plainly. Jokes that used to hide behind smirks came out with applause.

Some people said, “He just says what everyone is thinking.”

That was exactly what scared me.

I watched timelines shift. Friends I had barbecued with, prayed with, laughed with — suddenly they were reposting speeches and cheering rhetoric that felt cruel to me. They called it strength. I heard contempt. They called it truth. I heard grievance.

Then came the second wave, louder and less disguised. The culture hardened. People stopped debating policy and started defending personalities. It became less about ideas and more about loyalty. The flag wasn’t enough. The Bible wasn’t enough. You had to pledge allegiance to a man.

And I couldn’t do it.

I don’t pretend politics are clean. They never have been. Power attracts ego the way light attracts moths. But there’s a difference between flawed leadership and celebrating rhetoric that punches down.

I started unfollowing people. Quietly. No announcements. No dramatic exits. Just click, click, click. Not because I hated them. Because I wanted peace. Because every scroll felt like walking through a room where people were laughing at something I found cruel.

I had to ask myself a hard question: Was I losing friends, or was I discovering who they had always been?

That’s not an easy thing to sit with.

Some of them praised Charlie Kirk like he was a revival preacher instead of a political operative. They framed it as Christianity. But I grew up believing Christianity looked like mercy. Like humility. Like feeding people and washing feet — not owning people in debates.

Maybe that’s naive. Maybe it’s stubborn. But it’s mine.

The strangest part wasn’t disagreement. I can handle disagreement. I’ve built relationships across difference my whole life. The strangest part was the pride. The bragging. The celebration of rhetoric that felt, to me, like it reduced human beings to punchlines.

I work with people who have nothing. I sit with folks in withdrawal, in grief, in shame. I’ve watched mothers bury sons. I’ve handed out Narcan at 2 a.m. You don’t get to look at that and then cheer language that dehumanizes. Something in me refuses.

So I drew boundaries.

Not because I’m morally superior. Not because I think I’m right about everything. But because I know what I want my soul to feel like at night. I don’t have to associate with energy that corrodes my compassion.

That doesn’t make me fragile. It makes me intentional.

These years taught me something uncomfortable: politics reveals theology. It reveals what we really worship. Security? Power? Belonging? Control?

Or dignity?

I don’t hate the people I unfollowed. Some of them raised me. Some of them loved me when I didn’t love myself. But I can’t pretend alignment where there isn’t any. Peace sometimes costs proximity.

And I’m willing to pay that price.

History will sort out reputations. Time always does. Leaders rise and fall. Movements swell and fade. What remains is who we became in the process.

I don’t want to become smaller. I don’t want my heart to calcify.

So I protect it.

Not from disagreement.

From contempt.