My Favorite MAGA Voter

Maybe you have one, too?

Some of what I post feels more vulnerable than other subjects. This one, especially in our politically divided atmosphere, feels like it begs to have you skip reading, or use it as an excuse to no longer listen to my advice to be open to accepting voters leaving Trump to join us in a coalition to save our nation. Please do not give in to that temptation. For one, our nation, and its previous focus on liberty and justice, is a needed force for good in the world, and the majority of us believe in a country that would do that. Another reason is that probably there are people you have known and cared for that have been increasingly radicalized by Trump and MAGA. Maybe this will remind you of what you loved about them before things got so crazy in our politics.

My sons’ father had left me for someone half our age (literally a recent high school graduate) around four years before an older man asked me out. He was very slow in getting to know me, very polite. I accepted because I hoped he might be polite on a first date and I didn’t expect a second. This was during the last of the GW Bush years, long before our politics were so fractured, and when I was still mostly following the faith I was raised in. Doctor Dobson kept assuring me that if my sons didn’t get a good male role model, they would grow up to be terrible, directionless people.

I honestly said yes expecting to prove to him that there was no reason to date me a second time: that our age difference would prove that we shared nothing in common and couldn’t enjoy time with each other. I was greatly mistaken on that. Halfway through dinner the back of my head hurt from smiling and laughing so much. It was obvious from early on he was smitten with me, which I also found a little amusing. I didn’t see much to be excited about in dating a single mom of two in her late 30s who rarely received child support and lived at barely above poverty level.

A few weeks after our first date was the New Year, and I had invited K to a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch good luck meal: sauerkraut, pork (I preferred keilbasa), mashed potatoes and dumplings. Sadly, my oldest son was late flying back from his mom’s in Colorado, so K offered to pick up dinner so I wouldn’t have to worry about it. He arrived at the house about a half hour after we did, and was carrying two pizza boxes from Casey’s, a gas station with a pizza line here in Missouri and surrounding states. One was barbecue pizza. The other? He actually went to the store and bought sauerkraut and kielbasa and sweet talked the cook into making a sauerkraut and kielbasa pizza! I was scared to try it, but it was actually really good. If you like cabbage rolls, you will really enjoy sauerkraut and kielbasa pizza.

We ended up dating for nearly two years before our wedding. He had an amazing sense of humor and loved me in a way no one has before or since. I learned that he had taken in homeless people and given them a place to stay, something we did together as well. When he found out someone was hungry, he came to the house, told me what was going on, and we would go through pantry and freezer “shopping” them food from our supplies. We also gave a safe space to people trying to break bad habits. He would hire struggling people for work around the farm, even though it sometimes meant costing us more than their wages in stolen equipment.

He was formidable. He made okay money, but this was before the ACA, and he worked for a company with lousy health insurance. When he had his first stroke, he came home a little early from work, admitted he was pretty sure he was having a stroke, but refused to go to an ER. He was scheduled to speak at church that Sunday, and did it anyhow, apologizing for the slurring and explaining he was having a stroke and planning to see a doctor on Monday, since it was cheaper than an ER visit. The second stroke less than a year later was much more serious, with a brain bleed and a blood clot, meaning no real treatment could be done. It damaged his memory and part of his cerebellum, requiring him to learn to stand and walk again. Before the strokes, I had managed to defuse some of his conspiracy theories, but the second stroke’s damage to his memory removed that and left him impossible to reason with.

Our entire life together, he always seemed amazed that I was his. His love was unconditional and adoring. I have never experienced anything like it before or since. Early in Trump’s first term we began having bad political arguments where nothing was resolved. The strokes made it impossible to reason with him, which was frustrating, but it also made his positions forgivable, since his brain didn’t function like it should. When the first whispers of COVID happened (2019), he began stockpiling long before everyone else. The conspiracy theorist in him was also a prepper. This was good, because it kept us from being exposed too much in 2020 as he began fighting two stage four cancers. The strokes had made him take social security early, and at least by then he had Medicare to cover cancer treatment.

He didn’t want to bother his kids too much with his cancer treatment and day-to-day care. We were more than a half hour away from our closest kids, and farther away than that from most of them. My own health issues made being his only caregiver a major challenge, and on our twelfth wedding anniversary, he finally talked me into going to the ER, planning ahead to have my son show up to take us - he was scared to death of me driving because my blood pressure had been crashing to very low numbers and I fell constantly. His pain pump had malfunctioned that weekend and I was struggling to get anyone on the phone to figure out how to fix it. We both knew he was in no condition to drive anymore.

When we got to the ER, blood tests showed I was in kidney failure and needed to be transferred to a larger hospital in the city. With COVID, there was a wait for ambulances. With no pain medication and two metastasized cancers, my lion of a husband waited with me in the ER for hours before finally telling me he was just too worn out from it and had to go. It was the last time we would see each other. He died while I was in ICU in the very early hours of my third day there. I sometimes wonder what we would have done differently if we had known.

At his funeral so many stood to talk about various ways he cared for them. I was too sick to attend and my son, and then his girlfriend (because batteries), live-streamed it to me from their cell phones. He was a very good, decent human being who loved others, had an amazing sense of humor and made my life infinitely better. I am sure a lot of people currently in MAGA have similar very human stories.

And that is one of the many reasons I try to encourage people to open their hearts and minds to the possibility of Trump voters joining us to vote out the current leadership and change our country. To have a conclusive majority, we need to activate the voters on the sidelines and bring back at least part of Trump’s supporters. I know from experience and in my heart that not all of them did it to “own the libs” or “preserve the white race,” and those are people who genuinely deserve our empathy and a second chance.

Again, thank you for fighting the good fight and believing that the world can be better. As long as we keep encouraging each other and celebrating the small wins, we will get there.