To Our Loved Ones,

To Our Grandparents, Parents, Uncles, Aunts, Cousins, and Older Siblings,

We’re aware of what you think of us, either because you’ve told us during explosive, room-clearing conversations, over terse Cold War text exchanges, or in second-hand words passed through the people who now serve as the sole intermediaries between us.

You believe that we’re lost.

You believe we’ve changed.

You think we’ve become radicalized.

You think we’ve abandoned our faith, our families, and our nation, and you’re disappointed with us.

And we need you to know that you’re largely responsible.

Much of this is your fault.

You say that we’ve changed, and we have: we’ve become the people you taught us to become when we were growing up.

people who are deeply offended by inequity,

people who look out for the underdog,

people who grieve the suffering of others,

people who find the beauty in the diversity around us,

people who want others to have enough,

people who are aware of how fortunate we are to live here,

people trying to love our neighbors as ourselves,

people who detest liars, predators, and con men,

people who abhor bullies and bigots and braggarts,

And the people that we’ve become, in large part because of the wisdom and compassion you poured into us as children, can’t fathom, as adults, how you’ve voted for Donald Trump three times and how you still support him now.

It would have been unthinkable to those younger versions of us (and the younger version of you, for that matter), that you would have embraced this man: his cruelty, his depravity, his petty, vengeful, unloving heart.

That’s not the way you raised us, and so whatever issues you have with us now, you need to understand:

You made us this way.

You have radicalized us into loving, compassionate human beings, and we can’t fathom how that can be a problem for you.

We’re really proud of the people we are today, and grateful for the time you spent with us; the lessons you taught us about seeing all people as inherently valuable,

about being a person of your word,

about telling the truth even when it’s costly,

about admitting your mistakes,

about taking responsibility for your actions,

about valuing people over money,

about how we treat people, being what defines us,

We were paying attention in history class.

We were paying attention in Sunday School.

We were paying attention around the dinner table.

We were listening.

We believed you.

We did what you told us to do and became who you told us to become—and so now we care about the world, and we despise evil, and we live open-hearted and open-handed.

And that’s why we’ve found ourselves standing here wondering how you’ve become people we no longer recognize, how you’ve embraced the embodiment of the ugliness you warned us to avoid, how you stopped taking your own advice somewhere along the way.

You say that you only support the party or the policies and not the man—but we remember you telling us that we are known by the company we keep, that the ends don’t always justify the means, and that we can’t gain the world (or a Supreme Court seat) and lose our souls. Back then, you wouldn’t have tolerated those flimsy excuses for aligning with someone horrible, and we won’t tolerate them from you now.

As children, we looked up to you, and that part of us will continue to love you dearly and be grateful to you.

But as adults, we now see you eye to eye, and we grieve the loss of the people we imagined you were when you were teaching us how to be good human beings.

By continuing to support this man, you have gone against everything you told us was important growing up: decency, honesty, fairness, maturity, and empathy.

Either you were lying then, or you’re wrong now.

Which one is it?

The children we were and the adults we’ve become both want to know.

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