Maria Arozamena
I looked up at the oak dresser my great-grandfather made before he passed away that sat in the back bedroom of Nana’s house. Three crystal angels sat perched like figures from a holy triptych coming out of the painting to offer their providence. Little gold halos decorated their heads and I just had to have one — I took the leftmost angel and I carried it home with me from her house. Later, the phone rang, and my mother, who seemed so tall then, used my middle name, a sign I was in trouble. Nana was on the phone, asking if I had seen one of her crystal angels. The next time I saw her, I returned the angel to her, tears running hot down my cheeks as I apologized profusely to my favorite person in the whole world. She was younger then, but just as gentle as she is now. She grabbed my hand between hers and bowed her head in reverence, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
I grew up on the edge of the Texas pine belt, right on the border of the West and the Deep South, where the desert and dust storms mingle with farmland and pineywoods. In my part of Texas, the most enviable sunsets spill across the sky, tornados beckon for victims each spring and thunder claps like the hand of God against the tallest pine trees. I spent my childhood on a cattle and hay farm, bought 40 years ago by Nana. She bought the land with her husband, and they built it up out of love — a shed for the John Deere tractor, garden beds where zinnias and beefsteak tomatoes grow in the springtime and a pond full of yellow belly perch for us to catch in the summers. My parents moved onto the land when we were young. Nana helped bring us up out there, with Pillsbury biscuits soaked with homemade peach jelly; books read in the empty hay barns, sheltered from the August sun; and lessons on the snakes, spiders, and bugs that make their homes in the rich soil. With a firm hand and a gentle heart, she brought me up as a proud Texan child.
My hometown in Texas is nothing remarkable. Its greatest sources of pride are our monthly outdoor flea market and the county courthouse that stands unchanged like a monument with its empty jail cells and weathered facade. The rest of the county is made up of similar little towns, all populations hovering right around a thousand people, where most have never once dared cross the county line. Our neighbors of the town are like my grandparents: a farmer who grows tomatoes and watermelon and drives them into Dallas each summer weekend to sell them at the farmers’ market; the old woman down the road who makes jams and pies and sells them off a little red cart her husband built; and the catfish man, who runs the fish farm where landowners buy tilapia to stock their ponds.
When I mention growing up in Texas at Yale, I am frequently met with a disdainful look. Many view my regional identity as a hallmark of stupidity and ill will, and this recent election has plunged the world’s idea of Texas further into darkness. I simply smile when I am met with their condolences, but at the same time, it fills me with a great grief that those from East Coast intellectual centers and West Coast paradises write off the Texans as ignorant and hateful.
On Nov. 5, I stood in line at the New Haven City Hall for four hours to cast my vote because I had failed to receive my absentee ballot in time for the election in spite of my attempt. I talked with my friends as we watched the map fill with blue and red, secure with Connecticut being called blue as soon as voting had closed. My friends from blue states reveled in the promise of four more years of being from a blue state, but my eyes traveled to the bottom of the map, watching nervously as voters from Dallas, Austin, Houston and San Antonio fought against the sea of red counties all across my home state of Texas, including my own, as I feebly crossed my fingers for Texas to go blue.
The Trump Administration ran on the promise of revival, to make America great again, a sweet lie dripping like a hymnal off their tongues. Even though a strong country was very exciting, the only thing greater than a well-led nation in the eyes of many Texans, is Jesus. On July 26, 2024, Donald Trump stood in West Palm Beach and stirred his voters with an almost messianic promise: “Christians, get out and vote, just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it will be fixed, it will be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.” These promises stick in the mind of the mother of three kids who relies on meals at the local Baptist church, the veteran drafted into the Vietnam war who found God after losing his friend in an explosion, the nurse at the local clinic with the cross necklace tucked beneath her scrubs and people like my grandparents who live off social security checks and their retirement savings, but always make donations to the church.
Trump, the Jan. 6 insurrectionists and many of his cabinet members have portrayed themselves as figures under illegitimate persecution, creating a narrative that they are being constantly politically attacked. This portrayal has crafted a narrative of martyrdom, echoing familiar biblical themes that resonate with religious Americans everywhere. During Trump’s hush money trial last March, he wrote about his case onTruth Social: “It is ironic that Christ walked through his greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you.” This constant comparison seems to have created a notable conflation between the American separation of church and state and true religious tradition.
Trump has also hijacked the narrative of the right and the American identity, claiming its heritage in the Christian tradition. Though frequently unsupported, Trump’s political positions highlight issues that are important to religious conservatives such as “religious liberty” and abortion, painting them as values of “real” Americans.
In the Bible, Jesus is selfless, humble and willing to suffer in silence for the greater good. He washed the feet of the poor, healed the sick and taught anyone willing to listen to lessons of forgiveness, compassion and love. For those who didn’t grow up in the Judeo-Christian tradition, we are taught that to live a life that reflects the character of Jesus is the highest achievement of the flesh. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me,” reads Galatians 2:20. “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as Christ God has forgiven you,” reads Ephesians 4:32.
How could the American public, including members of my own family, mistake Jesus-like characteristics for someone who has sexually assaulted women, acts out of materialism and greed, committed adultery and has been found guilty by the American justice system?
There are many reasons rural Texan communities vote the way they do. One must consider the fact that working class Americans feel betrayed by the political system. Others have voted red their whole lives and don’t see a difference between Trump and former Republican candidates. And of course, some are just bigots, so Trump’s platform resonates with them. I’m not defending the bigots, but I don’t believe that is what is behind most Texans’ vote for Trump, and I know that isn’t the case in my own family.
When you drive down the county roads throughout Texas, especially during election season, you frequently see Trump’s name on merchandise next to Jesus paraphernalia: hats declaring “Jesus is my Savior, Trump Is My President,” shirts with Jesus placing his hands on Trump’s shoulders with text saying “They called me guilty too” and even flags that say “Jesus loves Trump.”
These were a lot of the feelings leading up to the election, but I can see a shift in the attitude of my neighbors, family and friends as they are shocked by the nationwide repercussions the President’s executive orders are having on the country. American farmers, ranchers and rural small business owners, many of whom voted for Trump, signed up to receive funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, only to be scorched by Trump’s extensive funding freezes — with Texas having the greatest number of these investments in the country. The government is now neglecting the land of those who feed them, hitting farmers with tariffs and causing significant damage to the USDA Local Food for Schools program, which helped provide healthy meals to schools from local farms. Measles is rising in Texas, largely due to RFK’s anti-vaccine propaganda, and the funding that paid for testing and vaccination will be cut. These are just a few of the examples that I don’t think rural Texans believed Trump would do things that are now hurting our people.
It would be unfair of me to write that Trump’s actions are a surprise to every Texan, as racism, homophobia, sexism and bigotry of all kinds still permeate rural America and the Republican party. The truth is deeply frustrating to try and reconcile, as many people didn’t vote out of hate, but out of love for their religion and their God. What about all the good-hearted Texans, raised breathing in the Bible for sustenance? What compelled them to overlook all the wretched things Trump did to cast their vote for him? And now as they watch America bear the weight of their decision, how do they feel? Do they regret their vote?
I don’t know the answers to these questions. And yet, my plea, in writing, is for people outside of the South to see that not all rural Americans are driven by bigotry.
I think the messianic image Trump made for himself created a following reminiscent of a cult, where perhaps the most unthinkable thing was to doubt him, no matter what he did or said. He feeds innocent, kind-hearted Americans contradictory statements, incorrect interpretations of fact and bellicose messages about politicians who disagree with him — “guiding the spirits” of many Americans in the rural South who feel left behind.
The Texan farmers who employ immigrants, both undocumented and legal, who turn a blind eye to their status and provide them with work, do not want to see their employees taken and their families torn apart. The nurses and doctors in underserved hospitals all across Texas do not want to see a woman die because of poor reproductive care. The teachers and professors, like Nana who taught at the university and grade school level, do not want to see the Department of Education shut down. Many Trump voters I know of are kind and compassionate people. I refuse to write off the fact that the people who raised me on values of truth, kindness and love would intentionally vote for someone they truly believed would hurt people.
Liberals tell conservatives they are rotten, but when a Texan neighbor dies, the community gathers to plant a live oak in their memory. Liberals call conservatives evil, but many conservatives send prayers of abundance for each other’s farms and health for the ailing, cast like stones to whatever version of God we choose to believe in on a Sunday morning. Liberals tell conservatives they are out of touch with what’s happening in the world, but our town halls and county buildings are full at town meetings because even the most rural of Texans care about their community and want to understand the issues that face them.
I was taught at my Christian school, when Jesus martyred himself for the good of humanity, while blood dripped down his face and his hands were being bound to the cedar crucifix, he used his last breaths to ask God, the Father, to forgive those crucifying him, for they didn’t understand the magnitude of what they were doing. The people of Texas had faith and believed — really believed — Trump would make America great again, and now our people are suffering all the same. So my plea to those who write the Texans off as bigots, ignorant and hateful, is to “forgive them, for they know not what they do.”