Fox News Orphans, MAGA Refugees, and the Relational Casualties of This President

I'd just finished a speaking event with some progressive writers and activists and we were meeting with people who'd stayed after to say hello, have a book signed, or share some thoughts about the evening.After saying goodbye to the man I'd been talking to, I lifted my head and my eyes locked with a middle-aged woman who'd been standing behind him. Her wide smile dissolved almost immediately, and tears welled up in her eyes as she leaned in to speak."I am a Fox News orphan." she blurted out as she grabbed my wrist, her voice trembling.She continued, now sobbing loudly, "My family no longer accepts me, which is just as well. I hear the things they say now, and I don't recognize them anymore."The woman detailed the slow erosion of her connection to the people she'd lived with her entire life; people who suddenly felt like strangers and enemies, people she'd just as soon avoid altogether now.“Things they raised me to believe in,” she said, “things like compassion, kindness, and diversity, are now the very reasons they ridicule me. Fox News and this President have driven us apart, and I don't know if we can be fixed." Her story was heartbreaking and it was tragic—but it wasn't at all unusual. The room that night (just like this country) was filled with people like her: Fox News orphans, MAGA family refugees, and Trump-Train widows. I hear their stories dozens of times a day.They are grown children, turned away by their parents.Siblings driven apart in loud tantrums or in quiet disconnection.Extended family members relegated to superficial small talk at holiday gatherings.Spouses feeling a new alienation in one another's presence.Neighbors avoiding eye contact across hedges.Church friends exchanging uncomfortable silences.They are people forced into isolation, or choosing it out of self-preservation.Right now, the relational disconnection this Presidency has yielded is growing, the tensions are pulled tighter, and the space between people is enlarged. If these are such days for you, I see you.I know that in this moment, you are in a place you never expected to be: the outside.I know you've been pushed to the periphery of your family, that you've been ghosted by the ones you were closest to, and that you are experiencing estrangement where you once were safely held and securely tethered.I understand the sense of loss and disbelief you feel; the incredulity of the words you've heard and the unthinkable cruelty you've seen.I know the grief you've experienced as you've lost people you dearly love, who are alive, yet now gone. I feel the weight of all the accrued losses that you are carrying. I know the minefield that family gatherings have become; the way you now have to weigh every word and step gingerly to avoid explosions.I know how exhausting it all is.It's tempting to give you some sugary, feel-good platitudes and to imagine for you a day when these wounds will be healed and when the fractures will be mended—but that wouldn't be fair or realistic.The separation you feel and the distance you are experiencing is for good reason. You know why you're here right now. This isn't a capricious response to some minor moment of misunderstanding, not some flippant mood swing triggered by a singular blowup. This is the slow, steady, and devastating realization that you and some people you have lived life alongside—aren't morally compatible.You are here because that is the cost of not being silent about the deepest contents of your heart. You are because you will not soften your deepest spiritual convictions, which means that this distance, as painful as it is—is to be celebrated. You are where you are supposed to be.Yes, some of the relationships that are broken right now may find healing, but others may not. But there will be others around you in the coming days. In fact, many are already there: people who have or will become family and tribe, not by blood—but by choice; people who are also facing exclusion, fleeing their homes, and seeking refuge elsewhere.And so though this season of America may leave you feeling a bit stranded and more than a little homeless in your family and your church, know that you are not alone in such things.Know that you will find a home again and receive welcome and find rest.Be encouraged.The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit johnpavlovitz.substack.com/subscribe