Why I Voted Trump: A Coming Out Story

Candace Mercer Olympia, WA
21 min readOct 22, 2020

I will not live in a closet for any reason.

I voted Republican almost a straight ticket for the first time in my life.

I am a progressive artist/writer/activist with an impressive 25+ year record of fighting the good fight on a plethora of issues including abortion clinic escort, rape crisis counselor, regular crisis counselor, a decade in Palestinian Solidarity, holding local police accountable in the shooting of two young black men, homelessness, cannabis and chronic pain advocacy.

In this “stunning and brave” essay I will tell you why I made this decision.

My first reaction after the 2016 election, after I stopped crying — the tears lasted awhile — was to convene an emotional support group that excluded cis straight white men. Because, of course. Safety first.

Thankfully, this is the most cringe worthy action I took, my humanity was strong enough to never break with my core values and become a full on SJW bully. I had my moments though. I am not innocent. To those who I may have caused offense, this is my apology.

I got the Trump Derangement Syndrome bad. I mean BAD. I was locked on MSNBC, breathless with each new horror. To be fair, Trump was a wild card, and there was no precedent for dealing with such. Would democracy hold? Would my friends and I be in danger? Would he cut my safety net? Did he collude with the Russians? We did not have answers and uncertainty was destabilizing and anxiety provoking.

Plus I am from New York. My dislike of Trump goes back to the SPY era of the 1980s. It was easy to catch the mind virus. And the crowds, not gonna lie, they scared me. I knew some of it was performance art on Trump’s part, and could dismiss that, but when I saw the crowds shouting “Lock her up!” it was disturbing on a gut level.

I wondered why it seemed my country was committing suicide. I had no idea how people could embrace this man and these ugly ideas. At the same time, I knew, as a matter of fact, that there was no way that 50% of the country were racists. It just did not make sense.

AN ATTEMPT AT SENSE MAKING

An intrinsically curious person, I set out to understand my blindness. The first book I read that helped was…

--

--

Candace Mercer Olympia, WA

Candace is a progressive artist/writer/activist based in Olympia, WA reporting on homelessness & political violence. She ran for Olympia City Council in 2021.