Every time I cover a Trump event, I am reminded of how diverse his base is. Anyone who writes off Trump supporters as racist White people needs to check their assumptions. Reality is much more complicated than this storyline, which you’ll see in my livestream from downtown Washington, DC on Monday morning. (You can watch it in the video above. The quality is far better than my first livestream.) Talking with die-hard fans of the 47th president as they tried to get a coveted seat inside the Capitol One Arena for his official Inauguration watch party, I found a group as varied as America. In fact, the crowd rallying for Trump was more racially and economically diverse than the one rallying for peace and justice at the People’s March two days before. That liberal group was predominantly White. (Here’s my take on that event, which I covered with New Yorker cartoonist
.)If there was one through line motivating the Trump supporters I interviewed, it was Christianity. Many of the people I spoke with said they backed Trump because they felt he would protect Christians and their values. Of course, Christians and their values are not monolithic, but it’s helpful to get a sense of what messages resonated with the most fervent supporters willing to stand in the cold.
I know many of you are checking out of politics today and in the days to come. I do hope you’ll watch the video stream at some point though, for a few reasons:
The conversations complicate — and clarify — narratives about social and political dynamics in the United States right now. To heal divides, we need to understand them. This requires more deep listening.
While I disagree with the stances of many people that I interview, I don’t try to shame or make fun of them. Some took my breath away, and I grappled with how to respond. But I tried my best to meet people where they are. Why? Because the dispatches from Trump rallies that go viral on social media often mock the interviewees, chalking people up to one-dimensional caricatures to be laughed at or denounced. Complex problems aren’t solved this way, and the approach certainly didn’t win the Democrats the White House if that was the intent.
This video is a living example of healing from trauma. As many of you know, I was deeply affected by covering the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. I changed my approach to my life and career afterwards to prioritize my mental health, and I’ve been candid about the healing process. I was able to cover the Trump event Monday, four years later, because of all of the work I’ve put in to heal, to be able to discern the difference between a stressful event and a threatening one, and to draw on internal and external resources to respond to each.
Some folks expressed fear to me that by going to the Trump event on Monday, I was perhaps re-traumatizing myself or trying to prove something to my readers. I can appreciate the well-intended concern for my wellbeing, and I would invite people to grapple with the complexity and possibility of the human experience.
Surviving a traumatic event doesn’t mean that one stays in a static, wounded state forever. In fact, healing from one can make a person stronger, wiser and more nimble than if they hadn’t developed the skills and abilities to respond to the adversity in the first place.
Many people after trauma don’t have the privilege to opt out of returning to the scene of the crime. Racism, poverty, gender violence — this is an everyday source of trauma for many people, and those who have survived this aren’t trying to prove anything to anyone by moving through their day as if it was any other.
In my case, I am privileged enough to opt out of activities that could potentially re-traumatize me, and I am fortunate enough to have the support to retrain my brain and body to respond to sources of stress in healthy ways. I didn’t go to the Trump rally as a victim but rather as a wisened survivor. I love covering social movements. I often feel most alive in the field. This doesn’t mean I’m going to run into a house on fire. It means that because of my healing process, I can endure a little heat.
May we live in a world where everyone has the opportunity to reconnect with the light within.Thank you , , and many others for tuning into my live video. If you learned anything new, were challenged by what you saw, or totally disagreed with my approach, let me know! It’s always interesting to hear what’s on your mind.
Hi, I’m Kate…
I’m a writer, filmmaker and reformer focused on the relationship between mental health and democracy. Connect with me on Instagram or LinkedIn.
At The Washington Post, I was part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for our coverage of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. I also pioneered a column on mental health and society and led a video production team. I left corporate media to create Invisible Threads, a project supporting wellbeing through narrative transformation. My work examines the individual, communal and systemic forces — and stories — that keep people isolated and unwell. We have to know better to do better to feel better.
I’m also a fellow at Georgetown University’s research and design unit the Red House, focused on efforts to transform cycles of trauma into cycles of wellbeing. This deepens work I’ve pursued for more than two decades, from reporting on an authoritarian regime in post-genocide Cambodia and declining democracy in Hong Kong to the 2021 U.S. insurrection.
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