My Mom’s Support for Trump Divided Our Family. This Is How We Finally Came Back Together.

The Trump pres­i­den­cy didn’t just divide Amer­i­ca — it divid­ed my fam­i­ly from the inside out. The “Trump Effect,” as I start­ed call­ing it, seeped into our lives the moment he descend­ed that esca­la­tor in Trump Tow­er. It took sev­en years, a lot of anger, and one unfor­get­table moment around my kitchen table for the spell to final­ly break. But I’m get­ting ahead of myself.

My moth­er was a Rea­gan Repub­li­can — loy­al, con­sis­tent, and unwa­ver­ing since 1980. None of her four chil­dren shared her polit­i­cal devo­tion, but noth­ing cre­at­ed dis­tance between us the way Trump did.

Every phone call turned into a fight. Before he even secured the nom­i­na­tion, I warned her that his morals con­tra­dict­ed every­thing she and my father raised me to believe. He didn’t embody con­ser­v­a­tive val­ues — he weaponized and dis­tort­ed them. She didn’t care. When I begged her not to vote for him, she stood firm.

When he won, her choice hit me like betray­al. My wife is Lati­na; my kids are bira­cial. Trump’s rhetoric wasn’t abstract to us — it land­ed like a punch. Her blind­ness to his white-nation­al­ist under­tones hurt all of us.

And still, she dou­bled down.

The more Trump vio­lat­ed norms, the more she defend­ed him. In north­ern Ida­ho, her opin­ions rarely got chal­lenged. When she crossed into east­ern Wash­ing­ton, any pok­er table became her pul­pit. Peo­ple respect­ed her game — and she used that respect to evan­ge­lize for Trump.

After the Mueller inves­ti­ga­tion, she grew even bold­er. She didn’t both­er defend­ing him to crit­ics any­more; she sim­ply dis­missed them. Our con­ver­sa­tions shrank to small talk about my life and long mono­logues about her aches and pains. I missed our polit­i­cal back-and-forth. It nev­er returned.

She vot­ed for Trump again in 2020. She didn’t embrace the “big lie,” not ful­ly, but she defend­ed her can­di­date with the same stub­born pride as before. But then he began attack­ing Repub­li­cans she had admired for decades — Rom­ney, Cheney, the Bush fam­i­ly — and I saw the first hair­line cracks appear.

Then came Jan­u­ary 6th.

We weren’t togeth­er that day, but we both cried. Patri­o­tism runs in our fam­i­ly; my father served in Gen. MacArthur’s hon­or guard dur­ing the Kore­an War. We always respect­ed the flag. So when the Capi­tol was des­e­crat­ed, it dev­as­tat­ed both of us — for very dif­fer­ent rea­sons, sure, but the tears ran into the same riv­er.

I didn’t take the oppor­tu­ni­ty to say what I was think­ing. I could see the sad­ness in her. It wasn’t about Trump los­ing — it was about her slow­ly real­iz­ing she had been wrong about him. I couldn’t even muster an “I told you so.”

Six­teen months lat­er, we were hav­ing din­ner when Trump appeared on the screen. She shook her head in mild dis­gust. I don’t know what came over me — courage, exhaus­tion, or some­thing in between — but I final­ly went there.

“Mom,” I said, “I’m going to ask you a huge favor. Please just hear me out.”

I remind­ed her of every­thing — the cru­el­ty, the racism, the appeals to our worst instincts. My voice shook, then stead­ied as years of mem­o­ries rushed back. And then I said maybe the hard­est sen­tence I’ve ever said to her:

“Will you please apol­o­gize to my chil­dren for vot­ing for Trump?”

I told her my fear — that when Trump is ful­ly seen for who he is, her sup­port for him would be the thing that defined her lega­cy. Not her kind­ness, her stub­born strength, or her fierce love for her fam­i­ly. Him.

A few days lat­er, she invit­ed the whole fam­i­ly for din­ner. Three gen­er­a­tions sat around a round table. At 92, she still com­mand­ed a room. When she stood to speak before grace, every­one fell silent.

“I want to apol­o­gize,” she began. Her voice was steady, con­fi­dent — unmis­tak­ably her.
“I made a hor­ri­ble mis­take vot­ing for Trump. If I had known then what I know now, I nev­er would have done it. I hope you will for­give me.”

And just like that, it was done.

A col­lec­tive breath left the room. She sat back down and, with a lit­tle laugh, said, “Well, that wasn’t so hard.” We hugged. I whis­pered thank you into her ear. She said, “Let’s eat.”

In the months since, we’ve stayed away from pol­i­tics and focused on what we share — and there’s so much more there than the years of divi­sion made me believe. Trump’s con­vic­tion on 34 felony counts only reas­sured her that her break from MAGA wasn’t just right — it was nec­es­sary.

My kids have for­giv­en her. Their wounds are heal­ing. And I know, because she chose account­abil­i­ty over pride, my grand­chil­dren will grow up know­ing who she tru­ly was — not who she tem­porar­i­ly became.

In the end, our lit­tle “inter­ven­tion” became some­thing much big­ger: a blue­print for heal­ing in a divid­ed time. She showed us what most peo­ple today refuse to do — admit when you’re wrong.

That’s the les­son.
That’s the lega­cy.

An apol­o­gy at a din­ner table that saved a fam­i­ly.