When My Wife Discovered I Might Vote For Donald Trump

When My Wife Discovered I Might Vote for Donald Trump. It started with Disney, ended with Trump, with my family stuck somewhere in between.

Like many families, we’re fans of the children’s animated show Bluey, out of Australia. It’s clever, both mundane and piercing, and, other than the occasional rainbow-patterned blanket or two, blessedly untouched by the unrelenting and far-reaching impact of Progressivist ideology. 

To get to the show, however, we had to pass through the Disney+ streaming app, and brave whatever woke atrocity our cultural overlords were dangling in front of my children’s eyes on that particular day. 

The morning came when I could no longer tolerate it. 

The culture war is raging through schools, churches, employment—everywhere, it seems. Could not my own family room be sacred? Just because the programming is free, am I obligated to submit to its presence in the holy space of my spouse’s and my children’s home?

To say “no” bears a cost. To kick Disney+ off the family’s main TV, I’d need to replace access to Bluey. The show is available in many places for a fee. I ponied up the money and was happy to do it; the best content for kids in two decades deserves to be compensated. 

With a sense of both dread and sweet relief, I banished the Beast.

That’s an overstatement. What I didn’t do was cancel our account. The app could still be accessed from a TV in the bedroom or the basement. But it’s the smallness of the gesture that makes the point. How could such a tepid act feel so dangerous? So heretical? 

Was I insane? Had I been “radicalized?” Would it cost me my marriage? That last question tortured me for the rest of that long day. As I struggled with my demons, I began to perceive the power of what Wesley Yang has called the “right-thinking consensus.” It turns out that it’s an almost magical, ephemeral pressure arising from a sense of what “everybody” does or accepts or believes... To question it, let alone to go against it... 

My gut was telling me just how much jeopardy there is in dissent.

I am now a sometimes covert, sometimes overt, dissident within a Blue Team environment. My wife clings to the promise of the “right side of history” as defined by the various messaging organs of the powerful. I don’t blame her. Until recently, I was there, too, deflecting or ignoring the flies-in-the-ointment signaling that something about the Establishment narrative is insufficient. 

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Smugness goes a long way. I’m awake now, and it’s clear that my children’s souls, not to mention their future livelihoods, hang in the balance. 

When I told my wife that I’d removed the app, I could see in her eyes a shadow of fear. She’s been conditioned to view any dissent as being synonymous with “the bad people.” The people who didn’t make sense. Who would let wrong ideas lead to even worse actions. 

And then I told her I was considering voting for Trump.

Just like removing the app, my voting for Trump would be a small, meaningless gesture *in material terms.* We’re nowhere near a swing state. But also just like Disney app, the point is something else. The penetration of politics into our most intimate spaces and relationships means that a divergent viewpoint threatens a marriage and a family. Removing an app from a single TV—not even canceling the account—somehow represents a clear and present danger. A failure of morality.

This is the incredible power of normative culture. Our most private spaces are now subject to interrogation by public considerations. That fire alarm on your ceiling, which pings ear-shattering bleeps at seemingly random intervals—when did you ask for that? 

When my wife learned that I was considering casting a vote for Trump, she said, in the most solemn tones, that she wasn’t sure that we still shared the same core values.

This is where the good news starts, and where the hard road begins. It was clear to me in that moment, as it had always been clear, that my wife and my core values were as in alignment and as strong as they’d ever been: Our love for our children. Our absolute dedication to them. The huge effort we make, every day of our lives and for the rest of our lives, to construct a home around them, from the physical building to the structures of healthy psycho-emotional support and challenge. 

My wife and I love each other. We depend upon each other. We build a life together for ourselves and for our children. The Disney corporation; Donald Trump; Joe Biden... None of these have a place in our most sacred existence. I refuse them, and I invite you.

This is what I’m fighting for. 

Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.