To the ‘Fuck Your Feelings’ Flag-Flyer
An Open Letter to a Trumpist
I wrote this letter sometime around Thanksgiving, about two months ago, around the time of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s election. I thought that it was okay, but was not sure if it really merited saying out loud or if it was more of a personal therapeutic exercise. And as ever, is repeating a very ugly message to the world, even in criticism, something that I want to do? It’s a valid question — this article necessarily relates a very triggering message that the world should never have had to see. In light of the positively horrific and disturbing events of January 6, in which the words in question were broadcast across the nation yet again on banners and T-shirts, I decided that yes, I did want to speak my mind. I hope that it is of some small value as we all try to recover from what we saw and make sense of what happened on an unimaginably dark day for us all.
On the afternoon of Halloween 2020, I saw a species of Trumpist flag which I had mercifully theretofore avoided. Beneath the obligatory oversized TRUMP 2020 — so as to be clearly legible to people near and far from the pickup bed where it hung, like all the ones you’ve seen — were three words: Fuck Your Feelings.
Wow. No holds barred there, huh? No mistaking the message of the man driving the pickup, no sir! Fuck Your Feelings: To Whomever It May Concern, I simply hate you and wish you pain. Because hurt feelings are pain. We all know that. I ask you to take a moment and think, Is that something I would say to a person who I did not hate? What could be a crueler message to broadcast to the world?
I saw that flag, understood its clear message, for only a few moments, but a moment is more than enough time to internalize a harmful comment. If I could speak to the driver of that truck on Halloween afternoon — when the sidewalks bustled with a few dozen trick-or-treating families probably already worried while they tried to give their kids some semblance of a fun holiday during COVID, who certainly did not need the extra worry of their children seeing a vulgar flag — I would tell him this story of how his message affected me:
During the COVID autumn, I got to know a new girl who I really liked. It was the first time I got to do that in a long time, and it was great. I have questionable romantic success on the best of days, and the pandemic is pretty much death unto dating, so you can imagine how much I enjoyed knowing her, if only casually. It was not romantic: she was simply a charming woman who I talked to and learned a little about when I saw her on occasion. Yet we all know how nice even that can be, especially during a time like COVID. The potential of a new relationship, of a new connection of any kind with a person who interests you, is a very sweet thing. I’m certain that even people who feel compelled to fly Fuck Your Feelings flags can relate to that.
I saw her that Halloween, and she told me how excited she was that her boyfriend had proposed the night before. Um…
Like I said, I didn’t know her well. We all know how that sort of disappointment feels, though, especially right in the moment when it first hits. That painful feeling, which contains disappointment, anger, sadness, and even happiness and optimism once one smiles, wishes well, and moves on, is just that: a feeling. Feelings are powerful things. They are big and significant and very important — feelings shape our lives and how we view the world.
The moment she told me about her engagement, I could see your TRUMP 2020 Fuck Your Feelings flag out the window. Message received loud and clear, brother! In that moment, when my heart was not broken, but did have a good crack in it, your message caused me real pain, pain which I did not need and don’t think I deserved.
I don’t know you at all, other than that on that day, you chose to display that particular message for the world to see. For me to see. For trick-or-treating children to see, on a Halloween that they already knew was not very fun, even if they did not understand why. Above all other messages days before the 2020 election, when everyone in the country was already exhausted and down, you chose to broadcast that one. You decided it was the most important thing to say. You must know that your right to free speech is alive and unmolested, because no one gave you any trouble for flying those hateful colors. No one oppressed you; in your own way, though, you oppressed everyone who saw it. You caused people trying to make the most of an awful time to feel sadness, disgust, anger, and futility at the thought of how such caustic meanness has become so common lately. In America, you are of course free to do that, and should be, as wrong as that may feel. Make no mistake, though: your consummately mean rhetoric went in absolutely no way towards making America great, which you profess to believe in doing.
Yes, the sacred campaign creed. Do you believe that you made America greater through your actions on that day? For any of the other Americans around you, or even yourself? Or was that not really your goal at all? Did you, in fact, really set out to make America a slightly meaner, angrier, less hospitable place than it was when you woke that morning? As far as I can see, that’s all you accomplished.
The last thing I’ll say to you, whoever you may be, is that I feel your pain. I truly do. I have made nasty remarks to people in the past. Hurtful words, mean words, callous remarks we wish we could take back but cannot: we all know the feeling. After being mean, I am always left with a deep, nagging guilt. Being mean or cruel makes people feel bad. That is how our consciences work, and our consciences are proof that we are human. I know that you know this, because you are a human like me. I know that you have a conscience. I know that we often act badly when we feel bad, and we usually feel bad because we have been treated badly. I know that you feel bad. I recognize that you have been treated badly, in ways I can perhaps not imagine. I know that you are angry, that you are in pain and perhaps scared. Those are not reasons to be hateful, though. I invite you to take a breath and examine your pain, if only for a moment. You know that flag is cruel, that it is hurtful. I can affirm that it hurts — badly, in fact. If you stop and think about why you feel so angry, and of how that anger might actually be compounded by your own conduct, I not only think that you might no longer feel the need to fly that horrible flag, but also that you might feel a bit better than you do now. I hope that you will at least try, because you deserve to feel better. Because feelings matter.
