What Will It Take?

From someone who still remembers breaking bread with you.

Portrait of President Trump who was mentioned 38,000 times in the Epstein Files.

What Will It Take?

I keep asking myself this question, and honestly, I can’t stop.

What will it take?

Not for strangers on the internet. Not for anonymous accounts hiding behind flags and Bible verses in their bios. I mean you. The people I grew up with. The people I went to church with. The people I shared meals with and holidays with. The people whose kids played with mine, whose kids were watched by mine, who stood beside me on my wedding day. We didn’t just attend the same services — we did life together. We broke bread. We prayed in the same circles. We cried over the same losses. We promised to show up for each other.

Which is why the silence feels unbearable.

These aren’t theoretical conversations. These are relationships. These are memories. These are people I trusted. So when I watch so many of you continue to support Donald Trump and everything Trumpism has come to represent, I don’t just feel disagreement. I feel grief.

I feel betrayal.

And I do not understand how you reconcile it.

How do you sit through a teaching about Jesus on Sunday and then leave the building to defend cruelty on Monday? How do you sing about love, grace, and humility, then turn around and cheer for power, domination, and revenge? How do you tell your kids that character matters while aligning yourselves with someone whose entire public life has been built on lying, exploiting, humiliating, and harming others?

How do you look at your daughters and still support a man who brags about sexual assault? How do you tell your sons to respect women while backing someone who has spent decades reducing them to objects?

Where is your line?

And before anyone tries to spiritualize this away, let me be perfectly clear: this isn’t about political disagreement. This is about moral collapse.

We are talking about systems that protect abusers.
We are talking about institutions that provide cover for predators.
We are talking about politicians who look the other way while children are harmed.

We are talking about the grotesque reality exposed again and again through the connections surrounding Jeffrey Epstein— and your continued willingness to pretend it’s all just noise, or exaggeration, or a media hit job.

Reports from outlets like The New York Times show just how deeply entangled powerful people are in this mess. Trump’s name shows up over and over. Not once. Not twice. Over and over. And still — silence. Shrugs. Excuses. Whataboutisms.

What else do you need?

At what point does political victory stop being worth the cost?
Is holding onto power really worth sacrificing your integrity?
Your witness?

Your soul?

I grew up in the church. I gave my life to it. I believed in it. I trusted it. I organized my entire world around it. And the Jesus I was taught to follow cared about the vulnerable, stood with the oppressed, confronted religious hypocrisy, and refused to cozy up to empire. That Jesus did not excuse abuse because it helped him win elections. That Jesus did not look away from suffering for the sake of influence. That Jesus did not trade truth for proximity to power.

So help me understand how you got here.

Help me understand how protecting your political team became more important than protecting children.
Help me understand how you can talk about family values while defending someone who would violate your family without hesitation.
Help me understand how you can quote scripture while standing shoulder to shoulder with cruelty.

Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you didn’t slowly drift away from your values. It looks like you abandoned them.

And I know some of you will say you don’t like him. That you wish he’d say things differently. That you’re holding your nose and voting anyway. But that doesn’t change the outcome. You’re still lending your voice. You’re still offering cover. You’re still signaling that none of this is a dealbreaker.

So again, I’m asking:

What will it take?

How many survivors have to come forward?
How many lies?
How much corruption?
How much violence?
How many kids have to be hurt before you decide this is too much?

Please hear me when I say this… your silence is not neutral. Your votes are not neutral. Your refusal to speak is not neutral. Every time you minimize this, every time you deflect, every time you tell yourself it’s complicated, you are choosing comfort over courage.

And the hardest part for me is that I know you. I know your stories. I know your prayers. I know the way you once talked about justice and mercy and loving your neighbor. I remember when those things mattered to you. That’s why this hurts.

This isn’t me yelling at strangers.
This is me asking people I once trusted to wake up.

If you still claim the way of Jesus, then prove it!
Draw a line.
Walk away from this.
Demand better from your leaders.
Refuse to participate in systems that harm the vulnerable.
Stop offering your faith as a shield for predators and authoritarians.

Because someday your kids are going to ask where you stood.
And “we won some elections” is not going to be a good enough answer.

So I’ll ask one more time.

What will it take?

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