I live in a rural NC farming community. Yes, we're in deeply blue Wake County. But, we're right on the line of deeply red Harnett County. This tiny corner of Wake County is bleeding profusely. One neighbor called the cops on my then 16 year old for looking at her house from across the street when her dog barked at him, claiming a "Middle Eastern guy with a knife was looking in windows." Another still has herTump/Vance sign up on her lawn (yes, her — it's just the woman and her two young adult/teen daughters).

My immediate kin were fundamentalist evangelical Christian Nationalists before Trump named them MAGA.

My own mother said to me back in 2016 — in front of my Iranian-American husband and then 11-yr old son — that if Trump ordered Muslims to an internment camp, it would be my "duty as a Christian American to comply."

There is not and never can be any learning "how to navigate being around people who are so unhinged with their bigotry."