By Doyle Srader

This morning I was looking at the “Bibles for Haiti” meme. It’s the one where the pudgy white man is handing a Bible to an underwhelmed Black woman, and the caption reads, “Thank you, this looks delicious.” And I think it makes a solid point. 

I’m a lifelong Baptist, a Sunday school teacher, and I work for a Christian employer, so I’ve been in a position from time to time to see some truly clumsy and misguided behavior by my Christian sisters and brothers. I fully agree that it’s indefensible to proselytize people whose basic needs are not getting met: It’s cruel, and it’s an utter waste of time.

And yes, yet again, I am making a point about the anti-Trump protests.

There are a lot of frustrated residents of Eugene who channel their discontent into mocking and insulting our unhoused people. They especially love to put on their sarcastic faces and say “Ooooo, I’m just one paycheck away! I’m just one paycheck away!” because obviously an idea stops being true if you make fun of it. 

Lately, I’ve shifted my response to something like this: “Look, the unhoused person you’re ranting about was once someone’s young daughter or son, squirmy and playful and full of potential. Put them next to you at that age and I bet no one could tell the difference. But then, parts of their life went catastrophically wrong, and yours did not. It’s possible some of it resulted from their decisions, and are you going to tell me you didn’t make stupid decisions whose consequences you escaped by pure dumb luck?” 

I suspect the average Weekly reader finds some merit in that comparison, so here’s why I actually didn’t change the subject: the exact same thing is true about your political opponents.

Nobody woke up one morning and said, “Because I am fundamentally worthless and trashy, I will now wander nice people’s neighborhoods throwing feces and used needles around like the world’s worst Mardi Gras float!” 

Similarly, no one woke up one morning and said, “Because I glory in raw evil, I will now embrace every wrong idea in the universe until a crowd screams at me that I am evil and wrong, and then I’ll pop like a soap bubble so they can high five each other.” 

Neither of those things has ever happened, and yet I keep running into Eugeneans whose assumptions about their neighbors don’t seem to run any deeper than that.

Donald Trump won in 2016 and 2024 because he spoke for people who felt forgotten and abandoned. Very many people who felt that way have ragged tears in the fabric of their well-being, and until those are rewoven, all the posters and chants at the protests amount to preaching to people who don’t have food, or health care, or dignity, or hope. They’re all just delicious Bibles. 

You can repackage any rationalization you want about who you have to confront and why, or what kind of slogan you’re absolutely sure will work this time, or next time at the latest. You can slam your slogans in their faces, and when they don’t surrender and change their voter registration, you can commiserate with everybody else at the protest about how stupid they are. You can repeat it again and again, and the spiral we’re stuck in can go round and round again and again, and the results of the 2016 and 2024 elections can reoccur in 2028 and beyond.

Or you can step back from the confrontation, think hard about unmet needs, and lead with care before you get to advocacy.

I really do want to see the fever of Trumpism break, but it’s a problem with two sides: the supporters and the opponents. And the next time you drive by a protest, or show up to one yourself, and the signs are raised and the chants begin, I want you to think at least once, “Ahhh, these Bibles are delicious.”

Doyle Srader lives in Eugene.