Opinion: How Trump tore one family apart
Jackson Reffitt’s story is archetypical of the Trump years, which have been marked by countless tales of family estrangement.On the evening of Sept. 24 in midtown Manhattan, Jackson Reffitt, a 22-year-old from Texas, cried through the first professional play he’d ever seen, which was about him.
Jackson had nothing to do with the creation of the play, a piece of documentary theater in which every line was taken from official sources like court records and recordings. “Fatherland” uses his words and his story but not his name — the characters are referred to simply as Father and Son. Jackson first learned of it from a text from his sister when it opened in Los Angeles this year.
Jesselyn Cook’s excellent recent book, “The Quiet Damage,” tells the stories of family ripped apart by the Trumpist cult of QAnon. “The havoc that QAnon and similar conspiracy theories have wrought on American democracy and public health is well documented,” Cook writes. “Less acknowledged is the crippling devastation that they unleash inside the home, behind closed doors and out of public view.
Guy’s work took the family all over the world; before 2016, they were living in a condo in Penang, Malaysia, where he earned a six-figure salary and sent his kids to private school. But that year, the price of oil collapsed, and he lost his job. Suddenly broke, he returned to the United States, but it was months before he could afford to fly his wife and three kids home to join him.
I appreciate the impulse toward empathy, which animates a great deal of liberal writing and thinking about those who’ve plunged through the MAGA looking glass, “Fatherland” included. Yet it’s worth noting how rarely this noble sentiment is reciprocated. It’s far from clear that her son is. Still, he feels for her. “She hasn’t really moved on,” he said, adding, “I don’t blame her, because I know she feels cornered. I know she doesn’t have a lot of places to go. She doesn’t have much community.”
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