The Accidental Activist

“Neville, is it true you are a Democrat?” I demanded when Neville answered her phone that day in 2018. Neville hesitated and then whispered, “Yes, Nancy … but don't tell anyone.”

Two years had passed since the morning of November 12, 2016, when I awoke to learn that Hillary Clinton had lost the election. I had never imagined that Donald J. Trump, he of the golden toilet in Trump Tower, would become president. My disbelief turned to despair when my husband and I went to a party in our neighborhood of Sherwood Forest that weekend and found our friends of more than thirty years jubilantly celebrating their candidate's election. Until that moment, we had no idea that our entire social group was comprised of Trump supporters.

After hearing about the first post-Trump Women's March planned for the day after his inauguration, I dusted off my 1960s Vietnam War protest credentials and organized a group of our “Florida friends” to march together at our winter home in Sarasota, Florida. In the many decades since my last college protest, I'd attended law school, married, practiced law, raised four children, and led a hectic life in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Along the way, we purchased a cottage in Sherwood Forest on the outskirts of Annapolis and summered there for more than thirty years. We never realized that our tiny enclave of 341 homes was a Republican stronghold.

I grew up in the blue state of Rhode Island, where my father was active in local Democratic politics. I voted mostly for Democrats but registered as an Independent. While I never missed voting in a presidential election, I didn't keep up with local or state politics. I simply had no time.

I hoped our Sherwood Forest friends would come to their senses when they saw how woefully unprepared Trump was to govern. When he banned Muslims from entering our country. When he separated families at the border and locked children in cages. But no matter what outrageous action Trump and the Republicans took, our friends reacted po