“We are here and many people are waking up”
On the February 5th (2026) episode of The Sacred Slope podcast, pastor and author Cody Deese espouses the following:
Here’s a truth that I never wanted to see that I’m coming to see. I made excuses for years of why my evangelical family supported Trump. And when I say support him, I mean signs in the yards, attending rallies, supporting him. I was like “well it’s the economy. I mean, I kinda understand why they voted him. Quit making it a big big deal, Cody. It’s just like it’s the economy. I mean he’s a shrewd business man.” Heard the comments: “I didn’t vote for a pastor. I voted for a president.” Or those that are like “I just learned to compartmentalize. I don’t agree with everything he does, but he’s the lesser of two evils.” I heard it all. Like all of these.
And I gotta be honest. I made excuses for them because I didn’t want it to be true what I’m seeing. But it’s one thing to vote for that one time. It’s another thing to vote for that two times. But when you vote for it three times in a row, here’s what that is telling me. Many, not all, but many support him because he mirrors back the very behaviors they already excuse in themselves. It’s a defense of the part of themselves they’ve long wanted permission to keep. And I know we don’t want to see that, but misogyny, racism, an insatiable hunger for power, sexual sin without accountability.
I am coming to see they justify him because they’re justifying themselves. And that is a realization that’s really, really difficult to stomach. But I will go back to this truth: If we can’t name that, we can’t heal that. So we have to hold all of those.
And, in some way, maybe what all of this is is all of the stuff that I had buried within me as an individual is true for the nation. The nation, as one body, has buried history, slavery, so many atrocious things and we want to just move on without any therapy at all. We want to pretend it never happened. And maybe what is coming out of this movement is we are watching it surface for the first time. It’s no coincidence that Trump is the president in a time when we have cameras in our pockets, This is the moment of what I call the “great exposure”. It’s not that it hasn’t been going on. It’s been buried within this nation since it’s origins. It’s just, for the first time, we are in a culture where we are actually seeing it.
And this is why my heart goes out. I get why people are frustrated that white people are just waking up because two white individuals were killed. I get it. Where were you when George Floyd, Briana Taylor? I get those conversations. My God, half of our spiritual collective are brown and black individuals, people of color, and I hear them and I want to say to them publicly thank you for giving people like me grace. Thank you. That’s not an easy task. Thank you for giving space for people like me to wake up. And what I wanna say is there are many people waking up. And it’s sad it takes white individuals to be killed for people to wake up. Nevertheless, we are here and many people are waking up.
I’m not a religious person. But this excerpt came across my Instagram feed this morning and I listened. To all of it. As he says, he’s not without blame in this. But he called it out. He articulated the very idea I’ve been trying to find words for. Kudos for saying it out loud.
