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A Generation Raised in Trump’s Shadow

A Generation Raised in Trump’s Shadow

Last updated on: July 18, 2025 at 11:39 am by Mary Pezzulo

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A Generation Raised in Trump’s Shadow 2025-07-18T11:39:32-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

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Trump, Epstein, and a Generation of Scandal

Adrienne was five years old when Donald Trump was elected president.

I was told I’d go to hell if I didn’t vote for Trump. I was told that a vote for Trump was the only possible pro-family, pro-child, pro-life, pro-Christian choice. I couldn’t understand how anyone

I have had to explain to my impressionable child so many tawdry, ugly, filthy, violent and shameful things, because the president did them and they were all over the news. | Image created in Dalle for Patheos.

could ever think that that was the case, even though I thought the Clintons were atrocious. Adrienne noticed my frustration, and I tried to give a child-friendly version of why Mommy was angry. “I don’t like either of them at all. I agree with some of Hillary’s ideas and almost none of Trump’s ideas, so I’m going to vote for Hillary. It’s not a SIN to refuse to vote for Trump. That’s not what sin is.”

I remember remarking to friends, out of Adrienne’s earshot, “We’ll either have a pervert in the Lincoln Bedroom as First Gentleman or a pervert in the Oval Office, and I know which is worse.” And we got the worse option.

At around that time, a villain named Donald Trump, played by a Spider-Man action figure, started to appear in our daily pretend adventures in the Barbie dreamhouse. Eventually Action Figure Trump stopped being a villain and opened a pretend hamburger restaurant that the Captain America and Iron Man action figures liked to visit after their day’s work. That was a wholesome memory, of a bizarre time. Of course, very few times have not been bizarre, in the past ten years.

Adrienne was not quite eight when, somehow, the grab-them-by-the-p-word comment came up.

I don’t remember where she heard it. I had to explain to a wide-eyed child that the President of the United States had boasted about an unspeakable crime that should land the criminal in prison for life. We’d already been bullied out of our parish by the pro-life, pro-family, Republican Steubenville Catholics at the time.

Adrienne turned nine during the COVID-19 pandemic, after watching me panic and cry as the police ran amok and beat up protesters in my hometown of Columbus. She was nine and a half during the January 6th riot. Thirteen when Trump was found liable for sexual abuse, and convicted of fraud for his attempts to cover up his dalliances with a porn star who was traumatized by having sex with him. She’ll be seventeen when the second Trump term is set to end. Adrienne will never get to vote against Trump, but Trump has been at the top of the news, steering the country into chaos, one way or another the whole time.

I have had to explain to my impressionable child so many tawdry, ugly, filthy, violent and shameful things, because the president did them and they were all over the news. And so many other mothers all over the country, have had to explain these things to so many other children. A whole generation of American children has grown up with this man a central fixture in our politics. This is normal to them.

For the life of me, I don’t know why today’s news about Trump’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein are being treated like bombshell revelations.

Everyone knew from the beginning that this is who he was. He never pretended to be anything else.

Jeffrey Epstein | Department of Justice, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

For the life of me, I don’t know why THIS scandal has refused to die after a few days, as all Trump scandals do. I don’t expect it will bring him down entirely. It ought to. I expect that some of Trump’s followers will be permanently repulsed, and many will make excuses to themselves as to why this was acceptable, but this ought to bury him entirely. Everyone who was friends with the monster, Epstein, should be shamed out of the public eye forever. And before anyone says anything: yes, that includes Bill Clinton. I’ve never been able to stand Bill Clinton. I’ve never voted for Bill Clinton in my life. My values haven’t changed. That’s the difference between me and the pro-life, pro-family, squeaky clean Republicans.

I can’t understand why so many human beings were taken in by the ridiculous conspiracy theory that Trump was a hero, their inside man in Washington, and was going to expose the dirty pedophile cabal. Surely they didn’t really believe that. Nobody could be that dense.

A whole generation has grown up in the insane vortex of this disgusting man’s political career, and I don’t know if our democracy is going to survive his second term.

All of this, for what?

For the unborn babies? Abortion rates are still going up. They’ve been going up since 2017.

For Christianity? Church attendance is at its nadir.

Then for what?

Just to own the libs?

Are you proud that that’s all you care about?

Are you happy with what you’ve done?

Why?

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross, The Sorrows an d Joys of Mary, and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.

Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, donate to “The Little Portion” on paypal or Mary Pezzulo on venmo

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