Be like Cecile.

When Trump won in 2016, we cold called a bunch of progressive non-profits and told them that we were at their service, and Planned Parenthood called back. For about two weeks since the election, everyone in our blue New England bubble had been in a state of total shock that Trump won, yet still not yet really convinced that he could or would follow through on his promise of cutting health services and overturning Roe. But the folks at Planned Parenthood took him at his word.

Our first assignment for them was in January 2017. They sent us to Muncie, Indiana to tell a story about a young woman named Erica who had support from Planned Parenthood while starting her family. We made a We met Erica in a bar the night we arrived, and she told us how she personally didn’t vote for Trump, but that she completely understood why so many people did. We looked at her with total confusion. How could this person who loved Planned Parenthood have any empathy for the racists and sexists that voted for Trump? 

We spent the next few days filming scenes of Erica, her boyfriend, and their three year old daughter Siren while they painted the walls and moved furniture into their new home, a previously foreclosed house on the edge of town. As we drove around town with them, they went out of their way to give us a tour of all of the old factories that had built up Muncie through the 20th century – massive, five acre buildings that made components for cars that would get assembled in Detroit an hour away. But by 2017, all of these factories had closed or moved overseas, and every building was demolished, now massive piles of bricks left in empty lots. On the opposite side of the street stood big victorian homes with trees growing through them. While we were filming on the second day, Erica’s boyfriend got word that his close friend and neighbor had just committed suicide, the third do to so in the last few years.

As we drove our camera van back from Muncie, we thought differently about the towns we would pass on the highway. Our home in Boston, and cities like New York, LA and San Francisco where we had spent most of our lives, felt like islands of abundance in a massive ocean of scarcity. 

Trump sadly did not, and is unlikely now given another chance, to do anything meaningful to improve the lives of people who live in towns like Muncie. He will favor corporations’ ability to ship jobs overseas and break workers, all while blaming the immigrants who those corporations exploit for inexpensive labor. He will continue to roll back reproductive rights, environmental laws, educational funding, and consumer protections, all to delegate more power to corporations and billionaires. 

But his election both then and now represent an intense, unignorable signal from voters. People are in incredible, unimaginable pain, and are willing to look past Trump’s policies or personality traits that they object to just to change the system. They are somehow willing to vote for ballot measures that protect their own right to an abortion while also voting for the man who brags about repealing the same right.

We need to do the work of trying to understand what motivates that voter, without judgment or anger. That’s the work that Planned Parenthood does every day – they deliver quality care and empathy to anyone who walks in their doors, regardless of how they vote. 

This culture of unconditional care comes directly from Cecile Richards, the President of Planned Parenthood from 2006 to 2018. A daughter of civil rights activists in Texas, she spent her entire life fighting for working and marginalized people.

When Trump was elected, she sent her speechwriter Holly Nunn out into the field to act as producer for our small team filming in Muncie. When we met Holly, she made it very clear to us that Roe was on the line, something we didn't think was possible at the time. It's a testament to the values of Cecile and the entire team at Planned Parenthood in that moment that they sent us to Muncie and not New York or LA.

Cecile passed away at her home surrounded by family away on Monday, just hours before Trump was sworn in for a second term. As I think about how to go forward over the next four years, I try to think of her and remember to not judge others for their experiences and beliefs. Give them your focus and your care as you would your own family. Lead with empathy. Listen. Be like Cecile.