Ashley Judd: Biden has to step down. Voters need a real choice.

Wednesday evening, I was visiting, as we say in the South, with some of my beloved chosen and biological family. These folks are my roots, my sense of belonging, and meet many of my most intimate human needs.
And some of them, remarkably, feverishly love Donald Trump.
And I love these Trump folks as if my life depended on it, and at times, it literally has. I do not love the beliefs they believe and cling to.
And Wednesday, as I listened to one of my dearest people share some of those beliefs and thoughts, it hurt. I was shaken. My body felt like it was on fire. The words activated in me profound alarm in the aftermath of the recent debate at which President Joe Biden, a deeply decent man, was incapable of countering Trump, while he, unchecked, gushed a firehose of galling lies.
“Those people pouring over our border are less evolved than we are. They are naturally less intelligent. They have criminal natures. They are incapable of respecting the rule of law and order.”
“Men must be strong. They cannot be weak.” We were talking about the wish for boys and men to experience a full range of human emotions without shame or punishment. “It is dog-eat-dog and men will get eaten if they show any weakness. China has a massive, 2-million-man army. They aren’t teaching DEI. Good men must be willing to kill at any moment, but just know how to control that impulse.”
And Trump folks can act on those beliefs. Another one of my closest people, upon arriving at our local mall, came across Black youth hanging out, laughing, sitting on the hoods of cars. She went inside the mall to notify the security person on duty that Black kids were menacingly loafing and up to no good. The security person called the police.
I do not necessarily think all Trump supporters believe, feel, act and speak like this. I know Donald Trump himself does. That is critical. That is why I have come to realize that my private, personal belief is one I should no longer just keep to myself.
And so, I now ask President Joe Biden to step aside.
The defense of our cherished rights and freedoms, the moral imperative that we do better by more people, and our bodies, cannot be left to voters who see and are frightened of the consequences of President Biden’s obvious limitations, or who are now not going to vote. We take the risk of an off night and minimize the warning signs at our gravest peril.
You may judge me or be baffled by how and why I can continue to live with and love people who feel and act upon the same harmful beliefs that Trump espouses. And, of course, I wholly realize they feel my beliefs and positions are equally odious. I am humbled and grateful they neither exile me from our family nor allow our significant differences to taint their love for me.
As Father Richard Rohr has written, we live in a “mixed reality.” I forgive reality for being so mixed. And I do not choose to sanitize reality or my life. I trust real, however messy it is, and however much it hurts to hold this complexity.
My deal breaker is not with my loved ones who are thrilled by Donald Trump. I cannot change them. I tried that, failed at that, damaged our relationships by trying that, and I have had enough loss in my life. I neither want to nor will I lose any more of my folks, especially over politics. My deal breakers with Donald Trump are many, but after listening Wednesday night in that living room, what is searing me is the cruelty. It cannot be America’s future.
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I feel immense, bereft sadness at the beliefs Donald Trump holds, and that his supporters endorse. But that sadness is trivial compared to the hurt, devastation and loss millions will feel if Donald Trump is reelected. He would wield the power of the presidency with unprecedented, incalculable cruelty and unfairness.
Especially disturbing is his distortion of Christianity, the force of Christian Nationalism advancing him, and the risks for anyone who diverges from that.
Biden? Harris?I don’t care. Stopping Trump and Project 2025 is all that matters.
This is not something I wrote easily, quickly or for political convenience. My belief in what President Biden has done for our country runs deep. My hopes for the next term run high. My investment is personal. I bring my body. I show up. I am a Democrat who relishes traveling up to Wisconsin for early voting, bringing coffee and doughnuts at 6 a.m. to first-time voters who have slept overnight on the sidewalk outside their polling place, so eager to cast their ballots for an inaugural experience.
Showing up publicly can cost me, and it absolutely will for far too many if Trump is reelected. When I read the “I am a Nasty Woman” poem at the Women’s March in 2017, I quoted Donald Trump. I was fired for doing so, by a company with whom I had an endorsement.
Trump said it. He was elected. I quoted him, I lose a life-altering paycheck. That is the double standard of American life for women under Donald Trump. And for all who disagree with him.
And writing this essay will cost me. Some, perhaps many, people will scorn me (and worse). Their outrage at me is insignificant compared to the harm that is assured under a second Trump term for, say, our LGBTQ+ families.
With Donald Trump in leadership, speech is chilled. Dissent is punished. Sharing your truth about your life in America can risk your livelihood. When a man raped me in 1998, I was able was have a safe, legal abortion that was accessible right where I live in Tennessee.
We already know many states ban abortions and 10 states have no exceptions for rape and incest, even for adolescent girls. This is reality for girls and women under Donald Trump and it must be the principle on which President Biden chooses to voluntarily, gracefully step aside.
Much has been said and printed about the historic progress of this Biden administration. Historic job creation. Visionary investment in America that future generations will feel. I have a deep appreciation and fond regard for him.
Equally, much has been said and printed about what Donald Trump has done and will do. I have been watching and listening.
As my mom’s dear friend Dr. Maya Angelou said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Donald Trump, I see you, and I believe you.
Thus, because of the very real hurt millions of people would feel when he is president again, the Democratic Party must not delay in thanking President Biden and supporting a talented, robust Democrat to be our party’s nominee. We do not have another day for distraction or division among ourselves.
Some in Washington may want to wait for the next week, the next press conference, the next network interview. Here, where I sit in rural Tennessee, it is clear that Americans have already made up their minds against President Biden, on top of the majority who love to vote for Donald Trump.
My folks are not bad people, despite what you may now think of them. They are facing bad options. We must give them a different choice from our Democratic Party for president of the United States.
Ashley Judd is a humanitarian, writer and actor.