We watch The White Lotus as a form of escapism, to revel in the messiness of the super-rich characters and exotic locations. But that White Lotus Trump scene in the third episode of season three? That one hit way, way, way too close to home.
It’s not that it was overly shocking that Kate, played by Leslie Bibb, was covert MAGA. The signs were there. We were first introduced to the character as part of a trio of old friends who reunite at a resort in Thailand for a long overdue girls’ weekend before falling into deliciously mineable female archetypes.
Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan) is a well-known TV actress, living a glamorous life in Los Angeles and married to a younger man. On the surface, she has the most enviable situation of the three, as she’s even generously paid for her two childhood pals to join her on the luxurious wellness retreat. Then there’s Laurie (Carrie Coon), a somewhat frazzled New York City attorney who has found success but has been struggling with a divorce, an allegedly wild daughter, and failure to advance at work.
Finally, there’s Kate, who represents a different type of achievement from the other two. While both Jaclyn and Laurie have migrated to coastal cities and built careers for themselves, Kate’s primary accomplishment seems, at least so far, to be her home and family life. She has a presumably wealthy husband named Dave and has relocated to Austin, a blue city in a deeply conservative state (one interesting detail is that we don’t know where the friends are originally from).
There’s nothing wrong with the lifestyle Kate chose, one that’s probably filled with suburban excess and ladies-who-lunch vibes. But it was clear from the jump that this dichotomy could be a point of contention for the friends down the road. In the previous two episodes, showrunner, writer, and director Mike White has expertly depicted how friendships that primarily rely on history can strain under the pressure of differing life experiences (and also how a tripod is always a shaky dynamic).
All this to say, White totally nailed the White Lotus Trump scene.
Kate’s MAGA coming out happens at the end of episode three and is kicked off by a discussion about religion. As soon as Kate told her friends she felt some of the Buddhist practices discussed during the wellness sessions at the resort felt “witchy,” I knew immediately where this was heading. The signs were all there—she’s rich and Texan after all—and when Kate surprised her friends by disclosing that she attends church regularly, I was certain.
The look Jaclyn, her LA-based celebrity friend, gives Kate is one that was immediately recognizable to me. She was realizing what this could all mean, but seemed to hope she was wrong.
“Is that weird for you?” she asks.
“Why would it be weird?” asks Kate, giving an innocent expression. Oh, no.
Jaclyn looks incredulous. “I don’t know, if I were around a bunch of Texans who voted for Trump I’d feel…alienated,” she says.
Clearly, Jaclyn is attempting to assure herself that her dear friend is still on her side. But that hope is dashed when Kate responds defensively. “They’re nice people,” she says. “Really good families.”
Laurie then jumps in, asking if it gets awkward when they talk politics. When Kate again plays dumb, she gets it. “Wait, are you a Republican?” she asks, dumbfounded.
Kate originally says no, which visibly relieves her friends. But then, the death knell. “I’m an independent,” she says, “but Dave is.”
The writing at this point was on the wall. But still, the friends press on, with Laurie being braver than a lot of people (myself included) may be in this situation.
“You didn’t vote for Trump though, did you?” she asks point-blank.
The fake, slightly annoyed smile that Kate gives her in response is all she needs to see, and it’s painfully accurate. Because covert Trump supporters will never tell you to your face that they voted for him. They are much more likely to say something like what Kate essentially does, which is, “Do we really have to talk about this?”
There’s the rub. Many white women who voted for the president are cruel in their carelessness, unable to face the fact that they chose a candidate to run the country who has been convicted of sexual assault and convinced that this fact shouldn’t matter in their personal relationships. But it does.
It’s beautiful when friendships we form when we are just children can change, mature, and grow symbiotically, that someone who loved you at nine can love you at 49. But this ideal is harder in practice, particularly if you and your friend gravitate toward complete life experiences and become different people who would have never become friends as adults.
This has become even harder for women, especially white women, in the polarized Trump era. Where previous generations may have overlooked a difference in political beliefs (you aren’t gonna cut off a friend over their love of “small” government), in 2025 it’s much harder to swallow. Realizing that a friend, especially one with whom you have a rich shared history, has voted for a candidate that took away our reproductive rights and has vowed to cause further harm to marginalized groups can feel like an insurmountable challenge, and that realization can feel like a punch in the gut.
For most of us, our loved ones aren’t out storming the Capitol. They are quietly buying into a set of viewpoints and facts that run completely counter to our deep-held beliefs, but refusing to acknowledge it in their personal lives.
And it doesn’t matter if you’re a rich celebrity on the beach in Thailand or a normal gal at brunch, the feeling of betrayal has now become universal. Unfortunately, we’ve all been there.
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