At noon on a drizzly, mist-filled Jan. 20, 2017, Donald J. Trump placed his left hand on Abraham Lincoln’s and his family’s Bibles and vowed to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Hours later that same day, 13 women of three generations sat shoulder-to-shoulder at a private inauguration party in Mission Viejo, Calif., to watch Trump’s inauguration speech. They chuckled when the camera zoomed on the Obamas and Clintons as Trump trashed D.C. politicians as “all talk and no action,” then snickered at Trump’s signature finger-swiping gesticulations. But other than those few light moments, all 13 women held grim expressions as Trump promised to restore America to greatness.

When the speech ended, the women glanced at each other, stewing in their own thoughts and emotions. One 44-year-old mother of three, who watched the inauguration with stretched eyebrows and pursed lips, said she felt “disappointment” at Trump’s speech. A 27-year-old Mexican-American said she was “skeptical”—Trump promised a lot of things to certain groups, but does he actually care about minority Americans like her? A 28-year-old homeschool teacher said she got “angry.” When Trump referenced the Bible to support patriotism, her facial muscles hardened: “I think it’s a misnomer to assume that patriotism is somehow Christian.”

A 43-year-old housewife from a staunchly Republican family in Alabama said she felt “hopeful,” then giggled almost apologetically. A 60-year-old piano teacher said she felt “at peace” and “relaxed.” She too giggled half-guiltily when she said she had voted for Trump—after all, they live in California, one of the bluest states in the nation.

Across the continent in rural New Berlin, Pa., three women—a baby boomer, a Generation Xer, and a millennial—also gathered to watch Trump’s speech. Their community is an entirely different world than upper-middle-class Orange County suburbia. Here in this borough of 900 people, residents proudly planted duct-tape-patched pro-Trump signs on their lawns. One farmer even mowed 12-foot-wide letters “TRUMP” into his 250-acre hayfield. During the speech, 58-year-old Kathy Wohlschlegel cried from joy, while 46-year-old Terri Manning cheered Trump on: “He is about to undo everything. Just about everything.” Meanwhile, 31-year-old Natalie Fox kept silent. She was the only woman in the group who didn’t vote for Trump.

None of the five millennials in sunny California or agrarian Pennsylvania voted for Trump, while all the older women did. Two millennials voted for Gary Johnson, two for Evan McMullin, and another for Hillary Clinton. Those who voted third-party knew their candidate had zero chance of winning—they were simply protesting the two dismal options they never wanted. Meanwhile, those who voted for Trump said they were voting against Clinton, who to them was basically Lucifer in a thousand-dollar pantsuit.

One man, one speech, 16 reactions from 16 women. These women were all evangelicals active in church and ministry, who upheld Biblical values such as the sanctity of life and marriage. They observed the same presidential campaign, prayed to the same God, watched the same speech—and they all arrived at divergent conclusions. With conservative Christian women so divided, how much wider is the ideological schism between 231 million voter-eligible Americans spread across race, sex, religion, social class, and geography?

The 2016 presidential election felt to many like a nuclear explosion, with mushroom-cloud street protests and social media tirades—but watch out too, for the lingering, invisible radiation that poisons its way into family dinners, coffee dates, and even church community groups. When did politics get so intensely personal? How did hate and disgust against political opponents become the norm? How did political hostility get to the point where husbands and wives hide votes from one another, and brothers and sisters in Christ stop speaking to each other?

Most of the 16 women named Abraham Lincoln as their favorite U.S. president, and the discussion among the 13 California women intensified with a question by 52-year-old Wendy Garcia: “Isn’t it shocking how we as a nation have not grown since Lincoln?” She then added, “Do we really need a leader to unite us?” To which 28-year-old Stephanie Bowman immediately retorted, “Have you seen the number of idiots on social media?” Garcia shrugged: “Then how can we unite these people? How? I don’t know. … Maybe we need Christians to step up?”

"How can we unite these people? How? I don’t know. … Maybe we need Christians to step up?”

The over-40s who voted for Trump had a variety of reasons. Natasha Westerfeld, 44, hopes for a Supreme Court overturn of Roe v. Wade: “I voted for Trump at the very last second through tears.” Mandy Hogan, a 47-year-old, curly-haired, stay-at-home mother of three, said as a former CPA, she understood Trump as a no-nonsense, cut-out-the-waste businessman who will “get work done.” She wonders why social issues trump tangible concerns about national security and the economy: “I have three kids under 13. I’m so scared to think of what their world is going to be like.”

Robbin Blank, a 62-year-old retiree with a stylish bob and Tiffany & Co. eyeglasses, said she was at first aghast at Trump’s nomination, then accepted him as the lesser of two evils: “Who’s going to uphold the Constitution, who’s pro-life, who’s going to let God back into the vocabulary?” Later, she became his “biggest advocate”: “Wow, I think Trump’s going to turn this train around! I believe what this guy is saying!” On Election Day she dropped to her knees, raised her arms, and prayed for Trump’s victory.

The younger women said they refused to vote for Trump because of his questionable character and offensive comments. Erika Ruiz, 27, said she didn’t vote for Trump because of his “ignorant,” “offensive,” and “unprofessional” comments about race and sex. A daughter of immigrant parents from Mexico, she didn’t feel Trump represented her at all: “He’s not willing to understand or see our side. I felt like he didn’t stand for us little people.” She voted for Clinton because she’s “basically everything that Trump is not.”

When one baby boomer said it didn’t matter to her whether the sexual assault claims against Trump were true or not because “that’s not who he is now,” Stephanie Bowman began fidgeting, then raised her hand and said in a loud, agitated voice: “Can we all agree that molesting someone is a federal crime? That’s all I have to say.”

To many millennials, it was a rhetorical question that stirred visceral revulsion against Trump, but boomers responded with skepticism. One baby boomer asked, “Was he ever charged for it?” “I wouldn’t let him in a room with my sister,” Bowman answered. Another boomer wondered: “How can 13 women come out at the same time? I thought that was a hoax.” Bowman stood her ground: “We all know or are women who were once assaulted. To me, that’s an immediate disqualification.”

The women in Pennsylvania clashed over the same topic. Natalie Fox, a millennial, said Trump showed no repentance regarding the scandals: “It was, ‘Well, that’s just how it is. Locker room talk.’ … For somebody who’s going to be leading a country as an example and a role model—” Generation Xer Terri Manning interrupted, “Yeah, but he didn’t know that then!” Fox—typically a conflict-averse woman—began raising her voice: “There’s enough of a problem in our culture of people not really respecting women.” That’s why she couldn’t vote for Trump with a clear conscience, she said.

Manning encouraged Fox to embrace that idealism while it lasts: “I really appreciate that about young people. I remember being idealistic.” Yet many millennials see their elders as the idealistic ones for stirring hope that Trump will bring change. Theirs is a nostalgic idealism for a past America that millennials never knew, when jobs weren’t giving way to automation and eager offshore employees in India, when Christian bakers didn’t worry about losing their business to LGBT discrimination lawsuits, when parents didn’t fret about terrorists exploding their children’s school while screaming “Allahu akbar!”

Here, perhaps, lies the greatest generational divide: Each grew up in a different America as culture, technology, and methods of communication change ever more rapidly. As the country, the world, the culture, shifts and shakes, millennials read and interpret history far differently than their elders do (see sidebar).

Trump’s “Make America great again” slogan highlights that division. For 64-year-old Maggy Wong who immigrated to America with her Dutch-Indonesian family in the ’60s, it’s redundant: “Wait, we’re already great!” She lived through the civil rights era and witnessed advances on racial and gender equality—so what does being “great again” mean? “I pray that we don’t go back to the ’60s.” Carrie O’Malley, a 44-year-old senior policy adviser, interprets the phrase in light of America’s special role in the world. For her, strengthening borders, fighting terrorism, and bringing back jobs would benefit America, and thus the world: “How can we help others if we’re not strong?”

But Stephanie Bowman reflected a common millennial view: “I don’t trust my government to do good in the world.” She wondered if America ever was great: “I don’t know if America being great is God’s ultimate will—is that a dangerous thing to say? I don’t know that’s a good thing, given the values that we tend to uphold on a federal level.”

Baby boomers grew up amid breakthroughs in the economy and in race relations, but millennials have not personally witnessed that progress. They watch movies about evil capitalists and the global financial crisis, cringe at crude cell phone videos of police shootings, hear “Black Lives Matter” cries, and draw a very different image of America. Some were once hopeful about Barack Obama’s promise of hope and change, but eight polarizing years later, those dreams crumbled. Now they hear from cultural leaders and social media that a nightmare is impending in the form of a Twitter-bullying, woman-groping, orange-hued billionaire.

As the discussion drew to a close, snowy-haired Maureen Messenger urged this: “As Christians, as citizens of this nation, we should be praying. And we should let our neighbors, co-workers, and children see us pray.”

with additional reporting from Chelsea Boes in New Berlin, Pa.

Times differences

The baby boomers (born from 1946 to 1964) were born to parents raised during the Depression. Divorce was rare, so most children grew up with a mom and a dad. More moms stayed home, and families had fewer conveniences than they do today: black-and-white TV, no AC, one car, bigger families, smaller houses, hand-stitched clothes, rare restaurant meals. Times were turbulent: Cold War threats, Vietnam, race riots, political assassinations, sexual revolution, and drugs. College was cheaper—and as adults, boomers benefited from the thriving ’80s and ’90s economy. Their children—Generation Xers (1965 to 1976) and millennials—(1977 to 1994) grew up in material plenty with more choices of every kind, but not all for the better.

Generation Xers came of age in an era of cultural decline: They were more likely than ever to grow up with divorced parents, a working mom, and one-child households. Burned by political scandals such as Clinton-Lewinsky, they’re suspicious of the government but not apathetic. They were the guinea pigs for racial integration, the first to come of age with MTV, the highest-educated generation in America. As youth they watched conservative Christians coalesce into a formidable voting bloc and then dissolve.

Millennials were born into the debris of a cultural war already lost to liberals: Supposedly, abortion is an undeniable right, evolution is proven science, homosexual love is love is love. Identifying as a Christian—or worse, a conservative Christian—is not just uncool but despised, a synonym for a bigot. The America they know is increasingly less white, less religious, less homogenous—and particularly for those flocking to cities, it’s less apple pie, more carnitas tacos and lamb gyros; fewer Sunday Christians, more yogis and therapists. Even those growing up in Middle America acculturate to a diverse, postmodern America through pop culture, college, and social media. That means the basic concept of a “great America” means something else to different generations. —S.L.

Divergent views

Millennials who identify as evangelicals are sometimes less doctrinally orthodox than their elders, but were more likely to name personal character as a top consideration for their presidential vote last year. Millennials were more interested in separating what they view as “politics” from the pulpit.

The Bible, like all sacred writings, contains helpful accounts of ancient myths but is not literally true. *

Agree:

32% of self-identified evangelicals ages 18-34

19% of self-identified evangelicals ages 35+

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The Bible’s condemnation of homosexual -behavior doesn’t apply today. *

Agree:

34% of self-identified evangelicals ages 18-34

16% of self-identified evangelicals ages 35+

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The church should be silent on issues of politics. *

Agree:

47% of self-identified evangelicals ages 18-34

36% of self-identified evangelicals ages 35+

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In the 2016 presidential election, for whom do you plan to vote? **

Among evangelicals:

Ages 18-34:

Donald Trump = 27%

Hillary Clinton = 40%

Gary Johnson = 25%

undecided = 6%

Ages 35-59:

Donald Trump = 55%

Hillary Clinton = 22%

Gary Johnson = 1%

undecided = 20%

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American adults who say “personal character” was the most important factor in deciding for which candidate to vote: **

Ages 18-24 = 23%

Ages 55-64 = 13%