I was born in Montana, but when I was 6 years old my parents divorced and my mom moved us to the Portland suburbs. My mom passed away when I was 12, and my dad moved to Portland to raise my brother and me.

That transition began my political journey. My dad would always listen to conservative talk radio in the car — extreme stuff, like Michael Savage and Lars Larson. Even though I was only in middle school, I started getting into politics really heavily. That became my whole world.

Because of what I’d heard on those talk radio shows, I became a class troll. If I noticed my teachers saying something liberal or pressing the boundaries of politics, I would be combative. I would always push back. I would get in trouble for saying “conservative” things.

I was really anti-gay, and even anti-disabled people. When the school had a special Day of Silence to honor LGBTQ kids, I declared it Loud and Proud Day. Because they knew where I stood on LGBTQ issues, sometimes my teachers would take me to another room when they were teaching a sex ed lesson. I would end up listening to conservative talk radio with the gym teacher.

Because of all the harassment I got in middle school over my politics, I kept my mouth shut once I got to high school. Being quiet about it made me cling to being conservative as something special. I didn’t fit into the political culture in Portland.

The internet was becoming a bigger thing around this time. I spent a lot of time online. I became more reclusive; to be honest, I became a bit of an internet addict. I connected with conservative online gamers. There were left-wing gamers and right-wing gamers.

I briefly served in the Navy after high school. I worked various jobs the next several years, while taking classes at Portland Community College. I studied everything from economics to art, which I loved.

When Donald Trump ran for president the first time in 2015, I supported him over the other Republicans. His debate style was alluring to me. I felt connected to the way he stood up for himself, even talking over other candidates. I always thought standing up for yourself is the best virtue you can have.

I was a hardliner on immigration, so I liked Trump’s approach to that issue. I believed that people who were illegally in the country had broken the law, so what was wrong with deporting them? It was just the law. And I didn’t see any harm in building a wall along the border. It made sense to me. I didn’t have a problem with the comments Trump would make about migrants being murderers and rapists. I thought he was saying a truth people didn’t want to admit.

I supported Trump’s energy policies. I was very anti-environmentalism. For a while I was a climate change denier.

I got into a lot of fringe politics. I followed Andy Ngo closely, right-wingers who posted on Twitter, and Trump. I fell into white identity politics, and I became a strong anti-feminist. I learned from a number of YouTubers how to inflame the other side when debating gender. I participated in one online controversy after another.

I went to a couple of rallies organized by Patriot Prayer, but they got violent, so I stopped going. I went to a Build the Wall event at Washington State University. I waved a Trump flag, got my picture taken, and got in the news. That made the local antifa really mad at me. I got doxxed and called a racist.

Getting doxxed — and seeing others I knew get doxxed — was a harsh thing for me. I had an unusual relationship with the Portland antifa folks. One of my friends was antifa; he would confront me about everything Trump was doing. Once, folks from antifa were spying on me at a bar. We ended up eating sandwiches together and talking politics. They said, “Oh, you’re not a Nazi!” It’s a weird story.

During the controversy over the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, I felt the whole thing was separate from the MAGA movement and Trump. When Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides,” I thought it was a funny Trumpism. To me, it was another case of him saying something ridiculous and people going insane about it. I thought, “These Nazis exist, but what are you going to do about them?”

After several years of community college, I enrolled at Portland State University in 2018. I majored in economics, with a minor in Judaic Studies.

It was an eye-opening experience; I discovered you could be an academic and be a Republican. I joined the College Republicans. I moved away from my fringe political beliefs, which felt good. Those of us in the College Republicans were Trump/MAGA supporters, but we scorned reactionary politics.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, I thought Trump was doing a really good job. He was first on the ball with the vaccine, which I got. I didn’t think masks worked, although I now know I was wrong about that.

When Joe Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 election, I didn’t buy into Trump’s claim that the election was stolen. I thought, “This is over. It sucks that he lost, but I’m going to go on to live my life.”

My move away from MAGA began with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. It was shocking, especially because Trump was behind it. As a veteran, I would never commit sedition or take up arms against the government.

Trump and his supporters tried to say Jan. 6 was like the riots in Portland after George Floyd was killed. But I thought that was clearly a false equivalency.
I largely turned away from politics and focused on my art, but I still stuck with the Republican Party. At the same time, my doubts were growing. I was learning a lot in college, and was seeing that some of Trump’s arguments didn’t make any sense.

For example, I took a climate ethics class. It was illuminating; it gave credence to the scientific orthodoxy about climate change. The class made me feel like I was being foolish to think I knew the science better than the experts.

I was so thankful I went to college and discovered the right-wing scare stories about professors teaching malicious stuff weren’t true. They were just teaching us facts.

I realized there was so much misinformation in the world. I started watching CNN, listening to NPR, and reading The Guardian.

Focusing so much on my art during the Biden presidency was another factor that helped me eventually leave MAGA. The artistic aesthetic is empathetic and forgiving. Those things are a central part of my being.

I was content during Biden’s presidency. We didn’t have big controversies, the country was stable, you could do what you wanted. Then Trump jumped into the 2024 presidential race.

I think the closest thing to a “come to Jesus” moment for me occurred when Trump boycotted the Republican primary debates. For one thing, they were so civil without him in the room. And it showed he didn’t give a shit about the party; it was a grave insult to conservatives.

Trump’s energy policy didn’t make any sense, nor did his economic policies. The very notion of America First seemed in many ways to actually mean America Alone. And he was making a lot of ridiculous remarks, like claiming Haitian immigrants were eating cats and dogs.

I found MAGA’s treatment of Republicans who angered Trump in one way or another offensive. For example, when people called Mike Pence a big traitor. How is he a traitor? All he did was stand up for the Constitution.

I was done with MAGA. I became more open to the Democratic Party and its ideas. I even voted for Kamala Harris.

Now that Trump is president again, I feel vindicated in my beliefs about him. He’s wrecking the country. Look at all the financial instability he’s created with his tariffs, which are completely against the American economy and our well-being.

Trump’s slashing jobs at the VA is really offensive. Some of the people in charge of my health care are under attack. His immigration policy is awful. As part of my political evolution, I’ve become very open to immigrants, now that I understand the huge economic and social contributions they make to this country.

I’ve also become more supportive of the LGBTQ community. I’m upset about Trump’s attacks against the trans community. I have been reading the Bible a lot more since the election. A main point of the Bible is, those without sin shall cast the first stone. But that part of the Bible is totally missing from how people are treating trans people. For example, Andy Ngo, a guy I used to like and give money to, now says trans people are the real terrorists. That seems inhuman; at least treat them like human beings.

I have always considered myself a conservative Republican, but when Trump took office this time around and started issuing so many anti-democratic executive orders, I realized that our essential liberties are under threat — and that I had taken those liberties for granted. Now I consider myself a libertarian — not an anarcho-capitalist, but a believer in maximum liberty, Milton Friedman-style.

I see MAGA as a movement that turned against what I grew up believing. It’s against the military, it’s against good economic policy, and it’s against a lot of conservative values.

It’s all so awful, and I helped bring it about. That’s why it’s so important for me to go public, to tell the world that MAGA is based on a foundation of lies, fear, and hatred, and that Donald Trump is undermining our very democracy.

It’s not easy doing this because many of my friends are still in MAGA. Sometimes I feel like I’m betraying them, but in the end I know that’s not true. I’m fighting for them.

                                                                                                                                                                          — April 2025