I was born and raised in a small, Republican town in Ohio; I still live there today. I had a pretty good childhood. When it came to politics, my parents didn’t really talk about it much as I was growing up in the 90s.

My family started discussing politics in 2015, when I was in my early 20s. My parents had voted for Barack Obama, but they were drawn to Donald Trump on cultural issues. They saw him as a guy who was going to end gay marriage and transgender rights.

I hadn’t paid much attention to politics up to that point. I had watched Trump on TV when I was younger, like when he made appearances at WWE events.

As a result of my upbringing in a Protestant church, I also didn’t believe in gay marriage or transgender rights. My mindset at the time was that it was morally wrong, and that you couldn’t change genders. I wanted a sense of normalcy. I was also worried about Muslim immigrants, because this was when ISIS had its caliphate in Iraq and Syria. I feared talk about ISIS being let in to take over territory and Sharia becoming the law of the land in America.

I started watching Fox News, Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh. I basically entered the right-wing media bubble, and I was buying into all of it. I thought Trump would improve the economy because he was a smart businessman, and I believed he was the only one who could handle the immigration threat from ISIS. I thought he was going to bring a change to politics, make it fun.

I believed Trump when he denied all the allegations of sexual assault. I accepted his explanation that it was just “guy talk.” I believed Shapiro and the rest when they said none of it was true, that Trump was being attacked because he was anti-establishment.

Still, I just wasn’t interested in politics. I didn’t even register to vote in 2016, although I was hoping Trump would win. After he became president, I started paying a bit more attention.
I liked how he was carrying out tax cuts. I liked watching him on TV, telling people off, his whole anti-establishment thing.

At the time, I thought Trump’s Muslim ban was a good thing, again, because what was happening with ISIS scared me.

I did vote for Trump in 2020. I didn’t believe his claims that the election was stolen; I didn’t see any evidence of that. When the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol happened, I wasn’t sure what to believe. Trump was saying he didn’t mean for the mob to do what it did, although it seemed as if he had egged them on and didn’t try to stop the riot. In the end, though, I was just hoping the craziness would allow Trump to stay in office. I still lived in the right-wing echo chamber, so I was still loyal to MAGA.

My feelings started to seriously change around the beginning of 2024, thanks in large part to the fact that I am dating Shey, a woman from the Philippines. My relationship with her opened my eyes to how much damage Trump is doing when it comes to immigrants. When Trump ran for president this time, his campaign was nothing but non-stop fear-mongering and hatred towards immigrants, with all its rhetoric about them being rapists, murderers, and the like. At almost every rally he’d repeat the same thing, trying to make people afraid of immigrants — Nazi Germany kind of stuff. Shey and I met online — she’s currently working in China — and I’m hoping to bring her to the United States. I’m afraid a Trump administration will make it harder to do that.

After hearing Fox, Ben Shapiro and the others justify Trump’s positions, I turned away from MAGA. I started listening to more mainstream media, although over time I felt they weren’t tough enough on Trump. Eventually I started following people and outlets that made a lot more sense to me: MeidasTouch Network, Adam Mockler, Brian Tyler Cohen.

Opening my mind to independent thinkers has changed my feelings about a lot of things. I realized the only reason I didn’t like Joe Biden was because the right was telling me not to like him. When I did my own research, I found I liked some of the things he did, such as the Inflation Reduction Act. I also appreciate that he says all Americans should be treated with respect.

With Trump, only White Christian Nationalists will get treated with decency. That really worries me.

I now believe the Jan. 6 attack was completely unacceptable, a big attack on our democracy. I’m still hoping Trump is held accountable for it, but I have a hard time believing he will be.

Looking back, I see how much disinformation there was about the pandemic. I’ve evolved with regards to women’s rights, as well. I was always pro-life to the core, but now I believe that a woman should make her own decisions, that it’s not my place to tell a woman what to do with her body.

Watching Trump lie about hurricane disaster relief money going to undocumented immigrants, and lying about Haitians eating dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio, just reinforced my feelings. I now know that he would much rather tell a lie than admit to being wrong about anything.

I’ve come to understand that inflation was not Biden’s fault, that it was a result of the measures taken to revive the economy after the pandemic. I’m more supportive of the Affordable Care Act now. I’m still not fully comfortable with gay marriage and transgender people, but I learned that everybody should have the right to live free in this country however they choose.

I’ve tried to talk to my parents about some of these things, but it’s hard. They still live in that information bubble, so they think what I tell them is all lies. I’ve been trying to persuade them to get their information from somewhere else. They keep saying, “You need to give Trump a chance, it’s not going to be as bad as you think it’s going to be, you’re probably worrying about nothing.” So basically we don’t talk about politics.

It’s hard to get my views heard in my town, since it’s so small and so Red. I’ve learned you don’t get treated with much respect if you’re against Trump. But I’m very happy that I finally came to my senses and now understand that the MAGA movement is built on lies.

                                                                                                                                                                           –January 2025