I was born in Waterbury, Connecticut in 1974. My dad owned a few businesses; my mom stayed at home to raise the kids. 

We were pretty comfortable financially. Except for 7th and 8th grades, I went to Catholic school. My high school, Holy Cross, was really preppy. You had kids driving to school in a brand new car the day after getting their license.

My parents didn’t really talk about politics. Dad didn’t bother voting; he didn’t trust any politicians at all. Mom was a registered Republican but would vote people versus party.

At the same time, my mom was implicitly racist. The park in our neighborhood was surrounded by my predominantly white neighborhood and the Black and Puerto Rican neighborhoods. Kids from the different communities would all hang out together at the park. I had a pair of friends — twins — who were Black, and my mom would say, “I don’t want them down in the basement because they might steal something.” So there was a bit of white supremacy instilled in me as a kid without me realizing it.

My political evolution came through religion. I was raised nominally Catholic but stopped going to church for nearly a decade after confirmation. I went to Western Connecticut State University, earning a BA in music. I played in bands during and after college.

Then in 2001, I had a mental health issue and started chatting with people online, talking about God and Jesus. Someone recommended Calvary Chapel. I started attending, and became a born-again Christian.

I talked politics with my new friends. I had voted for Bill Clinton in 1992 when I was 18, mainly because he seemed like the cool hip guy. The folks at Calvary Chapel said the Republican Party was the right one for Christian people, and I accepted what they said. I became very right wing, especially on abortion. I also became very judgmental of gay people and gay marriage.

Eventually I realized that Calvary is cultish. I had met my future wife, and people at Calvary told me not to marry her because she was Catholic. I ended up leaving Calvary and rejoining the Catholic Church. We married in 2005.

I remember questioning Catholic Democrats, challenging them on how they could back the party that supported abortion. Over time, though, I met people with different beliefs, and my perspective evolved again.

I came to believe that a woman should be able to do what she wants with her body. And with regard to gay rights, I couldn’t see what was wrong with two people of the same sex getting married. It didn’t have any impact on me. Despite this cognitive dissonance, I stuck with the Republican Party. 

I got my news from local TV and social media; I didn’t have cable, so I never watched Fox News.

In the 2008 presidential campaign, I was very anti-Obama. I would say the country wasn’t ready for a Black president, but I think I was talking about myself. It was that racism I inherited from my mother that was poking through. I remember my mom saying at the time that if Obama were elected, “the Blacks will want everything handed to them, and they’ve already had everything handed to them.”

I started paying attention to Donald Trump when he first ran in 2015. I knew he was a rich guy and had hotels in Atlantic City. I had heard about the scandals surrounding him, but didn’t really pay attention to them. 

When Trump said he’d build a wall and get rid of illegal immigrants, I thought, “Oh boy, this is going to be great.” I immediately went out and got three bumper stickers for my car.

I became an enthusiastic MAGA supporter. I was strongly influenced by the rise of drugs and crime in Waterbury. I thought Trump was going to get rid of these people and clean up the country, and get rid of the illegal immigrants who were sponging off of us. And of course, I wanted to “stick it to the libs.”

Around the same time, I began moving away from religion. I asked questions you’re not supposed to ask; for example, I questioned why gay marriage was so horrible. I wondered, “How do we know Christians are the chosen people, not Muslims or Hindus or whatever.” A couple of my kids had health issues that landed them in a children’s hospital. Walking through that place and seeing all the kids and families suffering, I asked myself, “If there really is an all-loving deity, how could he let this happen?”

I watched a video series about a Pentecostal man who left the church. Then I watched videos by prominent atheists, including Aron Ra, Darante’ LaMar, and Seth Andrews. They disproved the Bible. It took a year or two for me to deconstruct my religion, but by around 2017 I was done with it.

I didn’t pay close attention in the first years of Trump’s presidency. I had a lot going on in my private life: my marriage broke up, I got a new job, and I was dealing with my ongoing mental health issues. That period is kind of blurry, to be honest.

When the pandemic hit, I wasn’t happy about the way it was handled. I wanted to get life back to normal and go out and go on vacation. But I was not an anti-vaxxer. When I got the jab, a couple of people got on my case about it. I figured the people in charge went to medical school and know a Hell of a lot more about diseases than I do. I mean, I always got the flu shot and other vaccinations, so why not this one?

I didn’t like how Trump began clashing all the time with Dr. Fauci. He might have been the president, but he wasn’t a doctor.

At one point that year, while he was running for reelection, Trump said that if Biden won, there wouldn’t be a smooth transition of power. That was it for me. I thought, “I’m done with this asshole.” I left MAGA.

When Trump claimed the election had been stolen from him, I just rolled my eyes. I didn’t believe it. I watched the January 6 riot on TV. I was pretty flabbergasted by it; I didn’t think people would go that far. And Trump was hiding the whole time, while the crowd was saying they wanted to hang Mike Pence. We don’t need this kind of leadership in our country, where people are getting so emboldened to go nuts like this. I was already done with MAGA, but now I was done with the Republican Party, too.

I have become even more open-minded since then. I like to listen to the stories of people who are different from me. I have a friend who came out in 2020 as a trans woman; this person had played drums in a band I’m in. I fully support her.

By the time of the 2024 election, I was a left-of-center independent. (I’m still pro-2nd Amendment, but I’m not one of those people who think the government wants to take away all our guns.)  I didn’t like the way the Democrats brought Kamala Harris into the race, so I couldn’t vote for either one of them.

I had no inkling it would be this bad in a second Trump term. I can’t believe how he’s carrying out mass deportations while depriving people of their due process rights. And then he starts an unnecessary war in Iran.

I saw a Leaving MAGA billboard on someone else’s social media post. I went on the website, and I read all the testimonials — every single one. I found a lot of common ground in the stories, especially those from people who were evangelical Christians, Mormons, or white supremacists. I like Leaving MAGA because it’s very non-judgmental, it’s all about finding common ground. 

I’m glad to be joining this community. I hope sharing my story will help others who are having doubts about MAGA.

                                                                                                                                                                            —May 2026