I know it can be entertaining (in a schadenfreude type way at least in my case) to read about people who got screwed over after voting so eagerly for Trump and his cohorts. But this seems like a really powerful, helpful, and positive website.
And I applaud these people for publicly acknowledging their mistake. It wasn’t easy, but it’s a brave thing they are doing. We all make mistakes (some bigger than others of course). But the important thing is to learn from them.
It’s through these people that others can hopefully learn and find a path out. Even if it’s just a couple of dozen people, that’s something.
They were stupid for supporting trump, but in truth, many of my friends are stupid and I love them anyway (and I hope they feel the same way about me). This act of stupidity is harder to forgive, but I suppose if they’ve come around I can learn to accept them as allies.
Stupid and/or selfish, racist, etc.
Everyone should be given the opportunity to make amends.
Unless they’re ICE
Sure. My statement isn’t without nuance. If someone commits a crime, if they go along with hate speech, support a fascist regime, or impinge on peoples’ rights in the name of a government, there should be legal consequence.
But even then, and I understand this is the internet so I have to spell it out nice and clear for everyone, if someone has paid the price, done their sentence, and is honestly, and truly, and really reformed, that should be taken into consideration. That doesn’t mean they can have every comfort back, or people need to forgive them, or anything else… but to remove all hope of redemption after someone has paid for their actions is bleak, dark, and does not embody humanist spirit.
In other words, we don’t have to be nice, but we also don’t have to sink to their level.
That said, if they do it again, they can go fucking die in a hole. Respectfully.
No, even ICE, if they truly turn their backs on them. If they’re never allowed to change then they can never change. That’s stupid. What’s the point of doing anything if we force our enemy to fight us forever anyway? You can’t win (unless you kill them all).
I’ll take any ally we can get. Hell, they could even be the most useful allies. They’re on the inside. If they see that it’s evil and decide they want to fix things, they can feed information or sabotage it from within.
This doesn’t meant we totally forgive them. Justice means they’re held accountable for their actions. However, this can be done after we win. Until then we need to leave the door at least ajar, because we’re going to need as many allies as we can get.
Yeah, all right. If you can find someone who has served in ice, somehow doesn’t deserve to be jailed for a very, very long time, and then somehow totally reverses their insanely backwards thinking, then okay, they can be redeemable by serving on the front lines.
Even ice might someday rejoin society. They should never again be allowed in a position to deprive people of their human rights but it’s possible
They were stupid for supporting trump
No, they were lied to, just as anyone is when they support Democrats or Republicans. Yes, a small contingent are weird, culty fuckers who support everything their party does, but there’s also a significant percentage who don’t, and those who don’t want Gestapo shit will need to learn to work with people who may think differently than they do.
We can disagree about fiscal policy. I’m not entertaining a difference of opinion when it comes to who deserves human rights.
If I pissed on you and told you it was raining I would be lying to you, but you’d still be a fucking moron if you believed me.
No, they were lied to
No, they chose to only believe the media sources telling them what they wanted to hear.
These are not children, stop infantilizing them. This is the third time he ran, no one was ignorant of who he is.
It’s more than stupidity. Trump tried to overthrow the government, said all manner of disgusting things and is a convicted felon and they voted for him anyway.
If people had had more compassion on folks leaving the Qanon cult way back when, and actually offered resources to deprogram and reintegrate into society instead of just blaming them for falling for the propaganda in the first place and treating them like they’re inherently flawed people with no hope of recovery, then maybe so many of them wouldn’t have just settled right back in to other right-wing echo chamber.
They collectively had no where else to go, so why is anybody surprised that it turned out the way it did?
Man I’m tired of everyone and everything being blamed except for Trumpers themselves. These people are adults, not children.
You’re failing to distinguish between people trying to leave the cult, and people actively participating in it. Thus missing my point entirely.
I have no sympathy for any trump supporters when it blows up in their faces, but if they finally realize they were wrong and decide to try to do better, it doesn’t atone for voting for him three times, but it’s a start. And if you have any idea how democracies work, you should want resources to be available to them to help them find their way out of the muck and do better. Otherwise you’re just kicking them back into it and wondering why trump has so many supporters after they all go back to the cult.
We should seize on any opportunity to deprogram right-wingers. Unless you’re an essentialist who believes people can never truly change their opinions and beliefs?
Yeah so they can vote for Republicans anyway. No one is forcing them into it. “deprograming” Qanon wasn’t turning people into Democrats. Again, these are adults making adult choices for which they are responsible.
There were stories about people waking up from the Qult, and their recovery process was very much like the process of recovering from any other cult: long and difficult, and impossible without social support.
I never said they aren’t responsible for their choices, for fuck’s sake. That’s the opposite of what I said.
This post is about a website that helps people “leaving maga.” What the fuck are you trying to argue, that no one does that and we shouldn’t help them? Anyone who leaves maga is a plus, even if they’re still responsible for their own voting record.
So:
- on the one hand, it’s fantastic that there’s a meaningful fraction of that absolutely fucking caustic movement that’s becoming fed up with it and are bailing.
- on the other hand, I’m going to be deeply suspicious of any “reformed MAGA” until they openly and strongly recant all the racist, white supremacist, misogynistic, mafia-esque ideology - otherwise, in my book, they haven’t really left.
It is interesting for sure, it does seem like “blue ocean strategy” in terms of finding a marketimg niche. The shopping cart on the front page makes me think this might be somebody who found it too difficult or had too much conscience to keep the lies churning in maga space.
On the other hand it does feel a lot like something that might help a lot of apolitical extroverts who sort of found their communities saturated with maga people and converted for that reason
I would honestly trust this more if it was run by a church and didnt have a shopping cart on the front page.
The popup “help someone else leave maga!” 5 seconds in tells me I can’t send this to actual MAGA I know, they’ll see that and close the window with a sneer. This website is not designed to convert people, it’s designed to sell merch to frustrated liberals with MAGA family.
On the other hand it does feel a lot like something that might help a lot of apolitical extroverts who sort of found their communities saturated with maga people and converted for that reason
This. I think it’s even in place to have a little bit of tolerance for the fact that they might still have their minds a little bit poisoned with all the hateful crap. It may take long time and a lot of work to clean up your mind. Doing first step should be celebrated though.
I think it’s totally fine to be suspicious and not trust these people on account of their morals. I do also think that anything we can do to find where we share common ground in order to help remove those who are in power and ultimately our “true enemy” (not to say these people aren’t also our enemies in a sense) is a good thing. If we can work together for that and achieve SOME level of class solidarity, we should take that opportunity.
I am frankly deeply suspicious that this whole thing is a scam - the comically expensive store items and the GPT-ish “testimonials” are really odd.
Yeah definitely right to be suspicious of it, I am too. Still, my comment is meant In a more general sense and not only applicable to this situation :)
So I have extended family that are MAGA and you know what I hear from those few who have some regret for voting Trump?
The same damn things that the were saying before about everything just without saying “Praise Trump” in front of it.
They have not changed, they’re just looking to whitewash their guilt while not addressing the core rot in their souls.
I asked my sister-in-law who worked for the VA (retired a few months ago) about the end of the road emails, literally I asked “Hey I heard that a bunch of crazy emails went out to all federal employees, did that happen to you at the VA too?” and she went off on how everything has been nuts since trump took over and how people are being removed from W2 and made all gig workers with 1099 so they don’t have to pay out insurance or benefits or earn time towards a government pension / retirement, and how lucky she is she gets to retire before that fully takes affect and how its “all Elon’s fault”. Saying it was all Elon, and Trump had nothing to do with it, is some serious mental gymnastics… This was August of last year.
Wow, I always did assume musk was there to take the blame but didn’t know anyone fell for it
Yeah and who put Elon is a position of power? - is what I’d follow up with.
Yeah, you can say it and deal with the outcome. I chose to keep my mouth shut since my entire family is cool aid drinkers.
What’s the outcome? They have to face the truth for 5 seconds? You’re not lying.
The outcome would be a while lot of people trying to gaslight me.
The first thing you notice when visiting the site is a fucking shopping cart icon. Not a great sign if we’re looking at this like it’s a serious support site for people trying to tackle their own issues. It’s like selling collectible shot glasses at alcoholics anonymous.
I mean I guess you got to respect the hustle… MAGA is chock full of the easiest to fleece people in the world, and you’ve got a website to run. You’re not here to help them with their shopping addiction that’s for sure!
Literally everything on the site is $85, the T-shirt the hat everything. I mean are they including the tariffs in that price? 🤣
CONSUME
Holy shit I thought you were kidding. This site is a grift man! Look at this fucking hat. $85!? For a bad MsPaint job with uncentered text?
Lmfaooooooo no fucking way. This makes me suspicious that whoever is running it is actually very much still a hardcore MAGA dipshit.
I want to give the BOTD, I read some of the testimonials and it’s a mixed bag. Some people have genuinely improved and changed their politics, some are still damaged dipshits who are just more self-aware now.
But it’s a storefront. And not even a good one. It’s undermining their own cause.
Their “cause” is obviously just continuing to grift the dumbasses that think beliefs need accessories. They aren’t really maga and might have even sold rainbow flags and the like from a different website, and probably regularly sell overpriced trinkets with local and regional attraction themes to tourists who feel like they need to complete their vacation with souvenirs.
My Mom recently left MAGA. Rest her soul.
My Mom recently left MAGA. Rest her soul.
Same with both my parents.
While I was helping with my father’s home hospice care he told me that he likes watching Newsmax because “it’s pretty much in the middle”. FFS. He was about 5% conspiracy kook already but really took the bait once he started listening to Rush Limbaugh. Then it was anti-Clinton bumperstickers everywhere, and stuffing crank political into every conversation he could. Went downhill from there.
Bummer
I was SO Stupid to Vote for Trump’s Third term! I PROMISE I’ll learn my Lesson after his FOURTH Term because it only takes FIVE Terms of Trump screwing me over to see that he DOESNT deserve a SEVENTH!
I get that people don’t want to help them.
Because the odds are the eaten suddenly didn’t grow a conscience.
They were fine with all the other shitty things being done. That’s the problem. You help them and odds are they’ll continue to throw people in cages, hand massive money to rich people, keep supporting the Orange Idiots tariffs, invading [insert pretty much any country], wrecking the government, anti-vax, anti-science, turning America into a dictatorship, etc.
So maybe they feel wrong about trump because he made their heating bill too high, or their groceries cost too much, or maybe because a couple people got executed, but the rest is still ok because they’re self-centered idiots.
I’m not sure “enemy of my enemy…” applies. They seem pretty determined to fuck everything up, and have bitten every time someone extends a hand.
I think a lot of them.have known they were wrong fo or a long, long time, but they’re too prideful to admit it. And I’m not entirely sure that’s their fault.
As a society, we don’t put enough value in recognizing people admitting when they’re wrong or that they’ve made a mistake. We don’t celebrate people who change their minds. We don’t recognize that admitting you don’t understand something is good and an early step in making correct decisions.
When people change positions, they’re riddiculed for being a flip-flopper or for being weak-willed.
And then we’re shocked when people entrench themselves into support of a political party they’ve voted for for decades even when they recognize that they’re wrong.
Ironically the deeply entrenched right are the first to point fingers and make accusations when someone says they were wrong or changes their mind, most publicly since Bush Jr.
Shunning for a while is the only way to make them realize. Accepting is enabling.
I will never forgive or help these people. Fuck them.
That is the spirit. That makes us lose.
Oh yes let’s have the reconstruction just like the civil war. Let that hate breed and hope for the rise of the South hatred again.
America we love to fuck ourselves over and over. Yay.
Reconstruction failed because we didn’t finish it. You want examples of how it was supposed to work look at Germany and Japan.
Germany, notably free of Nazi influences right now…
Something we inflicted them with, again.
You’re not going to kill hate with guns. Haven’t you learned anything from the War on Terror?
If you lose to hate, it doesn’t matter who wins. You’ll be living with the same atrocities.
Don’t confuse lack of hate with passivity. Face the pain, grow, and take the power.
Charging $85 for cheap printed shirts is a crime in itself. I gaurantee this website is run by someone who is still a HUGE MAGA supporter and just wants to grift some people.
They will literally collect names and addresses for shipping merch.
All 6 items in their store being the same price also makes this feel like a low effort scam. MAGA are susceptible to the grift, as proven by being maga to begin with.
Also, why the fuck make this shit red‽ pick literally any other color.
All that said, I do fully support the IDEAL of embracing people who feel that they are no longer maga, or are coming around to the leopards-ate-my-face kind of realization. They are primed to believe us the next time we warn them.
What do you expect from a personality cult of a grifter? Of course it’s grift all the way down.
Here’s a link to the guy’s free ebook so other people don’t have to put in a fake name and temp email
https://leavingmaga.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/E-book-Leaving-MAGA.pdfIt also came with a guide to talking to magats
https://leavingmaga.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Reaching-Out-Guide.pdfNeither seems very compelling, but good luck to the guy I guess.
The guide basically reads, “Treat them like idiots and pretend to be one yourself.”
Surprisingly effective from my experiences.
I mean, it’s no dissertation, but that guide is not wrong at all.
i remember there was one jan 6 that regretted her mistake and did not accept a pardon. everyone else was a brownosers/bootlicker.
Getting your record cleared allowing you to get jobs again while also still living in the same places with the same people who enabled and or supported these people it’s very unlikely there would be any benefit to not accept the pardon. Nothing gained but a moral high ground. The person who rejected the pardon already was done with their sentence and was retired in her 70s
People fight back against the leopards who ate their faces
- you’re on a plane, minding your own business
- a group of radicalized hijackers take over the plane and are determined to crash it
- some hijackers get queasy about it and either stop participating in the highjack or even start to fight against it
- [do what with them?]
- once you land add all the hijackers to the no fly list, prosecute, etc
We are at step 4.
- You’re on a plane, minding your own business.
- A drunk with a gun demands that the plane be flown to Mar-a-Lago, or he will kill everyone on the plane. He’s well armed and insults some of the fellow passengers for saying negative things about Trump.
- After a while, a fellow passenger political centrist whacks him while he’s not looking. The gun flies out of his hand, and discharges, but there is little injury and damage.
- Others tackle and hold him. He’s arrested and charged. Trump pardons him.
- He wants to be taken off the now-fly-list (or lists if it’s up to private airline companies). He says that he has since given up on guns and drinking alcohol, and promises not to do it again. (He might also have said “MTG has some good criticisms of Trump.”)
The hijackers get pardoned and regroup but don’t include the queesy people next time so the hijacking is successful.
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I feel like most people voting for trump in the last election did it for spite because they hate the other side. Now some are seeing that it was a huge mistake. It doesn’t change the fact that they were willing to throw everyone else under the bus because they didn’t believe what was going on.
They are just assholes. They love trump because he’s an asshole. Fuck them
They may not deserve forgiveness but if reaching out to them can get them to admit their mistake, and in doing so we together can rollback some of the insanity of the last decade, it’ll be better for all of us. Based on numbers alone we’re very unlikely to do that without some help from “reformed” Republicans.
