Last October, Ron, a 55-year-old construction analyst for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), was furloughed for 43 days as the Trump administration took a sledgehammer to federal agencies’ budgets under the Department of Government Efficiency, an initiative led by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk.
“We voted for Trump, not realizing that he was going to slam as hard as he did, but it was on day one when he sat down, right after inauguration, and started signing those executive orders and just trashed us federal employees, it was a kick in the teeth,” Ron said.
“If people would just listen and research and do something other than just listen to Fox News, we may all be better off, but it's going to take an open mind and an ability to say, ‘I made a mistake,’ because once you say you made a mistake, you can turn the ship around,” said Chrissey Kelley, 50, a stay-at-home mom.
Speaking out against MAGA cost the Kelleys relationships with friends and family members who support Trump, but in sharing their story, they hope to inspire others having doubts about the GOP.
“It's okay to be wrong. You made a mistake, it was a bad choice, but it's not the end of the world. We can fix it. We just got to ride it out and hold strong and support each other through it,” Ron said.
. . . Chrissey said she became a Republican as soon as she started voting.
“You were just a conservative. There was no thought behind it. You listen to Fox News, and you listen to conservative outlets, and you're spoon-fed,” Chrissey said.
Ron, who served in the military for 25 years, said the 2008 housing market crash left him “really disillusioned with the Democratic Party.”
When he couldn’t find work in Detroit, he moved to Georgia. He supported Republicans because he associated them with bigger spending on defense.
Ron said he supported Trump with donations, bumper stickers and the “whole nine yards” of MAGA.
“I bought into the lie about the stolen election and all that, and I thought January 6 insurrectionists were actually patriots,” Ron said.
“I just remember being content with thinking that he was what we needed, and he was going to drain the swamp in Washington until he got into office this third term, and realizing that I was dumb as a rock, and I believed everything that I was spoon fed.”
. . . “Just watching the policies of what's happening in our world today unfold one by one by one, I just started drawing up very different conclusions and found out that I was clueless, and most people are today, but now I'm awake and looking at it for what it is, and I cannot believe that he had my support,” Chrissey said.
“It's lie after lie after lie.”
Ron said he now votes for Democrats, and Chrissey said she considers herself an Independent but has voted for Democrats three times now, something she “never thought in my entire life” would happen.
“The road we're headed down now, if we don't turn this truck around, we're so close to going off the edge of the cliff that we need to stick together,” Ron said.
“We need to put our country back together. It might take decades, but don't give up. We need to be vocal. Stay strong, and follow our laws and Constitution, and hold strong with our values, not the values that the MAGA claims that we have, but the values that we've had in the past 250 years from the founding of the country til Joe Biden's era.”
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Oh, look who is having the day they voted for.
No sympathy. They voted for this piece of shit after the racism, misogyny, and pedophilia was all out in the open. It wasn't a mistake until it hurt you personally. Fuck you Ron and Chrissey. You learned nothing, and chances are, you'll vote for more of this in the future.
Part of the demagafication of America will need to include accepting those who want to reform.
Yeah — they caused a lot of damage and I'm not wasting pity on difficulty they've brought on themselves, but it's an important & necessary step for them to do a 180⁰ so I'm glad to hear that and will happily accept their help/votes.
Words are cheap I want to see action from them otherwise I have no faith they have actually changed.
Yeah they’ll be back to lap up whatever the new Republican propaganda is post-Trump
Same thing with Bush Jr. I remember it clearly. They got disillusioned with him because he was an idiot and caused a lot of problems. Then along came Trump, who is worse, and they all jumped onboard no questions asked.
They’ve voted for Democrats 3 times. And lost some MAGA friends.
I’d say those count.
I want receipts. I don't trust traitors.
Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I think people who purposefully hurt others, and their nation as a whole, should suffer some consequences and pay some form of reparations before I accept their fucking apology.
This wasn't a political issue of disagreeing where tax money should go. These are people who condoned a violent insurrection to erase our votes and directly voted to oppress minorities and openly and gleefully supported a felon rapist pedophile who regularly demonizes half our populace.
And to anyone that thinks they didn't generally condone a violent insurrection, they really did because they went out and voted AGAIN for the fucking traitor that instigated it.
Would you support a law that brought criminal charges for anyone who voted Republican in 2024?
100%, yes. We actually don't even need a new law for that. We already have laws against treason on the books. We just stopped enforcing them when the traitors took over.
And part of it will have to include criminalizing being MAGA and using the force of the state, including their monopoly on violence, against those who refuse.
Look at postwar Germany and Japan and what was required to culturally deprogram them from the warpath. It was quiet compared to the bloodshed of WWII but it was not pretty nor a particularly fine example of liberal values.
There should always be a peaceful path to redemption, yes, but there is no tearful "hugging it out" to solve this one. They either rejoin civil society on our terms, or they get punished.
Absolutely.
These people, for all intents and purposes, are traitors to our nation. These weren't gullible fools falling for a sweet talking politician in a single election before learning from their mistake through experience. It has been over a decade and it's really no secret who and what Trump is.
These people have been, and many still are, committed to hurting others. Ignorance is not an excuse.
I personally view them as dangerous enemies and, as you said, MAGA needs to be forcibly cut out of this society and absolutely no concessions should be made in the process. We made that mistake after the Civil War and we're still paying for it.
What does it mean to criminalize MAGA? Making it illegal to vote Republican?
The republican party as it exists is essentially two parts organized crime syndicate and one part terrorist organization and should be disbanded entirely, but that's a separate thing.
It should be illegal to be MAGA in the US the same way it's illegal to be a Nazi in Germany.
What does it mean to be MAGA? Would you support a law that brought criminal charges for anyone who voted Republican in 2024?
No, you bring criminal charges and or fines against people that disseminate intolerant/hateful rhetoric. Is blasting the misogyny of the manosphere worth it if you might face 6 months in jail or a $1000 - $3000 fine? How about a year in jail for preaching hate against immigrants encouraging the government to round them up and incarcerate them when they show up for their court appointments as the follow the LEGAL process for entry/amnesty? This isn't about how people vote. This is about letting hate spread. Letting hate spread is how DJT made it to the primary.
It means you punish people for publicly posting MAGA related shit and inciting hate against others because of their race, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or religious affiliation.
Germany punishes Nazis through strict legal frameworks, notably Section 86a of the Criminal Code, which outlaws the public display of unconstitutional symbols, including swastikas, SS runes, and Hitler salutes. Offenders face up to three years in prison or heavy fines, and the dissemination of Nazi propaganda is permanently illegal.
What others are telling you, yes, but it also means you prosecute crimes being carried out according to the laws that are already on the books.
MAGA is no longer a valid political movement, it is a criminal organization, and this is easily proven by the crimes it commits in lockstep with this administration.
We have laws, we have a Constitution. The insurection clause, emoluments clause, term limits, ethics rules, the Hatch Act, the list is endless of the laws we already have that this administration pretends doesn't exist.
We can also address the changes in law -- like Citizens United and and the Fox News lawsuits permitting propaganda to be legally called news and even the recent Callais decision -- that permit the current situation to flourish unchecked, and restore our courts to working order.
So you can unclutch your pearls now. There is no need whatsoever to criminalize voters or voting when the time comes that we choose to prosecute actual crimes and actual criminals, and there never was. Criminalizing votes is something MAGA does, and is doing even now: add that to the long list of projections of their own deeds onto the demonized left. We lefties want everyone to vote in genuinely free and fair elections.
If we simply prosecute the criminals for the crimes taking place brazenly in the open right now, there won't even be a MAGA left.
But we might not even have to do much of that. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act that was passed last summer, the one that absolutely fucking GUTS healthcare across the country, especially for rural people like farmers who rely on the ACA (Obamacare) and subsidized clinics and hospitals, was written so that the deepest cuts would not take effect until after the 2026 midterms.
Next year, when MAGA folks who are left in healthcare deserts without doctors, clinics, hospitals, or meds and are already paying triple the costs for gas and the basics of living finally realize their orange savior does not give a shit about them and the demonized Dems had nothing to do with it, there may well be fewer MAGA left to prosecute: at least some are already planning to leave the country. Never forget that Qatar not only gave Trump his own plane, they also host the bank account where he parked the proceeds from his sale of Venezuelan oil.
As for the ones that are left . . .
So they can start their racist, misogynistic, and homophobic intolerant bullshit all over again? No. Project 2025, figureheads like Trump, and movements like MAGA need to absolutely be stamped the fuck out. The paradox of tolerance is a philosophical concept suggesting that if a society extends tolerance to those who are intolerant, it risks enabling the eventual dominance of intolerance, thereby undermining the very principle of tolerance.
Tolerance is a social contract that they broke. I'm comfortable matching the intolerance 1:1.
It really doesn't have to include them at all. They built the camps, we can just reuse them.
Like Israel?
Prosecute, sure. Not interested in "money for war and deportation" however much venom people deserve.
I’m pretty sure somebody said the same thing after the Civil War about the confederacy, and that’s why we’re where we are today.
Jesus dude, they're barely on their road to recovery, and you want to alienate them for it? That's not going to encourage good behavior you know. You're just going to drive them away again.
I want nothing to do with the likes of anyone that voted Trump in the last election. They don't care about others. They only care now, because they are the ones being hurt. I 100% believe they still don't give a fuck about anyone that isn't a white, cis-het believer in Christ.
You’re absolutely wrong about Trump! He’s a PILE of shit, not a piece.
He's a diaper full of shit
Honestly though, What’s the point of wearing Depends if you can’t shit in them? /s
Seriously. Why even wear them if it means you can't just shit sitting at your desk?
Note: the comments under the video are comedy gold.
That traitorous sumbitch should be wearing “Deposits”, not Depends!
I don't necessarily have sympathy for them, but they do say that they have voted for Dems since and that people need to stop watching Fox News. I obviously have no way of guaranteeing they never vote R ever again, but it seems like they learned at least a little. Is it enough? Probably not, but they apparently were willing to lose friends and family over this change. I'm sure there's still a lot of distance between their politics and mine, but at a certain point we have to allow people to come out and say this. They're publicly isolating and basically humiliating themselves to show people there's a way out. I can't offer that and someone needs to because there needs to be a viable path out of the Fox News pipeline. I'd love if everyone woke up tomorrow with the goal to bring about luxury gay space communism or whatever, but barring that, how do we expect the country to change for the better if we don't allow people to change for the better? Even if what sparked that change isn't what or when we would have liked. I'm not saying we have to like or forgive them, but they live here regardless so I'd rather too little too late than never at all.
I agree with everything you say, and I would add that we as a country actually need them. We need them to reach their neighbors on a personal level; we need them to show other MAGA that there are valid offramps to the craziness; we need them to be an example of change for others they know that are still in the trap.
That, plus there's no zeal like the zeal of a convert. And these folks are literally converts from what can indeed be likened to a cult. If they want to evangelize against the big Trump propaganda-fueled lie, I'm all for it.
It's one thing to toss out empty words; it's another to have demonstrably paid a tangible price for what you believe. These ex-MAGA have paid a real price, and if they follow that up by being examples to others still in the MAGA propaganda bubble, they will reach people that no one else can. I welcome them with open arms.