They Left MAGA Steve Vilchez Chicago Read His Story Erica Roach New York Read Her Story Justin Yu California Read His Story Deanna Raper Nor
This is an interesting thing. Looks like testimonies of people who left the MAGA movement- how they got into it and why.
Leaving a cult is really hard, so I really respect the people who are speaking from this place.
Yes, actually.
Look, I know people want to react to the 'leopards eating faces party' with a big fat 'told you so,' but these are ex-cultists who are reaching out to people who may need an exit with a soft landing.
People who are deeply in a cult are afraid to leave it and MAGA is no exception! There's a fear that once you leave, you won't be accepted by anyone, so they stay even if they no longer believe in their rhetoric.
A very intelligent person can fall for a cult if they feel that it can offer them something they're missing. The outside world is perilous and you can be safe here. Your friends will reject you now that you've joined us, but we will accept you. Decisions are hard, we can make them for you. The secular world has broken you, we can give you new life through christ.
If you read some of the testimonies (and so many of them are young people) you'll see how much of it is 'I didn't see it, it took someone I love to show it to me, I can't unsee it now.' We've all done things we regret. Some regrets are bigger than others. I would rather forgive them and allow them to do good work than berate them for a decision they made when compromised by anxiety.
If you want to punish them, that's up to you.
But yeah. I think we should cheer for them.
This is going around Facebook right now
And it's 100% the sentiment that needs to be cultivated. If you want MAGA to go away or be diminished, then you have to give people grace when they leave. Not only that, but you literally have to make it as easy as possible, or all you're doing is cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Part of what keeps you in a cult is high exit costs. Do not make them higher.
From that old hippie preacher:
"In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!" - Luke 15:7 (NLT)
In the 1950s the American public was beginning to receive information about the horrors of the Holocaust, and we fucking HATED it. This was grotesque, abominable, cruel, and the worst of all was that it happened in broad daylight. Mothers kissed their husbands goodbye before walking to their job doing laundry at the concentration camp. Children walked to school past skeletal children who were once their neighbors. An evening stroll to the park could take you past the greatest factory of mass-produced carnage ever invented and NOBODY batted an eye. NOBODY said anything, they didn’t speak up, they didn’t stop it, they didn’t care.
And to Americans, this was abhorrent. We wanted to know how this happened. What travesty of nature made this happen in the light of day without being stopped?
So we made a theory - German citizens were weak-willed. They were predisposed to bey authority by the inherent nature as Germans and so they could not have prevented this. But Americans are rebellious anti-authoritarians by nature and so WE would never let this happen. This cannot happen in the U.S. because we’re innately better than Germans at resisting authority.
This was an idea that brought peace and comfort to many, and this narrative was a source of national pride - tragically for those who found comfort in this idea, psychologists are assholes. We can’t help it, tbh, it’s part of the job to poke and prod at what people think and believe. So a man by the name of Stanley Milgram, being a dastardly motherfucker, says “Oh, Americans can resist authority, huh? That sounds like a HYPOTHESIS.” And he set up one of the most unethical experiments ever to prove his point. The Milgram Experiment is often taught today as part of ethics courses as part of why internal review boards are needed, and that is correct, but there are also phenomenal lessons we can draw from the experiment now beyond just the need for science to be ethical.
The experiment was set up in an interesting way. It took advantage of some of the common beliefs and theories of the day, and marketed itself as a study on the educational potential of electroshock therapy. To give y’all an idea of where psychology was in the 50s, a guy working for an accredited university said “I wanna see if electrocuting kids will help them learn vocabulary faster” and like 300 people said “that makes sense, sign me the fuck up.” So he gets a shitass fuckload of participants. I’m gonna dramatize this story a bit to increase emotional investment so history nerds don’t @ me.
The way the experiment starts is that you, the examinee, arrive to the lobby “just in the nick of time” and are told the other participant for today’s study arrived a few minutes earlier. In fact, you can see him, he’s sitting a few feet away in a chair reading a magazine. You take a seat next to him and a few moments later you both are approached by a man in a white coat. He has a stethoscope around his neck and a clipboard in his hand. He introduces himself as “Dr Milgram” and says he flipped a coin in the other room and that the first participant to arrive was selected to be the reader while you were selected to be the electrocutioner. The first participant is led to a room in one hallway while you’re led by “Dr Milgram” to your room. The room is dimly lit, it has no windows or clocks, it is isolated, and “Dr Milgram” stands by the door blocking your exit. There is a desk in the room and a contraption on the desk with a button in it as well as some other readouts.
Now that you’re in the room, the doctor instructs you on how the experiment will proceed - you will provide the speller with words, and then listen to the other man spell the word, and any time he spells a word wrong you push the button in front of you to administer a mild, but painful, electric shock. The machinery then automatically increases the intensity of the next shock. You are to continue electrocuting the reader until they can spell words correctly.
It’s simple, and somewhat boring, but soon the man begins to complain of chest pain. He says he feels lightheaded and uncomfortable. You ask if you can give him a break, but Dr Milgram says “please continue.” Soon the speller starts saying that his chest REALLY hurts now, but when you voice discomfort Dr Milgram says “the experiment must go on.” The next electric shock is met to the man saying he’s had a heart attack recently and he feels really bad, but Dr. Milgram says “I will take responsibility for whatever happens, please continue.” Soon the man becomes unresponsive and the experiment ends.
The experiment was NOT about the effects of electroshock therapy on school kids, it’s actually about authority and control on human behavior. The man being electrocuted is what is known as a confederate - he’s in on it, so to speak. He’s part of the research team, and is not being electrocuted. Actually, he is just reading you lines from a script. In fact, “Dr Milgram” isn’t even the real Doctor Milgram, he’s a college student from the theater program doing this to earn some extra cash. He has no credentials besides what he’s wearing. The purpose of the real experiment was to see how far people would be willing to go when compelled by an authority figure, and the answer was that over 90% of participants were willing to electrocute someone TO DEATH (or so they believed) because a guy in a lab coat was a little pushy about it. 90% of subjects tested were willing to ignore their own discomfort and internal moral compass because someone else pushed them - at least, that was what was believed at first.
Americans HATED this study because it punched a huge gaping hole in their psychological comfort blanket. They pushed back, they rejected the findings at first, but I’ll be God DAMNED if this fucking study doesn’t replicate. It in fact replicates extremely well TO THIS DAY. It is messed up how well it replicates.
But we are in luck! We’re not, as a species, doomed to kowtow to the strongest personality in the room! The cure for fighting authoritarianism isn’t even too hard if you’re lucky. And it was found by a shitty replication attempt - a school tried to replicate the study but didn’t have the budget for separate rooms and so they had both the participant and the electric-type confederate in the same room. They could hear each other’s voices without needing an intercom system. And that dropped the number of people willing to go Zeus on the illiterate from 90-95% to about 70-75%. And they say “hey, look, it didn’t replicate!” and the field of science as a whole goes “well yeah, you did it wrong. You didn’t follow the study’s protocol.” and they go “Yeah, but that’s even more interesting, isn’t it?” Because what they changed wasn’t the perceived authority of the figure in question, what they changed was the ~environment~
So people say “hey wait a second, let’s run with that.” They start by adding Windows and a clock to the room where the “murder” is committed, then removing the symbols of authority from the “doctor,” then by putting the participant and confederate in the same room, then removing barriers to seeing them, then taking the authority figure out of the room, and so on, until the environment was normal, and in a normal environment people were willing to electrocute someone to death at the behest of someone else EXACTLY as often as you’d hope, which is Almost Never. And THAT, in my mind, is the true finding of the study. I don’t see the replication studies as separate, I don’t see the incorrect studies as different, it’s all study about human nature and human control. And the moral of the study is this:
We, as people, like to think we are in control of what we say/do/think/feel 100% of the time and that is true IF AND ONLY IF the environment you find yourself in is not being manipulated. We learned this in the 50s, and since then people in power have worked to simultaneously manipulate our environments AND keep us in the dark about it.
Take a second to think about how many manipulated environments were in now - our housing system is as segregated as it was before segregation, we’re influenced by social media, T.V., movies, the news, all carefully curated to influence us without our knowledge or consent. All designed to manipulate us to act differently than we otherwise ever would. And then we’re supposed to blame ourselves the whole while.
“Why can’t I relax?” We say, ignoring the anxiety boxes we are given to occupy our every moment. “Why am I buying so much useless shit?” we wonder as we clean out our closets, while advertisers are sticking forks into our hearts and twisting our feelings around like spaghetti. “Why can’t I stop scrolling?” I ask for the second consecutive hour, fully unaware that I am staring at a manipulation box and being manipulated. While some psychologists take research on human nature and use it to help others, some of my peers have used it to trap you in a cage made of your own heart and soul, thereby keeping you fully blind to it.
And that’s the point. The point is for us to never know what’s happening as we’re slowly conditioned, like so many dogs, to obey. And if we ever have to ask ourselves why we did this, the manipulations are so subtle and so aware of our own nature that it’s actually still manipulating us. Part of our nature is to see ourselves as autonomous, so we blame ourselves before we blame our environment or circumstances.
This is NOT to say that we are forced to do things with no control, but it means we ARE being manipulated. How do we stop being manipulated? The first step is to be aware of it - if you find yourself doing things you would never normally do, if you find yourself wondering why you feel so stuck, why you can’t escape this cycle of bullshit again and again and again, remember the rules of this game are that they want you to go person, then circumstance, then environment, when looking for causes. That gives them more time to deny, that leaves more room for muddied waters to confuse and disorient, and it gives them space to blame you as part of the whole scheme. Instead, ask yourself if you have control of your environment and circumstances. Are you thinking this because you wanted to? Or because it was cued by an ad, or by a recommended video on algorithmic social media, or because it seems like everyone around you is doing it? If you know it’s environmental, then you know it’s not necessarily endogenous, and that makes it easier to resist. If you know the circumstances you find yourself in are unnatural, ask yourself what it would take to change the circumstance. Be aware of the areas where manipulation happens - once you know it’s hard to not see it. Social media manipulates people extremely well, and once someone has been manipulated like that they can feel confused, scared, and disoriented, which further opens them to manipulation.
So much of modern politics has been set up in advance, and we don’t hardly even recognize it. It’s kinda scary, tbh, but it’s able to be counteracted by acting consciously instead of reacting unconsciously. They are banking on you being as unthinking, unfeeling, and unaware as possible. And it’s working. Our brains are built to minimize energy and time spent thinking about anything so we can do things faster. And in the case of politics, especially political radicalization, that is being fully taken advantage of. So start by slowing down. Start by being more consciously thoughtful and aware of your choices. Start by thinking things through from start to finish. If you let them make things simple for you, you end up exactly where they want you, which is scared, reliant on them, and trapped in a weird limbo space of feeling and being both helpless and responsible for not only your own actions but the actions of your group. This makes people feel pressured to do things as fast as they can, and we know that desperate people don’t make good, informed, intelligent decisions.
The marine corps, famous for recruiting the stupidest soldiers of all time. The “crayon eaters,” the “jarheads,” the lowest common denominators, all gathered together and given rifles and grenades, is dangerous, so to minimize that catastrophe-in-waiting they train them in the phrase “slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.” When you feel pressure, or shame, or fear, and that makes you feel that you need to do something NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW DAMMNIT GO GO GO WE DON’T HAVE ALL DAY JUST MAKE A CHOICE AND COMMIT (something that often happens in politics, btw. I’m sure we all know what it feels like to have an issue thrust at you and be told you have to pick your team RIGHT NOW and never deviate) you can live by that rule too. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. You can’t be manipulated as easily if you take your time and consider your options. You can’t be hurried along the path of decision-making if you’re stopping to look at every exit sign, every possible turn, and consider your choices carefully.
When it comes to stuff like people getting sucked into MAGA, it often happens because of manipulated environments and circumstances. Churches can be self-selecting in who they attract, and once you’re there the environment and circumstances do not accurately reflect the whole of human experience, they offer the whole of a specific kind of human’s human experience. Social media does the same thing. Political parties do the same thing. Schools do the same thing. T.V. and music and companies that want you to identify with them as a personality trait all do the same thing. If you’re feeling stuck in a political environment that feels overly involved in a sense of shared identity that is often a deliberate manipulation tactic meant to make you feel like you have to stay EVEN MORE now because these are your people and your ONLY people. You sacrifice more and more of your self and your actual wants with time to avoid losing that connection to others because now it’s entangled in identity in a way that’s not even a little bit normal or natural or OK. We’re not meant to be one thing forever. We’re not meant to be this isolated. We’re not meant to be this angry and scared. It’s all manipulation - it’s not fake, but it also IS fake at the same time.
So for those of you who relate to being manipulated, start by slowing down. And for those of you who don’t (yet), just be aware that a day will come when you are face to face with manipulation. Nobody is immune. Autistic or allistic. Gay or straight. Trans or cis. Black or white. Cop or ANTIFA. When it happens to you, remember to slow down. Driving fast down a confusing, dimly lit road is a great way to end up going off the road and into the wilderness. Extremism is the wilderness. Go slow, take your time, be careful with turns, and ignore the assholes tailgating you telling you to hurry.
Remember - be gayer, be kind to each other, be kind to yourself, don’t trust your first thought/feeling at face value - examine it whenever you have the ability to do so, and for the love of God GET OFF SOCIAL MEDIA.
