I'm Michael, I left MAGA.
Hey guys, Rich Comitia here with Leaving MAGA
at LeavingMAGA.org for the Midas Touch Network.
We got a brand new testimonial for you today
of a brave and courageous man who left MAGA.
I wanna bring him in.
His name is Michael Serback.
He's from the great state of Ohio.
Michael, I wanna first welcome you to the show.
And I wanna thank you for not just being with us,
but also for taking the initiative and reaching out to us
about wanting to tell your story.
So let's just get right into this.
So what I wanna...
Take us to, at the point in your life
when Trump comes on the scene,
the MAGA movement starts.
What made you gravitate to that community?
Take us at that time and the specifics
of what attracted you to the MAGA movement.
I think first, it was...
I knew of Trump.
I used to watch a lot of WWE
and he was in a few of those events.
I don't know.
I thought he was interesting.
I thought he was like very charismatic.
I...
But aside from that, I think one of the things
was I was hearing a lot about like when ISIS was...
in charge of...
They were taking over land in the Middle East.
And I was listening to...
I was listening to guys like Ben Shapiro,
Fox News were saying that they're gonna...
They could come here and act real law in America.
That was one of the things I was scared of.
And I thought Trump was the only one
that would be willing to...
do something about that. I think he did the Muslim ban,
if I'm not mistaken.
Yeah, I was...
fearful of a lot of the things that they would say
on the right wing media bubble like the Fox,
Ben Shapiro's, the...
All of that.
And I just thought he was a strong leader,
a good businessman,
I thought he could fix our country, the economy.
I don't know, there was just a lot of fear drawn up
by the right wing media bubble.
And I just kind of got caught up into it.
Yeah, thank you for your candor in that
because the same happened to me.
And this is a...
This is really...
a running start.
This is really a running theme throughout
our Leaving MAGA videos,
which everyone can find at Minus Touch Network
and at our site, LeavingMAGA.org,
is that the MAGA and GOP friendly media...
is omnipresent in these testimonials
such as the one that you're given now,
your story about how influential they are,
and how they prey upon our natural desires
and instincts of survivalism
and wanting to be safe and secure in our own country.
Now, after...
after 2016, Trump wins,
we're validated as MAGA Americans.
Take us through what life was like for you
after Trump is elected.
At the time, I was pretty happy about it.
That's one of the things me and my parents
kind of bonded over, one of the many things.
I felt like he did some good things.
Like, he went over to visit Kim Jong-un in North Korea.
I thought he may have avoided us
from a potential war with them.
I thought he was given out...
He did the tax thing where he cut taxes.
It's hard to think back
because my mindset's changed so much since then.
I thought he was just overall better for the economy.
I thought we were doing better.
All the way up until about COVID.
Yeah, I felt like a sense of unity
with people around me more so
than I felt in my town,
for the most part, are Trump supporters.
And...
I don't know, I'd say that's about it.
Just to felt a sense of unity,
like you got the strong guy in office,
anti-establishment.
That's pretty much it, I think.
I'm hearing a couple of other motifs
that run through our videos.
You know, the first is...
And this was my entree into MAGA
was a belief that the two parties were the same.
They didn't represent most Americans.
And here came Trump, this iconoclastic outsider.
Yeah, he ran as a Republican, but he had no government,
no political, no military experience.
And I thought the entire system needed to be
smashed and obliterated.
And I thought, okay, here's a guy
who seems willing and able to do it.
He doesn't need the job.
He's exactly the right person
for this position in our history.
And the other detail that's so important
that you're touching upon here, Michael,
is you're talking about unity.
And there's a community.
And your own...
And MAGA was a tie that...
that binded and bound your family together.
Right? You and your folks.
So talk about that.
Talk about the relationship with your parents
while in MAGA, because I think that's something
viewers really want to hear about.
Yeah, we've always had a good relationship,
but that was just one of the other things
that brought us together, I guess you'd say.
We, for the most part, agree on most things.
Um... But, yeah.
Them, um... I don't know.
Something we could be happy about.
Uh... Hmm.
What about your folks right now?
So are they...
Do they consider themselves still to be MAGA Trump supporters?
Definitely, yeah.
Okay, so you broke away,
which we're gonna talk about in a moment.
Okay.
So what's that dynamic like with you and your folks?
Do they know that you left?
And if so, when you told them, what was their reaction?
Yeah, I left...
I told them I left around the beginning of this year.
One of the main reasons was...
I'm dating a girl from the Philippines, right?
And I'm trying to bring her over here sometime this year.
And it seemed like with every single one of Trump's rallies
leading up to the election,
it was nonstop talk about how immigrants are rapists, murderers.
They're gonna poison the blood of our country.
Like, stuff that...
I'm a history guy.
I've heard of, like, Hitler saying those kind of things
back in the Nazi Germany days.
And the way you...
I feel the way you talk as a leader really matters.
At some point, it's not just words,
and it affects people's lives.
And it's...
The immigration process is already really hard as it is,
and it takes a long time.
And if they're drumming up fear about immigrants,
I feel like it's gonna make it almost impossible
for me to bring her over here.
And...
Yeah, I'm really concerned about that.
Do you think you'd be willing to show your folks this video?
I'm wondering what they're gonna...
I'm just wondering what they're gonna say
when you say, hey, Mom, hey, Dad,
I want to show you this testimonial I offered
and show them at our...
Which, your testimonial in a written form
is at our site, LeavingMaggot.org.
And I actually want to read...
I want to read a little excerpt from that.
From the... And again, this is your written testimonial.
You can get it at our site, LeavingMaggot.org.
Let me read this here.
You wrote, 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 January 6th 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, 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.
Yeah.
So there's... Here's what I'm hearing there.
And in our conversations we've had,
that sounds around the time.
Even though you were still, as you say, a loyalist to MAGA,
what I hear in that period of your life
is when your doubts started to commence.
When the uncertainty crept in,
take us through your mental and emotional state,
how you were feeling, how you were contending with,
a little bit of a struggle about whether you felt like
the MAGA movement reflected who you were and your values.
So take us through that,
how just some of the sentiments that you were feeling at the time.
Yeah. Well...
It started, like...
Well, really is when I left the right-wing media bubble
and started looking at independent journalists.
Like, I'd noticed a lot of the things that they were saying
were lies, like, and they would provide video proof
of them saying it.
And I thought the independent media
made a lot more sense to me.
I felt like I was being lied to all this time
about pretty much everything.
About immigrants, about...
A lot of the things Trump said about the pandemic.
About...
Just a lot of things.
About pretty much everything?
Yeah.
Fair to say, right? Because in my case,
when I started to question my beliefs,
it sounds so simple, but it was profoundly life-changing
and altering for me.
I diversified my news and information sources.
So you did exactly the same. So as you're saying this,
you're taking me back, Michael, into the period of my life
when I'm thinking I would look at,
well, actually, the Democrats aren't importing brown people,
so they seize power permanently,
or the liberals aren't trying to actually take my guns,
or progressives, they're not indoctrinating our children
in public schools into becoming transgender Marxists.
All of this sounds so absurd, but what I'm thinking
is absurd, but like you, I believed it at the time,
and then when you start to slowly move out of that right wing
media and information bubble, you start to see,
hmm, this isn't really what I'm...
The beliefs that shaped our life and shaped our worldview
weren't really accurate.
And then, tell me about that struggle
when you start to realize, wow, I'm...
I'm believing something or multiple beliefs that are false.
So what was that like for you just emotionally
as you're going through that and coming to the...
Having your own epiphany as it's occurring?
Yeah, I feel like...
They, um...
I don't know, I feel like, yeah, like I said before,
everything was a lie.
I have to get my information from somewhere else.
I believe that...
I feel like the only reason that I believe
that the Democrats and Joe Biden were so evil
is because of where I was getting my news before.
I thought they were trying to tear apart our country,
but there was actually some things
that I liked about Biden,
like the Inflation Reduction Act.
I liked how he brought a sense of decency.
Every American was treated the same
regardless of race, creed or gender.
Everybody can be respected.
I just don't feel that in the MAGA community anymore.
If you leave, you're an outsider,
you get treated differently,
you get a different level of respect.
And I think that's the only reason
that I'm still a part of that act.
And...
that's basically the gist of it.
Yeah, that is really so true.
It's why there were many times privately
that I censured Trump along with others,
my fellow MAGA compatriots.
We criticized Trump numerous times,
Charlottesville, COVID, but publicly, never.
Because if you did it, you're...
You're basically a child.
You're basically a MAGA apostate and a heretic.
And it's why I say it really shows
just how intrepid a person you are,
just like all of those who have told their stories,
as well as friends and family we featured
of those who are still in the thrall of MAGA.
Walking away is really hard
because you're leaving a community.
Again, you've talked about today,
but it's not the only existence that all of us...
It's not that we want it, we need it.
So let me ask this as we wrap up here.
Why do you feel compelled to tell this story?
What is it that you hope that the country
and our viewers will take from this
and why you felt motivated,
as you had told me privately when you reached out,
why do you feel motivated to recount this story of yours?
Yeah, I just wanted people to really...
I want to really encourage people to get their information
from multiple different sources
instead of just believing one side.
I feel like most people go to the mainstream media.
The mainstream media can be corrupted.
They're bought by billionaires,
and their stories can be influenced by that.
I just want people to do their own research
and try to find the facts
instead of believing every single thing you're told
by one side.
And I feel like Trump likes to drum up a lot of fear in people
so he can push his lies through
and so he gets as little resistance as possible, basically.
I have to say, I concur with all the above,
and I can because it was experiential for me.
I lived it.
Michael, I just want to thank you again for being with us.
I want to also welcome you to the Leaving MAGA
and Midas Touch community.
And as I always like for us to close out our videos,
I just want to again, this is Michael Surbach
from great state of Ohio.
As we wrap up here, Michael,
I just want to affirm I'm rich and I left MAGA.
I'm Michael. I left MAGA.
Thanks so much, Michael.
Really appreciate you being with us.
Thank you.
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