I'm Anthony and I left MAGA.
Hey everybody, Rich Comedie here at LeavingMAGA.org with the Midas Touch Network.
We got a brand new testimonial video for you today of a gentleman who left MAGA.
I want to bring him in here.
It's Mr. Anthony Brooks from the great state of Texas.
It's been back to back now.
We've had two Texans back to back.
Anthony, I really appreciate you being here with us.
Thank you for reaching out and wanting to tell your story.
Let's just get right into this.
Tell us and walk us through what was appealing to you about the MAGA community and the movement.
If you would, address something that you said to me when you wrote out to me, which was
how as a man of faith, originally, that was what made you gravitate to the MAGA community.
Well, initially, like most other Christians, we were very hesitant about Donald Trump,
mostly because of his past.
It was like we had the folder in our nose to vote for him in 2016.
But when we saw him govern conservatively and govern according to the values that we
held up at that time, realizing that he was appointing pro-life judges and that he was
all about fiscal conservatism and fiscal responsibility, we saw that as appealing to us.
It wasn't something that we knew right off the bat.
I don't think anyone really knew how Donald Trump was going to govern his first go-around.
But eventually, like most others, I was eventually attracted to that, and I did.
I became full-fledged, bravado Trump and his policies.
That's initially what was appealing to me about Donald Trump.
But it wasn't when I went to the polls.
It was actually quite a bit later, after the 2016 election, that I actually realized that
he was governing according to those values that, at the time, I thought were the most
important.
I share a similar experience with you in that I was not immediately enamored with the Trump
campaign when he first decided to run.
I was very curious, but I had a little bit different...
My entree into MAGA was not anything regarding my religion or my faith.
It was that I felt like we needed someone to obliterate the established political order,
and we needed an outsider to do that job.
I felt like Trump was the right person at the time for that job, someone who'd be a
disruptor.
We got a disruptor, just someone, as you and I came to painfully realize, as someone whose
disruption is antithetical and anathema to democracy.
But as someone who, as you'd mentioned to me when you reached out to me, as a man of
faith, what was it like for you watching Trump when you started to have a little bit of doubt
about your support for him?
What were some of the specific moments that maybe eventually led you to leave and in the
moment, and take us through in a real time as best you can what you were thinking as
you're observing this?
Well, initially during his first term, his immigration policies were very strict.
Immigration policies, a lot of people like that.
I was always more hesitant about his immigration policies, namely because Jesus tells us to
welcome the foreigner and the immigrants.
Leviticus tells us that we are to treat them as if they were one of our own because we
were once strangers in the land of Egypt talking about our spiritual forefathers.
And that always seemed antithetical to me, to my faith.
But also I ran in very conservative reforms, Calvinistic and theonomic circles, basically
that we should govern our country according to the general equity, what we call the general
equity or the moral principles of the Old Testament Levitical law.
And I noticed very clearly that we were not being consistent with that, realizing that
number one, our treatment of immigrants, number two, our fiscal policies, his fiscal policies
were very much not in line with those Levitical laws.
And that there were certain language, certain catcalling across the aisle to certain aspects
of the far right that I didn't appreciate.
And then eventually as time went on, they were starting to say the quiet part out loud.
I started seeing more and more of the Trump supporting people in those circles being more
anti-Semitic, being more openly racist, being more untrice like towards other people.
And of course, the two laws that we're supposed to hold very near and dear that Jesus has
asked, what is the greatest commandment in the law?
Well, the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul,
mind and strength and to love your neighbor as yourselves.
And I was seeing a whole lot less of the love your neighbor as yourself in the MAGA movement.
And that is when the doubt started to creep in.
It wasn't, it happened very slowly, as you can imagine.
But when it happened, it started to speed up rather rapidly.
Well that reminds me of what I always say when I'm describing my own epiphany is that
for me it happened gradually and then suddenly all at once.
And to paraphrase Ernest Hemingway, and when you're saying about, I'm harkening back as
I'm listening to you about conversations I had when I was in the MAGA community about
who were real Christians and real Jews and who the real Americans were and anyone who
wasn't with us, they were the fake, unpatriotic, whether it was fake Americans, fake Jews,
fake Christians, fake fill in the blank, anyone who was not with us, we considered them that
way.
Did you experience that as well in some of the conversations that you had about how there
were essentially two camps, you were either with us in MAGA, you were the real Americans,
or anyone else, they were the fake ones, they were against us no matter what?
Oh, and I'm currently going through some of that actually.
My wife and I, we actually ended up leaving our evangelical conservative Presbyterian
church for these reasons.
And it's not that the church was that way because I would still very much recommend
that particular congregation and that denomination to anyone because of just how nice and kind
and gentle they were.
But there were certain people within the church that were not that way.
And then we joined the Anglican church and that has been much more eye opening experience
about what true Christianity looks like.
And for instance, our diocese just sent out a memo this morning talking about what we
should do as Christians to respond to the current immigration policy changes in the
country and it's all about embracing the immigrant, helping them, supporting them.
And that's the kind of Christ-likeness that we should see in our community.
But yeah, I've definitely experienced a lot of you're trolling, right, kind of things,
some of my comments online or people saying, you know, this is, I'm Christian or you have
left the faith altogether, people condemning me for that.
And I'm trying to communicate.
No, I think what I did is became more consistent with the Bible and my opposition to Trump
and his policies because they're not Christian anymore.
If they were ever Christian at all, now that I look back on it.
But it's rather sad to see that people that I've known for years, one years, one years
in those communities saying that my opposition to these radical and racist immigration policies
or to the current must take over as being anti-Christian.
I don't see how those things, my opposition to those things are anti-Christian.
I just can't fathom with my knowledge of the Bible and my knowledge of our faith and the
historic Christian faith, how that has all of a sudden become anti-Christian.
It just confuses me.
You know, I can really feel and see in your story that there is this struggle between
your past support and your faith.
My wife hates this joke.
I always say that I'm an excommunicated Catholic, that, you know, that if I'd lived in the 14th
century, I'd have been excommunicated by the church.
She's, see my, I left a MAGA hat right there, side note.
So I wouldn't say for me that my faith shaped a lot of my MAGA belief in my support, but
it's very clear that you're struggling, you're struggling that you had struggled through
that and yet you were able to come out on the other side of it.
We actually did a testimonial with a lady named Stefania Messina, who was an evangelical
woman and she went through and endured and underwent a very similar faith struggle.
What I'm, what I'm curious, and you know, you're talking about leaving, right, leaving
the church.
So not only did you leave MAGA, but then you've got another community that you had been familiar
with and had had camaraderie with and, you know, in literal sense, congregated with them.
It's pinpoint, pinpoint for us, Anthony, when, what was the moment that you recall when you
said finally, I am out, I am leaving MAGA, this is it.
Yeah.
And this is, this is a little bit of an extended thought, so I'm sorry, but I feel like if
I don't say all of it, then I shouldn't really say any of it.
I noticed during the 2020 election, I had already started to produce some doubts during
that time.
But after the 2020 election, when he had lost and the buildup, and I saw these Christian
communities come out and say that, that the election was stolen, that a lot of, not really
that many people in the church that we were in, but in other churches and other groups
I was affiliated with, talking about how the election was stolen and all of this.
And then all of a sudden, January 6th happens.
And then I see Christians, you know, defending the actions of the insurrectionists on January
6th and trying to defend Donald Trump's actions or inaction to that situation.
And at that point, that's when the House of Cards started to crumble for me.
And then of course, you know, I was in opposition to that, through that.
And then this last go around, when I saw Christians start to call out in support of his mass deportations.
And I have some personal, some personal feelings about that because my family is directly affected
by those things.
And then people were saying that Donald Trump is where Christ is.
Well, no, Christ isn't with Donald Trump.
When I think of where Christ is, I see Christ and the immigrant family coming here to make
themselves a better life.
I see Christ and the church doing work to support relief agencies around the world and
to support the unhoused and the broken and the orphan and the widow.
I see Christ in the Eucharist every Sunday when our priest states the Episcopalises.
I see Christ in those places.
I don't see Christ in Donald Trump wanting to deport millions of people out of our country
for the great crime of wanting to be here and make a better life for themselves.
I don't see Christ in that.
And so anyone who says that Christ is there and not in these other areas, I can't support
that.
And it's very hard for me to see Christ there.
So it was a long road, but essentially to summarize, January 6th happened and that's
when I lost all faith in Donald Trump and the MAGA movement.
And then in 2024, that's when I started to become really, really just angry about the
whole situation.
Yeah.
So, sorry, it's a long thought, but that's where I was at.
It's OK.
I appreciate you saying it because January 6th was one of the reasons for me as well.
And it comes up a lot in these testimonials that we do with those who left.
I don't want to ask you to speak for anyone on this.
And I'm not coming at this question with who's a real or fake Christian.
But there is a part of me that just when I look at evangelicals supporting Trump, there's
a part of me that just I can't turn off the voice that says that evangelicals deep down
know that they should not be supporting Trump.
Do you have a similar sentiment about that when you see it?
How do you respond to the hypocrisy given that you are a man of faith and as someone
who very clearly, I minored in theology and I feel like you're taking me back to some
of my coursework and so much of what you're saying.
How do you work through that, seeing this hypocrisy amongst people who identify as noble,
benevolent soldiers and warriors of Christ?
Well I have to make a distinction between the average person sitting in the queues who
don't know better, who haven't really been informed, who are uninformed on these issues,
who might think that all Trump is doing is just getting all the criminals, even though
that's clearly not the case by the stories that we're hearing.
A vast majority of the people who are being deported right now are not criminals.
And I have proof for that, but unfortunately it's not a practical place here to share that.
But I have to make a distinction between those people who don't know any better and the people
who are informed yet still show their support at him.
And then people who are well educated in the evangelical world and think that he is still
the best option for the evangelical world.
So I have to make those distinctions and those distinctions are very difficult for me to
make because it is a very emotional topic.
But in my mind, the evangelical church as a whole and its leaders as a whole, there
is an article on mere orthodoxy that describes the six fragmentations of the evangelical
world and you have the type ones, type twos, type threes, et cetera.
And the type ones are your neo fundamentalists, these are your Christian nationalists, Trump
supporting evangelicals who are saying that he's the best thing that God has ever sent
to this country.
And your type twos are the people who held their nose when they voted for him.
So the type twos, I would say, I want them to be more educated so that they can move
into where I'm at, which is type three and type four, which are the people who are very
concerned about the evangelical world and their support for Trump.
And the people who see the evangelical world is selling itself out to the Republican Party
as a whole because that's where I'm at.
And I think that the more educated I became, the more it led me in that direction.
So I am concerned very much by the evangelical embracing of Trump, which is why I'm no longer
an evangelical.
But that doesn't mean that my faith in and of itself is not evangelical.
I think that it is.
It's just that I can no longer associate with the evangelical church for the very reason
that either they are educated and ignore the education or they are not educated and are
still selling out to the Republican Party just because they don't want to be educated
on those issues.
I hope that makes sense.
But yeah, no, I was around many who had the sent by God belief.
It was not a belief that I shared, but I always just not in agreement because in the MAGA
community, there are real pressures to conform.
And to maybe not.
I was never offended by the idea, but it wasn't one that I agreed with.
I was always focused more on just conquering and crushing our enemies before they are political
enemies before they conquered and crushed us.
So thank you for sharing that.
So let me ask this in closing as we come to a near the close here.
So why why speak up from your perspective?
Why is it that you wanted to to share this story and tell others?
Because I think that a lot of people who are supportive of his policies and what he wants
to do right now is complete takeover by the Elon Musk doze regime.
I think that people support that because they're not affected by it yet.
I know many, many immigrants who are here without proper documentation, and they are
some of the nicest, kindest, hardest working people.
They pay their taxes, they own property.
They they do what they're supposed to do.
The only things that makes them any different than us is that they weren't born here and
they don't have papers.
And I think that many people will have bought into the lie that they are criminals.
They are not Mexico or Nicaragua or Guatemala's best.
That they are coming here to steal jobs, this, that and the other thing, which they're not
actually the vast majority of them are doing jobs that we wouldn't want to do for the pay
that they're being offered for.
And they're completely fine doing those jobs.
Of course, I want to be consistent.
I do want them to be paid more.
And that is something that actively advocate for.
But all of that being said, there are tremendous support on our economy, not a burden on it.
So that's number one.
Number two is I see current trends in the MAGA movement, like the whole empathy is a
sin trend and all of that as being extremely toxic and degrading to the morality of this
country.
It is it is sending us back to a time where we were having to fight things like for so
overrides and for women's suffrage, sending us back to that time.
It's sending our country back in time instead of forward and progressing.
And I think that that is extremely damaging to our country's morale.
I think it's extremely damaging to our country's moral character.
And the rest of the world is looking at us like what is going on?
We used to lead the world.
Now the world has been alienated from us.
And that is very damaging to our country.
So I think speaking out is important and I think educating people is important and doing
it with gentleness and reverence like we're supposed to.
Because as a Christian, I think that yelling into the ether is not very successful, but
having conversations is.
And so my my goal in my personal life with the people around me is I want people to be
educated.
And if they are and if they make if they make a choice I don't like, then at least I can
say I did what I could.
Because that's all I really can do.
Well you're doing it now.
And you know, I just want to say as the excommunicated Catholic, what I what I have seen over the
last many, many years within the MAGA community, even though I do believe that it's it's mostly
good people who are in the community who have been led astray and their fears have been
exploited and manipulated.
When it comes to the spiritual aspect of it, it does not look like my Catholic upbringing
at all.
And so and it and it didn't even when I was in MAGA.
But again, I just like a lot of other statements and observations, I look the other way.
Anthony, I just want to thank you again for coming on here.
It shows a lot of intrepidity to tell your story you you had to you had to go against
a lot of what you've known best.
And I just want to you know, and there are pressures, there are pressures to not go against
in your case, your faith and and going through the questioning of that.
And I really admire the fact that you have kept your faith through all of this.
And I want to welcome you to our leaving MAGA community.
I want to welcome you also to the Midas Touch Network community.
We always like to close our leaving MAGA videos the same.
I'm Rich and I left MAGA.
Hey guys, if you like this video, make sure you subscribe and drop a comment down below.
Also feel free to visit us at leaving MAGA.org get in touch with us there.
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Really appreciate you guys watching.
Thank you so much for your support.
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