And I'm Danny and I left MAGA. Hey guys, Rich
coming to you here at Leaving MAGA at leavingmaga
.org with the Midas Touch Network. We have a
brand new Leaving MAGA testimonial for you today.
I want to bring him in. We are joined by Danny
Collins, who's here with me in the great state
of Florida. Danny, I just want to thank you for
coming on and joining us. We really appreciate
it. Let's just get right into this. So we've
had a chance a little bit to talk about some
of your background, but for those watching, take
us through a little bit what it was about Trump
and the MAGA movement that attracted you to them
and what it was about them that made you gravitate
to them. So I grew up in South Florida in a small
town, probably about 30 minutes outside of where
Mar -a -Lago is actually. Much of my community
has always been conservative, kind of Christian,
and that was the way I was raised. So what Trump
appealed to in me, I went from a little backstory.
I went from professional baseball with the Atlanta
Braves to being homeless and then spending 10
years in the Florida Department of Corrections.
And while in prison, it was the height of the
Black Lives Matters movement and Trump campaigning
for president. And I remember thinking to myself
that. The white man is under attack in this country
that Trump kind of spoke to that fear in me that
white people were now being blamed for everything
we were being discriminated against. You know,
we're tolerant of every demographic of people,
Muslims, Arabs, the black community, the LGBTQIA
plus community. But if you're a white, straight,
Christian, conservative man, you're being blamed
for everything that's ever happened in this country.
And Trump spoke to that fear in me. and that's
what made me gravitate towards him because in
my mind he was anti -establishment you know he
was going to drain the swamp he wasn't republican
or democrat you know he was just american and
i and i believe that and i wanted to believe
that with all of my heart because i was tired
of the status quo um i had experienced my own
struggles in life with mental health illness
and substance abuse disorder and the criminal
justice system and and i felt like trump gets
us you know he gets the the the working class
the average american the you know the person
that's grown up in poverty and known struggle
and stuff like that and and he spoke to that
that part of me uh and made me feel safe and
made me feel like that my voice was being heard
thank you for sharing that and you know you have
a a lot of what you're saying danny it's it's
as if i'm listening to my own story because that
was an appeal for me also with trump which was
that he was an outsider yes he ran as a republican
but he had no government no military no political
experience and i felt like he was the right guy
for the job at the time and he seemed willing
and able to obliterate the established political
order and started anew that's what it was that
i that I wanted. And I felt that he represented
that at the time. And that's why I wasn't just
a supporter. I was a grassroots activist. And
then I got really deep into the MAGA community
after the 2016 election, up until it took me
a year, starting in 21, to leave and eventually
in 22, which we'll get to that part of your story
in a moment. I want to ask you about your, so
again, about your upbringing. For those who grow
up with hardships, who are impoverished, they
have familial financial despondency. Do you think
that those types of individuals, and in your
case yourself, that you were more susceptible
to being taken in by Trump and all the MAGA influencers
or MAGA media? Absolutely. And you got to think
at this time there was this big movement, you
know, we call it the woke mob is what MAGA would
love to call it. And especially when you hear
terms like white fragility and you hear terms
like white privilege. And I'm like, well, how
could I have privilege when I grew up in poverty?
You know, I knew struggle. My parents weren't
rich. We lived paycheck to paycheck. But it was
because I was so poorly educated. I didn't have.
the the information i didn't even understand
what privilege meant at that time you know that
i didn't understand that you know had nothing
to do with the amount of money i had or didn't
have but everything to do with white people being
the standard in this country particularly white
men so like that was another part that you know
trump spoke to was that you know he was going
to get rid of all this woke ideology in that
um i would you know he's going to stand up for
us and you know growing up in poverty getting
the whitewashing of history you don't really
learn you know i didn't learn anything outside
of my echo chamber and outside of my little bubble
of my community and it was unfortunate that it
took me literally going to prison and having
an experience there to kind of see things in
a different light but my story was much like
yours it was around like 2021 uh the end of 2021
2022 that i really made that shift out of maga
but you know up to that point it was trump was
you know against the status quo and you hear
all the other propaganda like well trump's he's
not even going to take a paycheck he already
has money he's just doing this because for love
of the country and that he's a real patriot and
not realizing that his empire was was falling
and that he needed people like us you know the
the poor people who were susceptible to this
propaganda to save his empire really safe he
used us as pawns in order to save himself But
I couldn't see it then, you know, then you're
just so caught up in it. You're desperate and
you just want to believe that something different
is going to happen, you know, in this country.
Thank you again for sharing that. So let's talk
about some of the reasons why. What were some
of the reasons where the cracks started to show?
you know some of what some of what caused you
to start to doubt and then eventually led you
on the pathway to weaving well the big thing
for me was that you know as a conservative my
whole life i believe that you know systemic racism
didn't exist and um i was fortunate to meet somebody
when i was incarcerated that was sentenced to
prison at the age of 16 and he was a black muslim
i was a white christian and we both got sentenced
out of the same community And he was sentenced
to 20 years in prison, followed by 10 years probation.
And him and I became best friends in prison.
But one of the things I would tell him is that
Trump's going to save this country. He's going
to make it better for all of us. And, you know,
it's time that Black people get off the Democrat
plantation because we're always taught that,
you know, as white Americans, that white people
are enslaved by the Democratic Party. And so,
like, I was telling him all this and building
a friendship with him. And I was like, you know,
stop being the victim. You need that personal
accountability for your actions. These are the
choices that you made and the consequences for
our choices. We're responsible for why we're
in prison. And he said, well, that's easy for
you to say. He said, but when that judge sentenced
you, he looked at you as the all -American boy,
the ex -professional baseball player, a person
that's gone to college. And he probably even
saw his son in you. And you had 14 felonies.
You went to prison and back home twice before
I ever got out once. for one felony at the age
of 16. And he said, you know, I accept personal
accountability for my actions. But he said, when
that judge sentenced me, he saw me as just another
Black kid lost in the system. He saw me as a
savage, a thug, a criminal, inherently evil and
violent. And if you start thinking about some
of the language that Trump used to describe immigrants
at that time, especially Mexican immigrants,
calling them rapists and criminals and thugs,
you know, like, it was a lot of that same language
that my friend Rashawn was telling me about in
prison. So my eyes started to get opened up to
it. But then I read a book by Michelle Alexander
that Rashawn suggested I read called The New
Jim Crow, Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.
And when I read the data, coupled with my experience,
my eyes were like completely open because, you
know, one of the things Rashawn told me is like,
how can you say that Trump's for the black community
when he takes out a full page ad calling for
the death penalty of the five black teenagers
in New York City? who were exonerated by dna
and he still didn't apologize um so all these
years we would justify you know what trump just
has the mean tweets but we need to get over that
by being so sensitive but you start hearing the
language and the rhetoric that he's using uh
calling you know immigrants the the vermin that
of our country and that they're poisoning the
blood of our country and um telling a united
states congresswoman to go back to her shithole
country, excuse my language, even calling John
McCain a POW who was a great Republican, a loser,
and basically saying, you know, losers don't
get captured or, you know, our winners don't
get captured. And so, like, you start to see
that, like, okay, you know, character matters.
Like, if I want to say that I'm really a good
person and I care about integrity and I care
about, you know, people's actions behind the
words that they say then you look at the things
that trump was saying and doing and it just didn't
line up there's no way i can reconcile this stuff
there's no way i could continue to make excuses
for a lot of the behavior that you see on top
of the fact that like his policy literally wasn't
even helping me or americans but um there was
no way that i could sit here and continue to
justify the actions and the behavior of trump
um him going on you know what was it fox news
saying that when you're a star you can grab women
by the you you know what it's like at what point
do you say okay enough is enough and it's still
in 2025 and it still hasn't stopped if you look
at his memorial day post we just posted calling
you know american scum you know so that's what
really started to to open my eyes and you could
see the cracks that like Trump was in this for
himself. He did not care who he stepped on, who
he hurt along the way, what lie that he had to
tell, as long as he could continue to further
his empire, his narrative, and his personal agenda.
A lot of the videos we've done, Danny, we've
done with Maya's Touch Network and our testimonials,
which people can read at leavingmaga .org. to
use a literary term here, one of the late motifs
throughout all these testimonials is people's
epiphanies occur gradually and then suddenly
all at once, to paraphrase the late, venerable
American writer Ernest Hemingway. It's what happened
with me. It's what happened with the others who
have had the courage to come forward and tell
their stories with us. And I hear it in your
story. as well yeah what that it just gets to
not justify the unjustifiable anymore yeah once
you see the truth you can never unsee it i feel
like go ahead and that yeah once you see the
truth you can never unsee the truth and i believe
that was my experience was that i saw once i
read the data and i coupled it with my experience
and it just wasn't aligning with what everything
trump was saying like the facts and the data
you know just if you're doing real research and
not just listening to what everybody tells you
you're supposed to believe and um and i think
that was one thing being a christian my whole
life and being raised in a christian community
it's kind of like this blind allegiance or this
blind faith where you don't really question it
it's just that because the bible told me so and
i think the same is true for trump well it's
just because trump told me so and when you get
to a place where you stop believing you know
the experts the journalists the scientists the
the doctors and you can only believe trump that's
a super dangerous place to be you know you mentioned
a few times community and i i caught and i'm
not saying that i'm not putting words in your
mouth danny just to be clear you know i caution
others when they look at maga and say It's a
cult, it's a cult, it's a cult. And I say, no,
it is really more of a political community. And
I implore people not to refer to it as a cult
because I feel like calling people a MAGA cult
is that makes it harder for them to eventually
leave. And it's going to make it more difficult
to empower them when they start to have doubt,
which I believe many will, to finally say I'm
leaving. Talk a little bit about the media you
were consuming while in MAGA. Who were the news
sources, info sources? Who were the influencers?
A lot of Sean Hannity at that time. Fox News,
of course. Tucker Carlson. Even Candace Owens.
You know, I love to tokenize Candace Owens, especially
with a lot of the black people that I was talking
to. Like, this is who you need to listen to and
be like. that's that's mainly where i was getting
my information from it was all you know right
-wing sources um and i think you're right in
the fact that like i would double down when people
when i felt like i was being attacked so when
people were coming at me um calling me racist
or xenophobic or misogynistic or uh homophobic
or transphobic i would get offended and when
people oh you're in a cult i would double down
on it um and i would want to debate and fight
back and i believe that's where a lot of my own
fragility was but at that time like i i became
so offended by some of the things that people
were saying but like you said is um it's it's
about community right it's about feeling like
you're a part of a brotherhood and feeling like
your voice is being heard and trump did speak
to that and a lot of people um even though we
know it's in a bad way now but at that time it
just felt like OK, I got a place where I can
call home. And then when people are coming at
you, you know, telling you, you know, saying
these things about you that you don't want to
hear, it does make it hard to want to leave.
But even when I did finally leave and I got to
that point, it was a really hard place for me
to be because, OK, now I'm no longer aligning
with people in MAGA and people on the right.
But I didn't have a safe place to go because
people on the left were still skeptical of me.
They were justifiably so. Right. They're like,
is this guy for real or. Is he, you know, or
is he just trying to grift or is he trying to,
you know, take advantage of us or, you know,
has he really done the work to change? And I
think that was something that I received from
the left a lot, too, is that people on the left
were like, well, we don't want you back. You
know, like you're the reason why we're in this
mess. Like you contributed to this. So it was
a very lonely place for. you know roughly about
six months to a year where like i just felt like
i was on an island and i didn't have anybody
that i could communicate with anybody i could
talk to um and find a place that where i could
connect with people in meaningful ways uh and
feel like okay that this was a safe place for
me to continue to try to learn and grow because
you gotta also figure too i was incarcerated
so when i came out of prison like i didn't know
a lot of the terminology i didn't know things
you know like about pronouns i didn't know about
you know the lgbtqia plus community i hadn't
been exposed to social media so when i came home
you know the advent of social media helped me
grow exponentially because social media i was
getting information you know 24 7 from you know
a plethora of different places there was a whole
lot of information that allowed me to grow and
i believe growth for people is going to be directly
proportional to the amount of work that they
put in or the amount of information that they
take in that's correct information and so i tried
to read as much as many books as i could um from
different perspectives that i typically wouldn't
and i started listening to content from content
creators uh from people that typically wouldn't
you know a big one for me when i first came home
was a jolly good ginger and you know i could
identify with his story and i could identify
with the things that he was saying and i was
like i get him like i understand exactly what
he's saying and he was raised the way i was raised
he was taught the information that i was taught
so he was the one who initially started to help
me deconstruct then of course i started seeing
things like midas touch network and you know
walter masterson and there's you know a bunch
of other creators as well as uh consciously you
know i started listening to a lot of black creators
too because their world uh experience and lived
experience was a lot different than anything
that i had ever been exposed and taught but I
think that's the big thing you see with MAGA
and people who are on the right is that they're
in their echo chamber, in their bubble. The only
thing that's playing is Fox News. It's, you know,
the Charlie Kirks, the Tucker Carlson's and the
Sean Hannity's. And that's the only place that
they're getting their information. And that could
be super dangerous. Many of the same figures
I was consuming also and listening to their content.
And I say this a lot in my interviews, Danny,
that as simple as it sounds. It was profoundly
life -changing and altering for me when I started
diversifying my news and information sources.
And it's really remarkable how gained knowledge
and experience opens the aperture for someone
and makes them more empathetic and more attuned
to injustice. And clearly, that transformation
happened with you. And you should be credited
for it. for the bravery that it takes to do that.
So as we come to a close here, I want to ask
you to share with our viewers, why speak out
and go public? You've got a pretty big TikTok
presence. So I'm going to ask you to tell us
where we can find you. And why speak out now
and tell this story? What is it that you're hoping
to gain and achieve by speaking out? So I think
the whole point of doing this work, right, is
to ultimately change hearts and minds. If we're
not in it for that, then what's the point? The
biggest reason why I wanted to speak out was
because I know my experience that when I first
made this transformation was that there weren't
a whole lot of people on the other side that
wanted to welcome me in with arms wide open and
kind of hold my hand on this journey. There were
a handful, and I'm super grateful for them because
they're the ones that helped me get through this
process. So I want to be able to be that person
for somebody else on the other side. We have
to be willing for growth for people. And I think
it's easier for a white straight man who's already
been through this, that's been on the other side
of it, who's had that mindset, who understands
that mindset to really reach people that are
still in that mindset. So, you know, I think
that a lot of the politics of white supremacy.
it's up to white people to dismantle it, right?
It's up to us to do the work and our voice is
needed now more than ever to reach a lot of these
people in our community. I have access to people
that most people won't have access to. Most of
my family, most of my community, most of the
people I grew up with, they're all MAGA still.
So if I'm interacting with these people already,
then why not build relationships with them or
continue the relationships that I have with them,
but use it as an opportunity to educate them.
to help change their their minds and their hearts
and and be the voice of reasoning you know i
don't i don't i don't let stuff slide you know
i'm consistent with the messaging so somebody
uh is saying something that's inappropriate or
that it's not true i check them because i need
i believe that they need to be checked but i
do it in a way i try to do in a way that's loving
and um where it's you know palatable where people
can digest it and i'm not condescending or belittling
because You know, I was so grateful that people
held space for me to change that I want to be
able to hold that space for other people, because
if we truly want unity, like we say, if we really
want people to leave MAGA and get out of this
mindset, then we have to be the ones that create
the bridges to get them out and give them a safe
place to go and a place where they feel welcome
and connected and have the opportunity to really
make a meaningful change. Oh man, I'm into that.
That's what we found in leaving MAGA for, is
a new community for people who leave, people
who have doubts, and friends and family who are
still in the thrall of MAGA. And where can viewers
find you? I know that you've got a very sizable
TikTok following. What's the handle people can
find you at? So Danny F. Collins on TikTok and
Danny F. Collins on Instagram, on both platforms.
And then Daniel Collins on Facebook. But Danny
F. Collins TikTok, Danny F. Collins on Instagram.
You're an intrepid young man, and I want to welcome
you, Danny, to the Leaving MAGA community. I
also want to welcome you to the Midas Touch Network
community as well as one of the Midas Mighty.
And we like to end every show on a positive affirmation,
and I'd like for you to join me if you would.
I'm Rich, and I left MAGA. And I'm Danny, and
I left MAGA. Hey, everyone. If you like this
video, make sure you drop a comment down below
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Make sure you're getting all of our updates and
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we have a guide for friends and family of those
who are in the MAGA community. As always, appreciate
your support. Thanks for watching.