Something is changing in our country, and most
people feel it before they can explain it. Well,
today I'm joined by Rich Lojas, founder and executive
director of Leaving MAGA, an organization that
supports people who've left or are questioning
the MAGA movement and helps families navigate
reconciliation. Rich has spoken openly about
his own journey out of MAGA and now works to
create a safe off -ramp for others who want to
change. So it's really great to have you with
us, Rich. John, thank you. It's good to see you
again. Very good. So on the New York Radio Hour,
which is pretty heady stuff, you said leaving
MAGA is hard because it isn't just politics,
it's identity, belonging, and emotional need.
When you think about your own journey, what did
you have to give up before you could finally
leave? Yeah, I... You know, my entree into MAGA
was a disillusionment with politics as a whole
and the two -party system and feeling that democracy
had failed most Americans. And I had never been
a part of a political community until MAGA. And
when MAGA came on the scene, I found a sense
of purpose. Feelings of belonging and gathering
and camaraderie. And MAGA for me was not just
something I did. It did shape my worldview and
my identity and my being and my personhood. And
to walk away from that was difficult for a couple
different reasons. The first was I had developed
and cultivated a second family. And that second
family, as embarrassed as I am to admit this,
sometimes took precedence over my own blood family.
And as a result of my MAGA activism, I spent
money that would have gone to my family. I neglected
at times my duties as a parent and as a husband.
That was one reason that made it really challenging
to leave. And the other reason is I had to accept
after a year of doubts and confusion that I had
allowed myself to have been lied to and believe
those lies and shaped an entire persona. Based
on lies, falsehoods and conspiracy theories and
had to come to the have a reckoning and come
to terms with the fact that I had believed so
much of what was false. You know, everything
ranging from. The belief that Democrats were
coming for our guns and schools were indoctrinating
children into transgender ideology and. And liberals
and progressives were trying to replace white
people with brown people and foreigners. I held
some of those beliefs and I knew others who also
held those beliefs. So to walk away from MAGA
after being in this community for more than half
a decade, it did make it really difficult because
I knew that I was going to walk away from something
that I was really so heavily invested in. For
listeners that are meeting you for the first
time, what's sort of the short version of your
journey and then out of it? You mentioned what
emotional need MAGA meant for you. But when you
think back, what made those conspiratorial explanations
feel more convincing than mainstream ones? Well,
for those who are meeting me for the first time,
I would like to apologize for my past MAGA activism.
It was... My belief when I was in MAGA that anybody
who was not with us was against us and should
be considered an existential political threat
to myself, my country, my livelihood, and my
family. And as part of my disenchantment with
politics in 2015 and 16, I thought the way to
save democracy was to destroy it. And I was very
much attracted to... the outsider candidacy of
Trump because I saw him as someone who was willing
and able to obliterate the established political
order. And while I don't say this as a self -defense,
because all of us have agency and no one coaxed
or coerced me into supporting Trump, I think
my story is a cautionary tale because I... allowed
myself to be influenced by MAGA media and right
-wing propaganda and agitprop. And I think that
it's important to emphasize to people who are
seeing this that for those of them who have friends
and family in MAGA, that we are all susceptible
to being influenced and we are vulnerable. propaganda.
And I fell really hard for it. I was under the
belief that if Hillary and the Democrats had
won, that we would have seen only that Democrats
would have seized power indefinitely and permanently.
So I didn't just support Trump and then walk
away and then come back four years later. I got
deeper and deeper in this community. I became
a professional. I professionally produced the
podcast. I was writing for MAGA Media. I had
bylines in places like Fox and The Federalist
and Real Clear Politics, World Net Daily, which
is the site that originated the Obama birther
conspiracy. I was very much unapologetically
and publicly a Trump and MAGA supporter. But
my first crack started to show significantly
in the summer of 2021. Which, if we recall, that
was when the Delta surge of COVID was ravaging
the country. And my governor, Ron DeSantis, decided
to platform anti -vaxxers at a press conference.
And I'm a parent of two small kids. And I remember
thinking that parents around the country were
in intensive care units with their children who
were befalling ill to COVID. They were greeting
their children at morgues, those who had died
of the virus. And it really shocked and confused
me why Ron DeSantis became an anti -vaxxer after
being a proponent of it. And after that happened,
John, I decided to do something that sounds really
simple but was profoundly life -changing and
altering for me, which was I diversified my news
and information sources. And I went back and
looked at, for example, January 6th. January
6th was not an event that I supported. But I
thought that it was hyperbolized into a bigger
deal than it really was. And then after expanding
my news and information sources and widening
my information aperture a little bit, I realized
that January 6th was, in fact, an attempt by
the president to overturn a free and fair election.
And then the final straw for me was on May 24th,
2022, which was the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting.
That was the day that I quietly left MAGA. But
something had really been gnawing at me because
I was so unapologetically public in my support
for Trump, I felt that I needed to be public
in my renunciation. And it was on August 30th
of 2022, it's the day I call my leaving MAGAversary,
I wrote a mea culpa. And in that article, I said
that I was sorry for supporting Trump and MAGA,
and I wanted to apologize to anyone I may have
hurt with my words, deeds, and rhetoric. And
I published the story and the God's honest truth,
John, is I never thought that anybody would care.
But it turned out that people did care. And since
then, I've been recounting my story. And born
from all of that was our organization, Weaving
MAGA, which I founded as a new community for
people who leave and for those who are having
doubts, as well as for friends and family of
those still in the thrall of MAGA. So you talk,
it's fascinating. And, you know, your journey
is one I think that can be really. eye -opening
for others. But you talk about it as a community
and looking for different communities. You've
also talked about it, and I think I look at it
as almost like an addiction or entertainment.
But I remember in some of your discussions, you've
talked about anger addiction. So in practice,
socially, what did outrage do for you day -to
-day, like energy, confidence, and connection
and stuff like that? So it's all of these things,
right? It's community, it's anger, it's entertainment.
What do you mean by that when you say anger addiction?
You know, being in MAGA was exhilarating and
enthralling and communal. But it was all of that
until it wasn't. After leaving MAGA, I realized
that I was in these perpetual states of rage
and fear and despair and paranoia. And we do
these Tuesday night support groups with our organization
for friends and family. We do them online. Every
single week, they're free, they're open to friends
and family. And we talk a lot about the addiction
to rage. It creates an actual dopamine effect
in the individual. And I'm not learned enough
or qualified to speak to all of the psychology
of it, but I was always angry and rageful toward
my political opponents because there always needed
to be an enemy. who was shared within the community.
And that addiction is what created this really
militant mindset that still exists in MAGA to
this day, which is, if you were not 100 % with
us, you were considered fully against us. And
it didn't matter, John, if you were 99 .9 % with
us. If you were not 100 % with us, we considered
you an enemy political combatant. And I was on
the right side of history as the real American.
And everybody else who was against us, they were
the fake Americans. And that way of thinking
was really traumatizing. And I had to de -traumatize
myself after leaving MAGA because I always say
that leaving MAGA was good for my soul, my psyche,
and my mental health. And for anyone seeing this
who's in MAGA, especially if they're having doubts,
I want them to know that today is a stellar day
to leave MAGA because the people who were our
enemy, John, we considered them a they. They
were always out to get us. There was always a
they coming for the guns, indoctrinating our
kids, replacing white people. They, people who
believe that... that they were disenfranchised
and their votes defrauded as a result of they,
Democrats and liberals. It was a way of being
that was only exciting until it wasn't. And I
came to realize just how much I had been subsumed
into this world of hate and anger being in MAGA
because... MAGA is an extremist group because
it encourages its adherents to dehumanize, vilify,
and demonize its opponents. Let's talk about
the media, because that rage, there is someone,
there are people who are pushing that for their
own means, whether it's money or political power
or whatever. So you consume this steady diet
of this MAGA media you talked about, and it shaped
what you believed and repeated. And how important
is that MAGA media ecosystem that you lived inside
and how powerful was that feedback loop? Was
there one kind of content, podcast, article,
social media, influencers, television that especially
was effective at keeping you in and nowadays
keeping others in? Yeah, there are many. In addition
to the places I wrote for where I had penned
articles for Fox and The Federalist, American
Greatness. Very, very pro -MAGA, very right -wing
media outlets. The site that I consumed the most
of all was Breitbart. Interesting. I lived on
that site, John. I would check that site dozens
of times a day. I lived in the comments section.
And it was never a website that I read or checked
out before MAGA. I knew about it. Maybe occasionally
I might have seen an article here and there.
But I was very, very much enmeshed in the MAGA
media echo chamber. And the reason that it's
important that that media be kept in front of
people who are in MAGA with a steady diet of
it is that when I was in the community, any information
that even remotely refuted the pervasively held
mythologies of the community. It was shunned.
It was kept out. It was considered enemy media.
You know, there's very much a belief in the liberal
media conspiracy with legacy media. I even had
trademarked a phrase when I was in MAGA called
the Democrat Media Industrial Complex. That's
how much I bought into the so -called liberal
media conspiracy. And then leaving MAGA, I realized
that. so much of what I considered to be the
liberal media was just your standard fair legacy
media. You know, your New York Times, your Washington
Post, your NPR, your PBS, you know, outlets that
were considered in a media to people in MAGA,
but were just, I realized, just your standard
fair media that maybe... Depending on the article
or depending on the columnist might be a little
bit left -leaning, but there was no conspiracy.
That's something that I had to painfully conclude
and come to realize. Now that you're out and
you look back and you say, now you go back and
look at Breitbart, do you think the people pushing
the material on a site like that believe the
stuff they're doing? Or do you think they are
doing it for some other purposes, whether to
just make more money? Political purposes. What's
your view now that you look back at that when
you look at those sites? You know, I struggle
with that question because the reason I do is
I often wonder if the people pushing and propagating
their content on the right wing, I often do wonder
if they believe what it is that they're saying.
You know, does a... Does a Tucker Carlson believe
what he's saying? Does Breitbart believe what
they're saying? Does a Candace Owens or a Nick
Fuentes believe what they're saying? You know,
do people at Turning Point believe what it is
that they're saying? And I feel like it's really
one of two answers, that they don't, but they've
been able to capture so many people by keeping
them aggrieved and afraid. They've told themselves
a lie so much that they come to believe it. Even
with Donald Trump himself, I've often wondered,
does he really believe a lot of what it is that
he says? I used to think that all the time and
wonder aloud about the 2020 election. I used
to think, does he really believe that the election
was stolen? And there was a time that I was convinced
he didn't believe it. Now I wonder if he does
because he just told himself that lie over and
over. And I think that MAGA media is designed
to keep people mis - and disinformed. And I think
that mis - and disinformation has reached a crisis
level within our country at a national level
of crisis proportions. And I think that it's
at... That mis - and disinformation is at a point
right now where it's very obvious that those
who are doing the dividing, it's very rewarding
and very lucrative for them. And there are incentives
to keep people polarized and divided and afraid
with that media. Yeah, and with social media,
it's easy to be nasty at people on social media,
whereas if you're out in the real world talking
to people, you know, you... You're coming across
people that are very nice people. You're dealing
with them every day. Then you can go back inside
and you sit online and you start attacking maybe
the same people that you met and were friendly
with outside. It's almost like people get caught
up in this fake world of political entertainment.
That's one of the deceptions of the right -wing
media ecosystem. And I'm not trying to say that
those who are in legacy media or left -leaning
media don't. or don't contribute to this to some
extent also. But what right -wing MAGA media
doesn't tell its audience and viewers is that
if a pro -MAGA and anti -MAGA person got together
and had an actual conversation, they would realize
that they actually agree more than they disagree.
Now, there might be disagreements about the solutions
for problems or how to get to certain outcomes.
If you just tell your audience to be afraid of
Democrats and liberals and progressives and to
fear anti -Trump Republicans and conservatives,
then you're always going to think that there's
some conspiracy against you. And it's so important
that that worldview be sold by MAGA and right
-wing media. I know that for me... I allowed
myself to get duped into the fear of believing
that anyone against me must have posed an existential
threat and it was crush your enemies or be crushed
by them. This was the kind of thinking that was
commonplace and is still prevalent throughout
MAGA. I know because I've had conversations with
people who are in MAGA. And I hear them talk
about Democrats with the KKK, you know, Demo,
Demo, KKK, Krat, and, you know, satanic worshiping
pedophiles. And it's easy to do all of that online.
It's harder to say that about someone when they're
face to face. And MAGA Media does not want people.
who are in MAGA consuming that information to
know that there's actually more agreement than
disagreement. You know, we want a safe and secure
country. We want economic opportunity. We want
good schools for our children. But if you think
that liberalism is the source of all of our personal
and political ills, then naturally you're going
to feel like they are an enemy to us. Absolutely.
So when you started stepping away, what was the
hardest thing to change? Was it the content,
the habits, the social circle? And did you replace
it with anything? Like what is it as you moved
out of it that made it successful for you to
do that? And when you left, why wasn't it enough
just to leave privately? Why did you feel you
had to renounce it publicly? You know, and I
just had a memoir that came out recently. It's
entitled One Betrayal Too Many, Why I Left MAGA.
And the visual that I give in the memoir is a
wall of bricks. And I would take one brick out,
you know, Trump's mismanagement of COVID. I would
take another one out, the 2020 election lies.
I would take out Ron DeSantis platforming anti
-vaxxers. I would take out a brick of Uvalde.
And eventually you take enough out. And the wall
just falls and collapses. I was always so unapologetically
public in my support for Trump and MAGA as this
activist and this nationalist patriotic soldier
that when I came to the conclusion that MAGA
no longer comported with my values, I just felt
I needed to go public. And I didn't think that...
Anything would happen except just experiencing
the catharsis of closing that chapter of my life
and moving on. But after I went public, I realized
that people did care. And I received one message
after another from desperate friends and family
who approached me and said, Rich, can you talk
to my mother, my brother, my sister, my kids,
my parents, my best friend? I was completely
oblivious and naive to how many relationships
had been torn asunder by this movement in communities,
in families, friendships, places of worship.
And I had to have my own reckoning of realizing
that I was complicit in helping the president
divide the country and I was culpable in amplifying
conspiracy theories. I like to paraphrase the
late, venerable Ernest Hemingway in saying that
my epiphany happened gradually and then suddenly
all at once. And there was this long, it was
a year -long road to Damascus moment where, like
Saul in the Bible, the scales fell from the eyes
because I realized that I could no longer believe
the lies that I had come to believe, and that
upon scrutiny, As much as I may have ignored
facts when I was in MAGA, once I started having
my doubts, my confusion and questioning my beliefs,
I can no longer ignore that I had been lied to
and that I had allowed myself to believe those
lies. A little bit about Donald Trump, because
obviously, in many ways, he's the key here. And
there's two things. Like one is, you know, for
outsiders to look at him, I don't see him as
this, you know, you can imagine, right? Different
people look at it a different way. What is your
take on Donald Trump and his role here? And I
think you've said in other interviews that you
think MAGA may unravel once he leaves. Tell us
a little bit about Trump and why you believe
that. You know, I think that what explains the
fealty to Trump himself amongst those in MAGA
is that Trump took right -wing politics, which
have existed for generations, and created a brand
and a community around it. You know, where people
go to the rallies and they go to events like
I used to. I used to be a donor and I used to
be a sponsor of a local well -known Trump group
when it was in existence. And there was a shared
purpose and there was a shared enemy. And Trump
created this feeling of belonging where people
who felt unseen and unheard were finally recognized
and appreciated. Because he's the titular leader
of that community, that explains the devotion
to Trump himself. But when he's off the political
scene, I don't think that MAGA will go away,
but I do think that it will slowly unravel because
you can't replace the originator of the community.
And there's a lot of talk in our political discourse
about whether it's J .D. Vance or whether it's
Marco Rubio or is it... someone else who might
be able to supplant the president as the leader.
But I don't think anyone's going to be able to.
And if it does, in fact, unravel even slowly,
then the fact is, John, that's really good news
for us because it means that there are going
to be millions of people at a crossroads. And
we have to catch people before they are inculcated
into whatever comes after MAGA, whether it's
America First or whether it's... this tech bros
technocracy that we see that's been, I think
it was under the radar for a long time. And then
in the last year or so has become more, it's
more at the forefront and more publicly visible.
So I think that when Trump is off the political
scene, we are going to see a lot of people who
are not sure what they're going to do politically.
And that's a chance for us to catch them and
give them an exit ramp. and an off -ramp and
a new destination, which is what I am and our
team is working to create Leaving MAGA as, as
that new destination and that new community for
them. Political parties in many ways used to
be sort of, you know, somewhat ideologically
driven or policy driven. And what MAGA has done
and what Trump has done is destroyed the Republican
Party that had this sort of coalescence of policies.
The policies of Meg are all over the place. Some
of them might have been radical left. Some of
them might have been radical right. Some of them
just are different. So it's going to be interesting
to see how that coalition comes together. And
if it's just one coalition or more than one for
a two -party system, it's going to be interesting
to see. But let me talk a little bit about, again,
coming out and family and how loved ones should
deal with this. I mean, what mistakes do you
think that family members make when... to try
to reach someone that's still deep in the movement.
What is the way that people who have MAGA, people
in their family, what's the best way for them
to deal with them and help them come out of MAGA?
This is what you're doing with the organization,
obviously. I just wanted to make a point when
you mentioned about the Republican Party. It
was a fantasy of ours when I was in MAGA to kill
off the GOP and make it into a MAGA party. Right.
So that has very clearly been achieved and accomplished.
You know, this is a really difficult and tough
spot for friends and family to be in right now
because they're looking at their loved ones whom
they still love, they still care about, their
friends, their family, those who are close to
them. And there's a temptation to want to write
them off as being hopeless or too far gone. But
I think that my story and some of the stories
that people can read at our website at leavingmaga
.org, other testimonials, we are living proof
that people can change. And what I would encourage
friends and family to do is something that they've
already been doing, and I know it's a big ask,
but to continue to do it, which is just to remain
patient. Because I do believe that most people
in MAGA have a red line. Yes, there are some
who will support Trump and MAGA no matter what.
But I think that most people who are in MAGA
have a line of demarcation. And I actually think
that there are many, if not most, in MAGA who
are looking around the country and they see,
they're looking and they know that something
is amiss in the nation. You know, whether it's
about... The Iran war or whether it's about defying
court orders or whether it's the tariffs or the
gutting of the federal government, the way that
ICE has operated. I think there's this burgeoning
cognitive dissonance amongst many in MAGA where
they have these these these cemented beliefs,
but their eyes are telling them that there's
something wrong. And I would really encourage
friends and family to not give up on their close
ones. When I left MAGA. I went to my longtime
friends whom I had lost touch with because I
had a second MAGA family and also because some
of my longtime friends, I knew that they were
blue Democratic voters. And I went to them and
I said, look, if you don't accept my apology,
I will understand. But I would like to apologize
for categorizing you into this group of being
an existential threat. And the fact is, John,
every one of them accepted my apology. And one
who was a mentor of mine and still is, he even
said to me, Rich, I always knew that you'd come
back. And I talk about that in my memoir about
going back to my friends. Even to this day, I
get emotional thinking about it because if they
gave up on me, I would not be here talking to
you right now. There's a good chance that Trump
had won the election in 2020. I may never have
left MAGA, you know, never say never, but there's
a better than not chance that if Trump wins in
20, that I probably don't leave MAGA. So I think
for friends and family out there, you know, it's
really important to remember that facts and policy
don't move people. People don't make decisions
that way. We make decisions on emotions and perceptions
and feelings. And for all the mythology of rugged
individualism within MAGA, the fact is that MAGA
is as emotional a group as any and is also a
highly conformist group. I mentioned earlier
about information silos. I don't think MAGA is
the only information siloed group, but I do think
it is the most info siloed group in the country.
And I know that, and I can attest to that, having
been someone who only consumed MAGA media. So
for friends and family out there, I'd also encourage
them, John, to check out our website and our
support group page and think about attending
our groups because we focus a lot on self -care.
We message that we want people, we want to relieve
people of the pressures of feeling like they
can change their loved ones because we can't
change another person. All we can do is wait
for them to change on their own because the change
has to come from the individual. Well, you've
been generous with your time and I don't want
to keep you too long, but just one question about
the organization, about how you set it up. You've
been doing it now for a little while. What are
you learning? What works? What doesn't work?
Tell us a little bit about this new step in your
life, the organization. Yeah, you know, this
is our third year. My first year, I didn't know
what the hell I was doing. My second year, I
started to get a little bit of my footing. And
right now, with it being in our third year, I
am happy to report that we have never been busier.
Our media appearances, my memoir, our fundraising,
our testimonials, we are meeting now couples
who were MAGA together who left for a variety
of different reasons. So we have never been more
active. And what I am learning is that it is
not a sign of weakness for us to change our minds.
We are working to change the stigma societally
and culturally. that changing your mind is a
weakness. It's not. It's a sign of strength.
It's a sign of evolution. It's a show of maturation.
And I'm also learning that people are forgiving
people. Most people I meet who are anti -Trump
and anti -MAGA people have welcomed us, and they've
welcomed the others who have left. And yes, like
we were saying before about the online crowd,
Sometimes I get mean comments from those on the
left, and I often get mean comments from those
who are in MAGA. But I don't think that the online
world is representative of people as a whole.
But we want to encourage people out there to
remember that it is possible for us to make a
change. And even though apologizing is not a
natural act for us, especially publicly, Apology
is how we make amends. And for us, we don't have
any ideological purity test. But the only non
-negotiable mandate that leaving MAGA has is
someone has to take accountability for their
past words, deeds, and rhetoric. Because without
leaving or without apologizing, you can't really
leave. And when I left, I became what I like
to call a born -again human being. And walked
away from an identity that was shaped on lies
and extremism and became a person who no longer
dehumanizes those with whom I disagree. Thank
you so much. You've been gracious with your time.
I really respect what you're doing. And I both
know how hard it is, but also how important it
is. So before we leave, can you tell people how
to find you and about your book and your website?
organization and social media areas? Sure, thank
you. Anyone who wants to contact us, follow our
socials, learn more information about our support
group and our memoir, you can visit us at leavingmaga
.org. We also have an entire page of testimonials
of people who left. I think that those who read
those stories will find them to be quite inspirational.
We have a diverse assortment of people who left.
So feel free to drop us a question or a comment
at leavingmaga .org. We look forward to always
hearing. And yes, we actually do check all of
our messages. Well, I will try to find your book.
Is it for sale, the book? It is. And people can
order a copy right from our memoir page on our
website. Oh, outstanding. Okay. Well, again,
Rich, so inspiring. So important. I know it's
not easy. I'm sure you get attacked from some
people who are still inside, but you're doing
really, really important work. So thank you so
much. So for our listeners, if you like what
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