By now, it’s safe to say most of us leftists have lost someone because of Donald Trump. In some cases, such as the posters on QAnonCasualties, you might have watched loving family members morph into racist, hateful, hurtful individuals. 

No other politician in modern history had as much of an ability to tear apart families like Trump. Trump is the Jim Jones of political cults. He’s gotten people to kill their family members over him. What’s scarier is that people just act like the fascist takeover is normal. 

If you’re like me, you’ve had to cut people out as a result of their support for Trump. You may have lost friends. You may have lost lovers. You may have lost aunts, uncles, siblings, or even parents because you simply can’t recognize them anymore. 

Right now, we’re starting to see a very unusual thing happen: some seriously diehard Trumpers are slowly beginning to open their eyes. It’s almost like a spell failed. They’re starting to realize they were wrong about their God-Emperor. 

I personally think the Epstein scandal might have actually started to change the conversation conservatives have about Trump. And I’m starting to see people wake up from the haze of propaganda-filled vitriol they were spewing only weeks ago.

As someone who has seen this up close and personal, it’s a bizarre thing to have happen. You’re seeing people finally get it. Finally. After doing awful things, they now are rethinking their politics. 

So, how do you handle this? If you’re a leftist, I have some advice for you.

Yes, this person voted for everything that’s happening right now. Yes, they probably said heinous things. Yes, they may have done horrific things. But, it may make your life easier if you just listen to them. 

Ask them why they chose Trump over human rights. Ask them what, specifically, made them think he was a good choice. Ask them if they ever felt embarrassed by what Trump was doing. Ask them what made them stop believing. 

Some ex-Trumpers can be worth saving. This is particularly true if they show serious remorse and are already talking about how they want to vote blue, march against ICE, or do similar things. 

Others, however, are beyond helping or maintaining connections to. This is almost always the case when it comes to people who were so deep in, they actually threatened you or got violent with you. 

Of course, every person is different. Keeping them around is a judgment call for you to make. 

Most people who lose their family members tend to pray and hope that their family will just snap out of it and return to who they once were. They want the same person they remember from years ago. 

Sorry, that’s not how cults work. 

The GOP and Trump is a cult — at least in its most recent form. Adherents to the cult basically have to agree with everything Trump and the GOP do, or they get shunned, shamed, and penalized by others in the cult. 

Here’s the thing about cult membership and cult affiliation: it permanently changes you. Cult life is traumatic. It makes you cede your identity. You lose who you were in the process of being part of a cult and some of it never comes back.

There will be a certain level of trauma they go through, both when they get indoctrinated into the cult and when they leave. While they may get back to old hobbies they forgot when they were foam-at-the-mouth Q’s, they won’t ever have the same sunny outlook they used to have.

I’ll be honest. It can take years to deconstruct from cult thinking. People struggle with deconstructing from cults for years, if not for the rest of their lives. If you would only go back to that relative if they became the exact person they used to be, you will be disappointed.

So, if you’ve decided to help a Trumpgretter deconstruct, I’ll be honest. You got your hands full. It’s not easy, nor is any type of deconstruction fully guaranteed to work.

One thing I’ve noticed on QAnonCasualties was how often people encouraged others who lost people to Q to divert their attention. There’s a good reason for this: fascism spreads through propaganda. 

A lot of the garbage online is designed to be ragebait. In other words, it’s designed and created to farm engagement through enraging other people. Many people who became brainwashed by right-wing propaganda are that way because they started to get addicted to doomscrolling. 

Getting them to stop watching propaganda outlets can help them deconstruct faster. However, getting them outside, doing things with other people, and also encouraging them to rediscover themselves works better. It gives them something rewarding to do that also gives them a taste of life.

Oh, they’re upset now that Trump took away the guys behind the great Mexican place? Oh, they’re sorry now that Trumpian policies fucked up their income or welfare? Well, that doesn’t mean much, does it? 

It just means they got sorry they got burnt by their own decisions. That kind of “regret” rings hollow — and sadly, we all know how that will play out within six months. (If you don’t know, here’s a hint: they’ll be cursing out Democrats for something while pressing R at the booth.)

If a person genuinely regrets voting for Trump and actually understands the gravity of what they did, words aren’t enough. Giving sad puppydog eyes when they realize that you’re cutting ties with them isn’t enough. Whining about actions having consequences isn’t enough. 

If the person in question is not…

…they are not remorseful. 

Actions speak louder than words. If they are not doing something to change things around, they haven’t learned. This might not be what you want to hear, but it’s the truth. 

I’m going to address the one elephant in the room that many Trumpgretters will not want to hear: they fucked our country up. If you have a Trumper or a Q in your midst, you probably heard them say some seriously vile shit.

You may have heard them say they would be okay with Trump fucking your kids. You may have heard them threaten you over Trump. You may have heard them get gleeful over you losing your rights or tell you to “cry harder.”

There are certain lines that, once crossed, can’t be uncrossed. Those lines vary from person to person. If that line has been crossed for you, then you might be better off cutting ties. 

With that said, you have to do it the right way. Otherwise, they may re-radicalize. To do this, you have to be firm about why you are not able to forgive them or why you wish to remain estranged but also commend them for changing. 

Here’s a good text if you choose to part ways with the Trumpgretter in your life: 

If you’re an elder Millennial like me, you might remember how many people were proud to vote for George W. Bush. Well, it was a strange thing that happened. Surely we can’t explain this!

After a couple of years, a lot of the people who boasted about voting him suddenly developed selective amnesia. They started to say they “never voted for him,” or they somehow magically “forgot” who they voted for. 

That was okay in 2006, I guess. 

It’s not okay now.

We can’t let them bury that. They need to take accountability and they need to understand that their votes changed history for the worse. Otherwise, they might try to go back to that same pattern — avoiding personal growth while harming others.

Here’s the thing we all forgot: the GOP cultivated politics into a marker of identity. Their voter base sees voting Republican as part of themselves, no different from how ravers see EDM as part of themselves. The GOP also marketed “others” as the enemy. 

The GOP got a lot of people to conflate being a bigot with being white, Southern, Christian, blue collar, and/or rural. Or being “country,” which I still don’t quite understand what that really means as a New Yorker/Jerseyan. 

The end result? A lot of people feel like they are betraying themselves by not voting against their own interests. They feel like they’re a bad Southerner/Christian if they don’t march in line. 

As a society, we have to rally around the idea of tough guys who stand up for civil rights, of cowboys who are pro-LGBTQIA+ rights, and of Christians who don’t back kiddie diddlers. Liberal country guys and blue collar men need their own clubs, cultures, and spaces. 

As the polar opposite of everything Republicans try to court (outside of my skin color), I can’t do much for that aside from profess my fetish for left-leaning blue-collar guys, left-leaning clean-cut fratboys, and my newfound fetish for left-leaning farmers. But if you’re a little more “in the thick of it?”

Yeah, we need you to help us figure out how to make that vibe pop. Otherwise, we’ll be doomed to deal with this shit again, and again, and again…