Ex-Trump Supporters Reveal Their Breaking Points
"A few months ago, I began to dislike him because of his treatment of Zelenskyy. The Epstein files were the nail in the coffin. I want him impeached now."
—IAmABearOfficial
"I'm originally from Alabama, so I was taught to just vote Republican. So 2016 rolls around, and I do that. I never really paid attention to politics, so I didn't care about my vote. Especially in a red-dominated state. I didn't pay attention to politics til the end of 2019 and going into 2020. When COVID hit, I watched the news more closely and listened to the idiotic stuff he was saying. When he mentioned something about putting disinfectant in our bodies, I knew this wasn't the guy for our country or me. As the months and years went on, my opinions of him got worse and worse."
"Watching 75-year-old Martin Gugino being violently shoved by riot police and cracking his head on the pavement during the 2020 protests in Buffalo, NY. Then watching Trump get on Twitter, making up all sorts of lies to justify it."
"I joined the military. I grew up super conservative and carried that into adulthood. Then, being out of my hometown and among a diverse crowd and working with people from other countries, I realized that I was wrong. Empathy and compassion win over bigotry and hate."
—misterfistyersister
"Until the 2020 election, I only paid attention to voting records, policy statements, and platforms. What do I care what personality someone has, as long as they vote the way that aligns with my beliefs? It's the policies that matter, it's the bills that matter, not whether a politician is a little off-putting personally. I'm embarrassed now, but I was a Republican for far too long. I believed what the platform spoke of, and I believed the policy guidelines. I didn't pay attention to personalities or even specifics."
"It was my first time voting. I voted for him in 2016. I was slowly becoming less and less of a fan in his first term. I was solidly not for him, but also not a hater by 2018 and into 19. I started thinking of myself as an independent. But once COVID hit, I saw how he pandered so hard to his conspiracy theorist base, yet got vaccinated. It made me flip a full 180 on him and just accept that I thought he lied, pandered, and did whatever he could to gain votes. He'd flip-flop on subjects based on how he thought which decision would make him more popular with his base."
"Meeting a trans woman in real life. I was horrifically indoctrinated into the alt-right from discovering 4chan at 8 years old and didn't leave until 24. Narcissism became my coping mechanism, like all the other hurt children in adult bodies I hung out with. We were better than everyone who wasn't us, and anyone who didn't agree or fall in line was devalued and attacked. My friends would post pics of trans people we found online to make fun of together as nightly bonding. The left were hysterical, blue-haired, daddy issues, no friends, etc. It was all just projection from all of us. We couldn't make friends any other way, so we made friends through hate."
"In 2018, after voting for Trump and descending into alcoholism, I met a person in a game who I just vibed with. They turned out to be a trans woman later in our friendship, and I was so surprised by the reveal. More importantly, I was surprised at how awful my friends started treating me for continuing to talk to her. Eventually, I found myself defending her and pushing back on my friends.Over the years, I cut contact with every one of them, flew across the world to date her for a few months, and returned to find the shambles of a human being: myself. I'm sober, through years of therapy, and walking on a beautiful path of discovery and the possibility of genuine human connection again. All thanks to someone I was told to hate.Now, I just view the far right and MAGA as I view my past self. Hurt people desperate for connection, doing the wrong thing to get it."—Bailables
"Back at the start of college, I liked the idea of 'draining the swamp' and getting a businessman and non-politician into government. Unfortunately, you can't run the country like a business. It's not meant to make a profit; it's not supposed to be transactional. We do this, you do that."
"I've realized that he is not in line with God's teachings regarding how to view immigrants and the poor."
"Oh boy... I'd say my girlfriend had a big part in it, but specifically Tim Pool. Like many Republicans I know, I got my political info from rage-bait YouTubers and Facebook memes. I'd get riled up and say stupid shit, and she would listen, and then start to ask questions, and we'd look up the issue and discuss, and more often than not, I'd admit I was wrong and eat a nice helping of crow. That being said, the single event that made me go 'wait a fucking minute...that doesn't sound right at all' was the New York Attorney General fraud case against Trump."
"I was all aboard the 'he's being politically persecuted' angle being pumped out by traitors. I was listening to Tim Pool rage on the 'woke, liberal left' and this AG case, and he was, as many of them do, explaining to his audience about how the case wasn't fraud. And then he brought up on air the Zillow value of Mar-a-Lago to prove a point.I'm a numbers guy. I work in engineering for commercial and residential construction. A billion+ vs. $26m is a 'yuge' difference. The value stated was so absurd, I stopped what I was doing to look it up. Then, I compared it to the surrounding properties. Then I read through the indictment. Then I looked up the history of the place, Trump, and how exactly they tax access properties in Palm Beach, I believe. The numbers don't lie. I understood without digging too long why the property was actually valued so low and why he was charged with fraud.This, of course, led me to ask, 'What else am I being bullshitted about?' And I deep dove into all his trials, what actually happened on January 6, the fake electors scheme, his history of being an anthropomorphic shit stain, etc. Yes, I feel like an asshat for supporting him. In fact, Harris was the first political campaign I ever donated to. I've also tried to talk to some family, friends, and co-workers, but they are so far up Fox News' ass they couldn't hear me if they wanted to. I'm the un-American traitor now. It's disappointing."—Truxxis
"At a terrifying time, when what we truly needed was empathy and unity, I saw the guy I'd proudly voted for in '16 do the opposite of everything my morals stood for. Every day, I watched him bitch and complain about everyone who disagreed with him. Then the BLM George Floyd protests started. The demonization of anyone standing up for civil rights and change was too much. And the final straw was when he had his goons tear-gassed peaceful American protesters, so he could pose for his stupid photo shoot, cemented it."
"I voted for him because I definitely didn't want Hillary. I wanted an outsider to come in and drain the swamp. It became pretty clear not long into his first term that he wasn't going to drain the swamp. He also chewed through some people I respect highly (Generals Mattis and Kelly, among others) and was extremely disrespectful towards them, which I had a problem with. While it was chaotic, it was entertaining, but I knew pretty quickly he was not a good leader. The events of J6 to me were surreal and really opened my eyes up to what a bag of shit he was."
"The barbaric actions of ICE agents rounding up and deporting people of color. A large portion of the workforce is immigrants who are honest, hardworking people. Some of the people being detained are US citizens, but they don't ask for proof of citizenship. It's just detain first, ask questions later. When he said he was going after criminals, I was hoping for violent gang members like Tren de Aragua. He also mentioned tighter border policies, and I was hoping it would reduce the flow of fentanyl into this country. I wanted a safer border and country, not the deportation of immigrants who haven't done anything wrong."
—killerzf9
"I was suppressing my homosexuality my entire life up until I was about 21, which would've been 2018. I liked Trump and was loud about liking Trump, I think in part, to hide any suspicion from anybody (maybe even myself?). Weirdly, my family was not Republican. I was the only loudmouth in the family, and they just tolerated me. After several years of loneliness, I bravely explored the community I was by nature chosen to belong to and found out I wasn't a monster after all. I am now married to a man and have angrily rejected the divisive and harmful bullshit Republicans spew. Give your loudmouth Republican teenager some time. They may be dealing with what I was dealing with."
"As an independent, I leaned more conservative, so I usually voted Republican. (But not always. I stumped and voted for Obama.) I was really on the fence in 2016, but I was so upset with Clinton and her handling of Benghazi that I just couldn't bring myself to vote for her. Most of my family was voting for T., so I went along. I regretted that choice."
"I just matured, honestly. I had a kid and started thinking more about the world I wanted for him. Watched my wife go through a pregnancy, which gave me a deeper insight into women's healthcare and its importance. Realized a lot of previously held beliefs didn't reconcile with reality. The only thing I'm right-wing on now is strong second amendment rights, everything else is left."
—T0KEN_0F_SLEEP
"When he said, 'I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters.' I laughed when I first heard it. Then I realized… he wasn't joking. That was the moment I stopped laughing."
"I genuinely didn't like the overstepping of political correctness. Then he stacked the Supreme Court, and we witnessed the overturning of Roe v Wade. That's when I realized the man is a pawn in a larger crusade, and they have the upper hand. That's when I got genuinely afraid. Don't get me wrong, I quickly saw how much of an A-hole he was, but it was all water under the bridge until major, life-changing things happened even before he was back in office. Now he threatens my life and everything I want out of this life (to do my science). That fear has turned into rage."
"I went to one of his rallies. Seriously, I was a moderate republican for DECADES, and I went to one of his rallies in Ohio and actually heard him talk unedited for the first time. He's kind of funny, and REALLY gone mentally. Like rambling incoherence gone. I'd been watching Fox, so I just figured the left was whining about nothing, then I was like... Oh. he crazy."
"The parking lot was even worse. I'm used to a few people at a rally who are conservative with views I don't align with, which is a polite way of saying there are typically a handful of white supremacists at any republican event. That's 'fine' in the sense that I'm not going to tell you how to live your life even if I disagree with it. At the trump rally, there were way more than a few. It was borderline lots. I got handed three different pieces of material with obvious Nazi stuff on it because I 'look like I'd appreciate it.'So that stopped my support for Trump. That got me out of the bubble, and I really started seeing the absolute level of BS the right puts up with constantly. J6 stopped my support for all Republicans forever, as I consider the brand to be fundamentally flawed. During COVID, my church really supported some right-wing stuff, and about 20 people died, mostly old people, of course, so the church started... blaming the democrats. In Ohio. In 2020. So after J6, I left the Republican party and haven't looked back. I'm disgusted with both my senators and my representative. They are all slimeballs, and I have no respect for any of them."—tosser1579
"In 2016, I was a college student surrounded by mostly well-off conservative friends. We were taught that things needed to change in American politics (I still believe that, but not in the way I once did). We loved that he was less of a politician, less guarded with his words, and really seemed motivated to make changes. We also didn't really think he would win. Personally, I was generally closer to the center politically. I could agree with some things Democrats said, but I also wasn't very politically minded and mostly listened to the discussions my friends were having as my primary source for political news."
"I'm Canadian, and honestly, I did like Trump during the first half of his first term. There was something refreshing about how he called out corruption overall, especially when he said he knows there are big tax loopholes and corruption, and pointed out that Hillary said she is against corruption while just enriching herself and her inner circle. But the irony didn't take long to hit. As time went on, it became clear he wasn't draining the swamp — he was just redirecting the flow to himself and his own circle of elites. That hypocrisy was the first crack."
"Mocking that disabled reporter was the last straw for me."
—JPBeanArch
"I preferred Trump over Clinton in 2016, but for me, it was the Helsinki Summit. His secret meeting with Putin, where nobody was allowed in, and all notes were destroyed. And the groveling and sucking up he was doing was embarrassing to see from an American President. Basically, everything after that, I just saw him for what he is."
"For me, it was rather simple. I started to see his BS rhetoric as just that. Everything he did was the best it had ever been done. No, it wasn't. He'd double down on shit. My elderly mother-in-law does the same when called out on stupid shit (not politically related). Then he started vilifying everyone who disagreed with him in public. It made me cringe when he spoke for Americans because I didn't feel that way. The way he demeaned people was the last straw. I would say I'm still conservative, but as long as MAGA represents the face of conservatism, I will have nothing to do with it."
And finally, "Pretty much anything he did this whole year."
—sarcastic_fish_69
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