When spouses, family and friends are in the MAGA cult

After the 2020 election, many thought it was the end of Trump -- and the end of the Trumpist cult. But it's actually grown bigger.

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Alison from Los Angeles is one of many women who called my SiriusXM program after the 2016 election to express the turmoil they’d experienced because the men in their lives were committed Trumpists.

They were among many others callers who relayed tense conflicts — some of which boiled over into angry confrontations — with parents, children, siblings, friends and co-workers who were deep in the Trump cult.

Many of these people cut off communication with the Trump loyalists in their lives, unable to have any kind of interaction that wasn’t explosive, mostly because the Trumpers can’t be reasoned with, become enraged and promote propaganda. Others found ways to cope, imperfect as they were.

I eventually interviewed Alison and other women for a piece I wrote in 2019 specifically about Democratic women married to MAGA men — a piece that received a lot of attention and connected with many more people.

GEN @GENmag

‘The Secret Lives of Democratic Women Married to MAGA Men’ Writer and radio host @MSignorile on the progressive women whose husbands are Trump supporters, and how their relationships are keeping up — or not.

gen.medium.comThe Secret Lives of Democratic Women Married to MAGA MenDonald Trump’s base of support is white men — and plenty of them have wives and girlfriends struggling to love someone they disagree with profoundly.

In Alison’s case it was her then-fiancé — the father of her twin girls — who had created chaos in their relationship as he became more immersed in the MAGA movement through the Trump years. His treatment of her was often demeaning, as he spun out lies and conspiracies. She realized there was no way they could marry, though he had to be in her life because they were parents to two children.

After the election, at the end of November, at around the same time that I posted a discussion thread here on the issue again, I connected with Alison, who reported that things had gotten a bit better.

He said he would accept [the] results of [the] election. Although he didn’t at first. He didn't watch [the] inauguration and he still thought for awhile [that] Trump was going to pull through. But at some point I was able to delete all the right wing crap off his Facebook and he stopped watching Fox. He may still occasionally watch a show here and there but we don’t talk politics at all. Nothing. He can still be a mean Trumper underneath and that's why I don't think we will have anything [together] as things slowly return to normal.

So, Alison knew they could never be together again, but there was hope that he was getting out of the cult and they could have civil interactions as things “return to normal.”

But of course things didn’t return to normal. Trump is more influential among Republicans than ever, the MAGA cult has become, well, more cultish. And now it embraces the 1/6 insurrectionists, defending their violent attack on the Capitol. In April of this year I connected with Alison again.

“The last couple times [we talked] we got into it [and] he called me a liberal/left wing cunt,” she said. “He accused me of training the girls to be nasty.”

The father of Alison’s children is as deep in the cult as he ever was. And so many other people have unfortunately found something similar happening with husbands, wives, parents, children, siblings, friends and co-workers. It’s almost like a switch dimmed the lights a bit, then went back on to full power.

A lot of people have written me in recent months asking for a discussion thread to connect with others going through the same stress. And there have been many callers to my show expressing similar sentiments.

So this is a thread for people to discuss how this has affected them and their families, friends and co-workers.

Are you experiencing something similar? Did people close to you seem to snap out of it, only to go back? Or was there never really a change at all? Maybe some of you have something hopeful to say as well — seeing someone leave the MAGA cult completely.

Please share your thoughts and experiences so others can connect.

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