My brother was ripe for a cult mentality. He passed away almost five years ago this coming May. However, toward the end of his life, he managed to break himself out of that MAGA mentality. I had stopped trying back in 2017. Like myself, John was an evangelical christian. He got into it during the very early 1980s. Like many little brothers, you tended to take an interest in whatever he does. And I did. Becoming an evangelical christian a little after he did at the age of 8.

Many people, including my friends, thought he was a bit of a prude. He would get uncomfortable when the group language turned salty.

I got him a job at a shoe store I worked at, after he was fired from his old job. My then-district manager, who was my age, used to love making him uncomfortable. We would be talking on the floor and he would John approaching. When he was within ear shot, he would say something like, “so I was drilling this girl in the ass.”

John would shout out, “Oh God”.

Ryan would respond with, “Oh hey, John. Didn’t see you there.”

The MAGA Cult Took Hold

During the Obama presidency, John thought he had an ally in me when I didn’t like Obama all that much. My issues were drone strikes against American citizens and his lie about the transparency for the Affordable Care Act. Which I was for until he cut a deal with the insurance companies and rose premiums on lower income people.

As you guessed it, he was a daily consumer of Fox News and the early One America News. He started to become increasingly more radical. On occasion, I would watch it to see what he was injecting into himself. I would realize just how much they viewed things from a nuanced angle just enough to trigger the race baiting but by using coded language.

One time we got into an argument over the right’s belief that the Democrats were coming to take “our guns”. I informed him that they had been using that scare tactics since I was a kid. His response was Obama was going to use an executive order to get rid of them. Of course, he won’t. Even if he did, it would be struck down as unconstitutional. The only way that could happen is if they amended the Constitution, which no one will do. Or the right bends the knee as they are doing with Trump.

John struggled for a response. “You’ll see,” he managed to utter out.

Still waiting.

The Trump – Fox News Took Hold

Jump to 2016, he voted for Trump, as no one was shocked. Even many of my close friends, who loved John were taken by his vote. His co-workers didn’t agree with it, especially his manager. By this point, we had stopped talking about politics altogether. I think deep down, he knew we weren’t as close as we used to be. When I would mention something political to a friend, I would shut the conversation down when John was within ear shot.

It bummed me out. Truly, I think it did the same for him. There was virtually nothing we couldn’t talk or debate about. This vanished after the election. We were seldom talking personally about anything.

Eventually, in 2018, his work was closing up and he was going to retire. That is when things changed. John was consuming all his information off Twitter, Facebook, and his nightly ritual of Fox after work. Now, he was home all day. He started watching the news unfold live.

John was getting annoyed that Fox wasn’t showing other news. “Trump 24/7” was getting to him. When I was walking through the living room, I noticed he was switching channels to MSNBC and CNN to hear about “other news”. Sometimes he would switch to the American version of Japan news, France 24, and the BBC.

More Things Started to Change

Another weird thing happened, he started reading his Bible more. Which one would say that was a negative, but in his case it wasn’t. Upon reading it, he started getting mad at people using scripture to push their racist ideology. When Christians were using Romans to justify putting people in cages, he would shout “that isn’t what it means.” He started watching The West Wing with me and exclaimed how much he hated Mary Marsh (if you know, you know).

One day, while I was on my laptop in my bedroom, John walked into my room. There was a certain sense of surrender on his face. Almost as if he was embarrassed to ask me something. Actually, it was more like that of a child that did something wrong and had to tell dad.

“What newscaster do you trust,” he asked.

“Huh? What do you mean,” responded, thinking I may have misheard him.

“What newscaster do you trust?” He continued, “like who do you think gives a more honest reporting of the news?’

The Fever Broke

I named a couple. Some of them were old school journalist. Some were definitely liberal, which I never considered myself as one back then. However, when MAGA kept moving the goal post, I became increasingly liberal by the virtue of standing still. He started watching Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper (who didn’t suck MAGA cock back then), and Rachel Maddow. He loved her candor.

He started asking me where I got the things I was posting. John pulled me aside and asked to help get rid of posts from far-right groups and news on Facebook and Twitter. When we changed TV providers, I told him we would lose OAN and he was okay with it. “I don’t watch that garbage anymore. But we need Hallmark, their Christmas in July is coming up.”

He moved away from Fox and OAN to watching animal videos on YouTube, watching Christmas rom-coms on Hallmark, and disaster footage from random parts of the word. We were able to talk again about politics because he grew to hate Trump. In fact, he posted something anti-Trump on his Facebook. His former manager commented that he voted for him. He replied, “I know and I regret it.”

Then 2020 Happened

I never really knew just how much he hated Trump until 2020. John asked me who I was voting for. I said either Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders, because apparently asking for a decent way of life was far-left. Curiously, I ask who he was voting for.

“Bernie!”

I was floored. Bernie Sanders, the self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist! Many of my friends were floored.

“How bad does Trump have to be to turn a hardcore conservative into a Bernie supporter?”

John was bummed that Bernie didn’t get the nomination, but he voted for Joe Biden when it mattered. In fact, he asked me to go to the store and get a cake (he was really weak at that time) to celebrate Trump out of office.

John was happy for the next four months. He passes away that May from a brain tumor.

What Broke the Fever

After witnessing what took place on January 6^th, I asked John what changed his mind? How did someone who believed everything that Fox News, Twitter, and Facebook told him, to one of the most liberal, anti-Christian fundamentalist person I know.

He was quick to rebuff the anti-Christian remark. “No, I’m a Christian,” he began. “Not a Christian fundamentalist. Not those people who pretend to but never opened the book. I’ve read my Bible and I know what it says.”

“It is about love and caring for people that can’t care for themselves,” John said, sadly. He emphatically stated that those cheering people locked in cages and storming the Capitol “were not Christians.”

What really got John into rethinking his politics was me, my friends, his friends, and who was aligning with him. He told me I was a smart “kid”. That I was smarter than him and I looked at things differently. Same with my friends. He loved my friends, but he noticed something changed when they found out he voted for Trump. Not that they “canceled him”. They just carefully chose what to talk about with him.

His co-workers never retreat in sharing their disappointment with him. But it was when he got to see how Trump acted on live, unedited television.

His Final Redemption

He would see it live and then was confounded on how Fox or OAN would edit it later on. “That’s not what happened,” he would think to himself.”

While I sat there, thinking I had nothing to do with it, I had a lot to do with it. My sister is still a Trump supporter, but we don’t talk about politics. Which is fine, but we were never that close to begin with. I know MAGA has broken families and ended friendship. In my opinion, after three elections, there is no forgiveness. What happened to me isn’t an isolated incident. I know there are people that broke out on their own.

Sometimes I think it has to do with love.

In the end, my brother’s love for me – and how close we were – had a bigger impact on him. Enough to question what he did. The greater courage that I found in all this was his ability to admit he was wrong. Strong enough to see that being a Christian doesn’t mean you have to be MAGA, or conservative. Many times when you look at them side-by-side, they are exact opposites to their viewpoints on life. While I didn’t take a proactive stance on his position, I think he knew there was one thing he couldn’t give up.

A brother’s love.