In this ongoing series, Logis, a former Donald Trump supporter and founder of Perfect Our Union, answers our readers' questions about leaving the MAGA movement. Send your questions to AskRich@thefulcrum.us.
A reader asks: How can I accept into the conversation about the future of our country those who support a candidate and movement that disavows our own Constitution, does not believe in the peaceful transfer of power and proposes ending elections?
Rich responds: I understand why you — and many others — regard MAGA as anti-democratic. But as someone who spent seven years interacting with MAGA voters on a daily basis, I can attest to the fact that many of them aspire to achieve the same goals as those who oppose Donald Trump: more economic opportunity, holding the corrupt accountable, upholding our constitutional rights and more.
Trump voters sincerely believe that he and the MAGA movement are the elixir to a variety of real and perceived economic, political, social and cultural ills.
I certainly understand the impulse to shun them. I fervently believe, however, that efforts to continue perfecting our union and democracy mandate that we reach out to those in MAGA, in a non-judgmental and empathetic way, to empower them to start questioning the movement’s myths.
I also want to acknowledge that there’s nothing easy about doing this. There are several different ways to start the conversation. Rather than debating policy, you could open up a respectful back-and-forth by asking something such as:
“I recognize some of the reasons why you want another Trump presidency. Do you recognize some of the reasons why others don’t want another Trump presidency?”
They are more than likely to have thoughts about that; once they respond, you’ve created an opening for a discussion that the Trump voter might never have had. Continue to gently probe their beliefs without being confrontational.
Remember, how we challenge is key; acknowledging another’s beliefs does not mean concurrence. The purpose isn’t to polemicize; it’s to dialogue. Inquire as to what the Trump voter’s values and beliefs were before 2016; ask — but don’t demand — what it might take to change their mind; if they might be overlooking pertinent facts; if their worldview might be a bit too black-and-white for a multi-colored world. Relatability can be found here, as all of us have our own blind spots.
Again, I know none of this is easy. But please consider the possibility that most MAGA and Trump voters are good and decent people. That’s what I believe after having spent years congregating, and breaking bread, with them.
If you have friends and/or relatives who remain MAGA supporters, try to separate your respect and love for the person from your opposition to Trump. Think about your relationship with this person before Trump arrived. As a MAGA activist, I severed ties with many of those closest to me because of how they voted. When I left MAGA and apologized to them, almost all of them accepted my apology.
The relationships I have lost, and then repaired, are more loving and enriching today than before I joined MAGA; those closest to me never gave up on me, and I implore those with friends and family who remain in the thrall of MAGA not to give up on them. Over time, I anticipate that more Trump supporters will have their own remorseful epiphany about MAGA; when they do, be there to help them work through the difficult process of renouncing their deeply-held beliefs. Welcoming them back — free of judgment and aspersions — will bring an inner peace to all.
A reader asks: What or who propelled you to diversify your news and opinion sources? I have widened mine to include more conservative sources to get a broader window on issues important to me. A conservative friend that I trust influenced me.
Rich responds: Your friend is very wise! My MAGA community was tight-knit, but insulated from any media and news that rebutted or refuted our sincerely held beliefs; we treated such information as Pravda-like enemy propaganda. In future columns I’ll go into more detail about why I left MAGA, but suffice to say It took me an entire year to leave, from the summer of 2021 to the summer of 2022. I refer to it as “my year of Heaven and Hell.” Leaving MAGA was a very individualized process for me — a personal reckoning.
When I began having doubts about my support for Trump and MAGA, I experienced a surge of curiosity that led me to discover views and opinions that challenged the false and/or distorted storylines and punditry I consumed. I rekindled the voracious inquisitiveness I'd developed years earlier as a newspaper reporter. In addition to diversifying my sources – which include centrist and moderate, left-leaning and right-leaning outlets – my interest in history (especially American) dramatically increased after leaving MAGA; I came to realize how inextricably linked the past and present are.
Knowledge is liberating, and ignorance is oppressive.
A reader asks: You said you left MAGA in 2022 when you became disillusioned. I imagine you still like some things about Trump. If you were able to pick the next president, what qualities in Trump would you like him or her to have and which ones would you not?
Rich responds: Two lasting achievements of the Trump administration were: the Veterans Choice Program Extension and Improvement Act, which expanded access to medical care for our heroic servicemen and women, and Operation Warp Speed, which accelerated production and distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine – a "medical miracle," as former Vice President Mike Pence aptly described it.
Though I don't believe there is a singular foundational characteristic of a successful, positively influential leader, if I had to pick one quality it would be: genuine care for others. George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden come to mind. We entrust our elected officials with immense power; no one will ever get everything perfect and disappointments are inevitable. A leader worthy of studying and emulating is one who takes responsibility for failure (even if the leader wasn't the cause), and gives the credit to the team for wins.
I don't believe effective leaders surround themselves with unapologetic "yes” men and women, as Trump did. Important decisions that have potential ramifications for our nation, and perhaps the world, mandate a potpourri of ideas, so the leader can find a compromise that incorporates an amalgam of the best suggestions. Leaders with bold visions do not easily succumb to the temptation to scrap their entire blueprint after a temporary setback.
Ben Droz
Ben Droz
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Pinnacle Bank Expo Center on the Nebraska State Fairgrounds on October 05, 2026 in Grand Island, Nebraska.
The President Invited Iran to Bomb My Home
I was driving home to San Diego from Los Angeles on Monday night when I heard that the President of the United States had offered both cities up to Iran as bomb targets. At a rally in Nebraska, defending his war, Trump told the crowd, “let [Iran] take out Los Angeles, let ‘em take out San Diego.” It was, he said, “a very small price to pay.”
I was coming from a Bernie Sanders rally for Proposition 40, the one-time tax on California billionaires that would send 90% of its revenue to healthcare. We desperately need it to pass because, in order to give tax breaks to billionaires, Trump signed a law that will strip health coverage from 10 million Americans; this tax will make sure we can still cover Californians. Call me crazy, but I think taxing billionaires one time so we can make sure kids in California get to see a doctor is a very small price to pay. I also think that even if Trump were joking, it is indefensible to make jokes about the potential destruction of so many lives. Human life is never a small price to pay. Human life is priceless.
Plus, the reality is: here in San Diego, we’re already paying the price for Trump’s actions, and it’s not small at all. He has gutted FEMA, tried to kill climate resiliency programs, and destroyed public health standards, while his signature law is set to cut off health insurance and food support for hundreds of thousands of San Diegans. Like plenty of American cities, San Diego is already busy finding local solutions to respond to the problems this president has recklessly created.
Not to mention, at least 19 American service members have been killed in this war already. Human rights monitors have documented more than 3,600 dead in Iran by April alone. Here at home, gas is sitting just pennies below its all-time record. Taxpayers have already spent more than $45 billion on the war, while Trump’s oil and gas portfolio has grown by roughly $15.5 million this year alone. Of course anything is a “small price” to someone paying free.99 for this war, and profiting from it. Meanwhile, We the People are paying twice: first for the war, and then for the consequences of that war. But now he wants San Diego to pay a third time, flippantly offering us up to Iran.
It is worth noticing which cities he thought to name. Were San Diego and Los Angeles strategically chosen to signify something to his audience, or were they simply the first cities that came to mind as expendable places? Either way, the effect is to normalize—-and to gauge a crowd’s reaction to–the idea of massive violence in major California cities, suitable targets because of their perceived liberal lean. So what if Iran needs to bomb a little bit of America before the war can be over? Who cares, says Trump, if they target Los Angeles and San Diego?
By the way, why didn’t he offer up San Francisco, the free-love hippie-town MAGA loves to hate (and also my birthplace)? Could it be because that’s where the tech titans live? The same ones who joined Trump for Xi Jinping’s state dinner, a guest list worth a combined $2.4 trillion?
San Diego may have fewer billionaires, but it is home to more than 115,000 active-duty service members and 230,000 veterans. One in six active-duty sailors–in the entire Navy–is stationed here. So is one in four Marines. You cannot throw a rock in this county without hitting a military family: brats and spouses and veterans are among us. I got out of the Navy last year after ten years, and eight of those were here in San Diego. When Trump says “let ‘em take out San Diego,” he’s talking about the backbone of the United States military. He’s also talking about the people fighting his war.
San Diego has not been watching this war from the sidelines. Today, the USS Abraham Lincoln returns to North Island after an almost yearlong deployment to the Middle East that featured food shortages, broken toilets, and mold in the showers after 286 days at sea without a single port call. Eight sailors in the Lincoln’s strike group attempted suicide, but in August, when a reporter asked whether the deployment had gone on too long, Trump said “not nearly long enough.” Now he has told a crowd in Nebraska that we should let Iran take out the city those sailors call home. These are sociopathic sentiments.
Last week at Quantico, Pete Hegseth closed his address to the force by telling them, “President Trump has your back and so do I.” To the contrary, President Trump has put one of the biggest military towns in the country forward as a target for our adversaries. With friends like these, the “domestic” in “against all enemies, foreign and domestic” starts to sound a lot less hypothetical.
San Diego is home to Naval Air Station North Island, Naval Base San Diego, Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, the Point Loma submarine base, Camp Pendleton, and Miramar (and I have been permanently stationed at or trained at all of them). If Iran bombed San Diego and Los Angeles, aside from the devastating loss of life, it would cripple an immense share of our national security readiness.
And for what, exactly? Trump says the war is “essentially almost over with.” This is the same man who claimed in June 2025 that Iran’s nuclear program had been “obliterated,” then launched a war over it anyway on February 28. More than seven months later, he wants us to believe two things at once: that we’ve basically won, and that we might need to sacrifice an American city or two to finish winning. If the war is almost over, why does anybody need to take out San Diego?
I wonder if Trump’s endorsed candidate for California’s 48th District here in San Diego County will respond to these remarks. He recently said “no pain, no gain,” when referring to the gas prices San Diegans are paying. Jim Desmond, would you apply that same mindset if we were bombed? Or do you have the moral courage to stand up for the people you’re running to represent?
Last November, six Democratic members of Congress, all veterans, including Senator Mark Kelly, recorded a video reminding troops of their duty to disobey unlawful orders, restating the law that says so. Trump called it “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH,” and then his Justice Department went looking for an indictment, which a grand jury refused. The president treated reading the law out loud to the troops as a capital offense, but then he himself invited a foreign enemy to destroy two American cities, possibly as a punchline. Is anyone calling the latter sedition? Who is demanding accountability?
Calling our lives a small price to pay affirms a moral bankruptcy, as well as an obvious dereliction of duty to the office he holds. While we can’t impeach him or invoke the 25th Amendment ourselves, we must stop being so quiet about what we’re paying already. We can make our voices heard by calling our representatives, writing op-eds, knocking doors, phone banking, and voting in defiance of the man who threatens the safety of our city. Ballots are already arriving in mailboxes. Vote, and vote yes on 40 (and no on 41 and 42).
Trump has been harming our cities for a while, but now he is inviting our military adversaries to join him in the harm. If we have any self-respect as Americans, we must not tolerate our leaders disregarding the dignity of lives in this way. We must fight for our home.
Julie Roland was a Naval Officer for ten years, deploying to both the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf as a helicopter pilot before separating in June 2025 as a Lieutenant Commander. She has a law degree from the University of San Diego, a Master of Laws from Columbia University, and is a member of the Truman National Security Project.