Ron Kelley is a U.S. Army veteran who served in Operation Desert Storm, injured while serving. He is churchgoing and works for the federal government, trying to get slumlords to fix their properties.
By all accounts, Kelley, who lives outside Macon, Ga., is as American as it gets. But members of his family think otherwise because he no longer supports President Donald Trump or identifies with the Make America Great Again agenda.
“They turned vicious and they came out and attacked me,” Kelley said of his relatives. “My mother said ugly things about me, just things you never thought would happen — happened.”
Kelley joined upstart Leaving MAGA.org, a group led by Rich Logis of Parkland, Fla., that has erected billboards in 18 states, including Florida, since late May. One in West Palm Beach, not too far from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, states, “Find your new community. Welcome home.”
Trump’s MAGA movement is the most recent incarnation of populism in the United States. It is unique in its execution, scale and modern impact, historians and political scientists say.
“We wanted to reach those in MAGA who right now might be having doubts to let them know they are not alone,” Logis said. “We are here for them and they can turn to us, and they can find a new home.”
The most recent CBS News/YouGov poll found 38% of Americans approve of Trump’s job performance, up slightly from May’s poll.
Detractors say ‘Leaving MAGA’ billboards are ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’
When the New York Post wrote about the billboards, the reaction on social media from Trump supporters — none used their real name — were less than kind. They said the 2020 election was stolen and the billboards were an example of “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and probably paid for by billionaire George Soros, who supports liberal and progressive causes.
Carl Cascio, Palm Beach County chairperson for the Republican Party, wondered if Logis’ organization was picking off “America First patriots” who are upset at Trump over his war with Iran after he campaigned on the promise of no new foreign wars.
“There might have been a split,” said Cascio, who supports Trump. “Obviously, he [Trump] knows that the advice he was given wasn’t right, and he’s course corrected and I think he’s back, I hope he’s back, to the original policy he ran on for both terms.”
Can family members salvage their relationships with MAGA relatives?
Logis said his organization is as much, if not more, about giving support to family members who are navigating tricky relationships with relatives who describe themselves as MAGA. The organization holds weekly online support group meetings.
“Finding this group (Leaving Maga) has been wonderful. Everyone has been just so supportive,” Kelley said. “We can talk about our frustrations and our hopes and dreams for the future and how we can get as many as we can to leave MAGA without being so aggressive we turn people off.”
Pennsylvania mental health clinician Julianna Forlano facilitates the weekly Zoom group that draws between 30 and 60 participants. “For families, this isn’t about politics anymore,” said Forlano, who writes about concepts around the support at The Peace and the Power.com.
She recalls one Latino husband who was initially welcomed into his white in-laws’ family. Over time, the MAGA rhetoric hardened and the grandparents would show up at his children’s birthday parties and say things in front of the family, like “We should all be speaking English here. You’re not real Americans.”
Several members have posted their stories on the Leaving MAGA website. In interviews, many shared the moment they finally broke with MAGA. Kelley, who works for the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development, said his doubts started with Trump’s immigration enforcement by officers who hid their faces.
Then the president started firing public servants through his Department of Government Efficiency initiative and disparaging the work of Kelley and his co-workers. “The last straw was DOGE,” he said.
Brian Post of Appleton, Wis., said he turned to the group after trying to navigate a family deeply entrenched in MAGA. The oldest of six children, Post would host up to 30 relatives every Christmas after his parents died.
“We don’t do that anymore and that sucks,” said Post, who even offered to pay for family counseling.
Three of his siblings became COVID-19 deniers and then family get-togethers became a battlefield where he suffered constant verbal attacks from three siblings. He aimed to be of service for the Leaving MAGA organization, “to help people see and get them to learn to accept that their loved one was probably not coming back.”
Mental health clinician says MAGA’s rage and fear is the drug
In a study published by Cambridge University Press journal Perspectives on Politics, researchers Biko Koenig and Tali Mendelberg explored how the MAGA movement shifted the baseline of political participation by prioritizing identity over policy. MAGA is a grassroots movement organized around a shared perception of lost honor, declining esteem and institutional disrespect, their ethnographic study found.
“The MAGA movement blends grievance with joy, cultivating pride, belonging and celebration alongside anger at elites,” Koenig and Mendelberg wrote.
Forlano, the mental health clinician, said she teaches those who come to her online support group about disease models of addiction, drawing on her years working with families of alcoholics and addicts.
“Being constantly exposed to threat narratives functions in the mind much like the use of a dopamine-enhancing drug,” she said. “There’s a reward, there’s hyper-vigilance they’re chasing.”
Logis describes his MAGA years as a time when he became someone he no longer recognizes. “When I was in MAGA, I created a lot of tension in my household and one of the reasons I did is because of the addiction to fear and rage,” he said.
But when Republicans started trafficking in anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and talked about putting guns in schools after the shooting of 19 children in Uvalde, Texas in May 2022, he broke away. He chose his daughters, now 7 and 9, over MAGA.
Logis and Kelley said diversifying how they got their news was a big part of leaving Trump’s orbit. Logis called it “life-altering.”
Post said he is not looking for retribution, no “I told you so.” An apology from a sibling would suffice. He just wants to celebrate Christmas like he used to.
“I’d take you back in a heartbeat,” he said. “But this is like ripping skin off. It hurts.”
John Pacenti is the Government Impact Reporter for The USA TODAY NETWORK-FLORIDA. You can get all of Florida’s best content directly in your inbox each weekday day by signing up for the free newsletter, Florida TODAY, at https://palmbeachpost.com/newsletters.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Leaving MAGA cost him his family. Now he helps others through it
Reporting by John Pacenti, USA Today Network-Florida / Florida Today
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By John Pacenti, USA Today Network-Florida | USA TODAY Network
