It was a combination of a lot of things. In 2018 I dropped out of college and on a whim signed up for AmeriCorps. I ended up working with my local Habitat for Humanity affiliate and found myself surrounded by people from all different beliefs and backgrounds, many of whom were recent immigrants or refugees. I made new friends and ended up in a lot of left-leaning spaces which, at the time, was very uncomfortable. Through these people, I learned that those I had feared and hated were just that: people.

As the Trump presidency wore on I became more and more disillusioned with the far right and their incompetencey, while simultaneously becoming more receptive to leftwing solutions to the political anxieties that had lured me to fascism in the first place. By 2020 I was off the Trump train and ridin’ with Biden.

It has taken me years of work to pull the hooks of fascism out of my psyche, and the scars they left behind will take years longer to heal. It is an ideology devoid of love, which takes a lot of effort to relearn. I don’t know how to do the same for the millions of others who have been inducted into this cult. Years of deliberate self-reflection and dis comfortable may be too much to ask, especially without a healthy support system to fall back on.

There may be nothing we can do to stop what is happening now, but I suppose we can try. The number one thing is we need to do is offer them a way out. They are not irredeemable for having been magats and we don’t hate them. We need to show them that we’re on their side and offer real demonstrable solutions to the problems they face. We need to treat them real like human beings with legitimate worries and fears. We need to flood their spaces with leftist ideals that don’t punch down at all the “stupid racist hicks from flyover country”. As corny as it is, we need to love this movement to death, because that’s the one thing they need more than anything.

Failing that it may be time to pull out some 155.