For the purposes of depolarization, it’s important to understand the us-vs-them narratives that surround us. This is a talk with Rich Logis (perfectourunion.us), who describes his journey as going “from ultra-MAGA to Never-Trump.” Rich was a vocal pro-Trump activist, who’d written many political op-eds and had his own political podcast, and who switched to being very critical of Trump and MAGA in 2021. I ask Rich about the reasons he was enthusiastic about Trump: what the sources of his anger were, and why he viewed Hillary Clinton winning in 2016 as an “existential threat.” We talk about the more rational reasons driving Trump support, and why he believes most Trump voters are good people. We talk about the nature of us-vs-them conflict and how it distorts our thinking and emotions. We talk about what led to his abrupt change of mind when it came to Trump and MAGA.
Episode links:
Resources mentioned in or related to this talk:
- Rich Logis’ site Perfect Our Union
- Rich Logis’ Twitter
- Rich’s Salon articles
- Rich’s pro-Trump pieces he wrote for The Federalist
- Rich’s podcast
- Book How Reasonable Americans Could Support Trump
- Glenn Greenwald article about bad Trump/Russia reporting
- Excerpt from my book on conspiracy theories
- Podcast episode: How many Trump voters actually believe the election was rigged?
- Podcast episode: A talk with someone who believes the 2020 election was rigged
- Podcast episode: How many Americans support political violence?
TRANSCRIPT (coming soon)