Even in Kyoto

[0:00] Can we talk about that viral video of that young woman who got on here and was like, "Y'all, I'm really sorry that I voted for Trump. I'm really sorry that I was MAGA. I realize now that I was wrong"? This this video:

[0:12] [stitched video, white woman speaking to camera, with title "Official apology: I voted for Trump"]

I voted for Trump and I'm sorry. I am uneducated. I grew up in, um, public school system. I believed anything a teacher and a principal told me, and I didn't question it. And I walked in a straight line and I didn't use critical thinking skills, okay? I didn't read Project 2025, I have a disabled child, I'm a single mom of three. I believed what he said in his campaigns and I fucked up. And I'm sorry, okay?

I find the responses to that video on social media quite interesting, because on one hand you have folks who are like, I don't forgive you. And I understand that. People are angry. Trumpers did incredible damage to this country. Getting Trump and Elon Musk put in positions of power in the United States is killing millions of people, right? We know that just the cancellations to USAID are going to kill 14 million people according to a new piece out in the Lancet. Trump and Steven Miller are now freely enacting an ethnic cleansing in the United States. People have a right to be really, really angry about those things.

[1:21] I've also seen a lot of other creators who have my complexion [i.e. white -- S.] and most of them are women, who have said, "It's okay, girlfriend. We all make mistakes. We all have been hoodwinkedked in the past. Yeah, people in America are very much indoctrinated. And we forgive you. We forgive you."

[1:38] And I guess I, I disagree fundamentally with both of those takes. And here's why.

We need to give Trumpers a place to land as they are deconstructing. Maybe the Epstein files [...] [2:14] And so everybody's going to have– everybody who ends up walking away from MAGA is going to have the beginning of that journey. [...] Not everybody starts from the same baseline. I guarantee you for folks watching that woman, if you wanted to judge her, then you probably didn't start with the same level of intense indoctrination, you're probably not from the same kind of subculture that she's from. And you didn't start from the same place that she's starting at. Every journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And you've got to give her space to take that step.

[3:02] So, I, I do want to give her all of the praise for getting online with her real face and doing something that's very hard to do. She was willing to swallow her pride in a culture where we very much center the self and we're not good at taking responsibility. We are not good at eating crow. We're not good at facing the music, right? She did that. [...] She deserves all the praise for that. I don't want to in any way minimize the work, the risk that she undertook in being willing to own it and being willing to say, "I was deeply wrong." Again, especially because we live in a culture where people taking accountability is not something that we are particularly good at or used to.

[4:04] And so I very much appreciate the other creators who are saying, "Come over here with us," – Right? – "I'll be a safe landing spot for you. It is never too late to admit that you were wrong."

But I also think when we're looking at MAGA, who has caused tremendous, tremendous harm in this country, right? They have contributed to the rise of fascism. They have supported the takeover of this nation by a fascist dictator. I understand a lot of them were ignorant. They chose to be willfully ignorant. I understand a lot of them come from a background where they are taught to deny their own intuition, to subvert their own will, to listen to and unconditionally obey what an authority figure is telling them. I know that so many of these folks go to churches that are telling them that Donald Trump is God's anointed, that he has God's favor, that he is doing the Lord's work. I understand the heaviness, the intense pressure, the hard sell of the subcultures that these folks belong to, and I understand the strength of character that it takes in that context to admit that you were wrong and say, "I shouldn't have done this, and I'm sorry."

[5:11] But I would encourage all of those mostly white women creators who are telling this young woman, "It's okay, girl. We forgive you. Everybody makes mistakes": this was not a mistake. And it doesn't really matter that there were extenduating circumstances and indoctrination. Doesn't matter that somebody caused great harm without understanding the full depth and breadth of the trauma and the suffering they would inflict by supporting this regime.

I know I have brought it up many times since the election and it continues to be one of the most relevant books when we are discussing people leaving MAGA, when we are discussing people deconstructing from Trumperism, when we are discussing how it is that we fold these folks back into society, and that book is called The Sunflower by Simon Visenthal. It is an incredibly important and relevant book in these times.

The subtitle of the book is "On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness." It is a book about a young Nazi soldier who is dying and he wants to be forgiven the sins that he committed in the Holocaust. But he is asking forgiveness of somebody who is not his victim. And the question that is being posed to all kinds of faith leaders and philosophers in this book is who has the right to extend forgiveness, and what does it mean to extend forgiveness and what does it mean to ask for forgiveness?

[6:35] And I know I've said this in other videos and I just I think it's so important to continue to reiterate it when we're looking at ex-Maga. I appreciate their apology. I appreciate their contrition. I appreciate that they have realized how much harm they've caused and that they want people to know they no longer support the things that they once voted for. Really important.

But at the same time, if we are not the injured party, do we have a right to forgive? And also, there's so much more to earning forgiveness, working to be forgiven, than just saying, "I'm sorry."

[7:12] I know in evangelical Christian culture it's like if somebody says "I'm sorry", it's like, "oh, we forgive you! That's what Jesus would do!" Other religions don't view it that way. But also I personally think if somebody is truly truly sorry for what they've done, they need to work to repair the harm that they've inflicted.

If somebody voted for Donald Trump and they now realize that they were wrong, [if] they now are asking you to forgive them, they need to demonstrate changed behavior. They need to now go volunteer for a Democratic campaign in the midterms. They need to commit to evangelizing on behalf of democracy and against the fascist regime of Donald Trump to all of the people in their subculture, in their community, all of the MAGA that they know. They need to go actively work for immigrants rights. They need to contribute financially to organizations like the ACLU, to progressive Democrats in the midterms, to organizations that are engaged in mutual aid for all of the people who are suffering because of what MAGA has done.

[8:27] It takes a measure of risk to get on the internet and say, "I'm so sorry. I regret my vote for Donald Trump." Yeah. And we want to acknowledge that they have taken that risk. We want to acknowledge the work that is done. We want to acknowledge how hard it is to take that first step on that journey. Absolutely true. But at the same time, they need to put their money where their mouth is.

They need to work to repair the harm that they have done. They need to work now. They need to sacrifice now. They need to demonstrate changed behavior because at the end of the day, words are cheap. People are suffering and dying. Now, if you truly understand the ramifications of what you have supported and what you have done, you must work to fix it.

[9:10] So, to that young woman and any other person who has left MAGA, who has taken that first step on your deconstruction journey: I applaud you. That's wonderful, that's wonderful. If your conscience is eating you up? If you have loads of regrets? The best way you can work to find peace in your heart, to find peace with the people you have harmed, is to get to work – fixing it. Because there's so much work for everybody to do. Join the resistance. Yep, come join the party. Yeah, we'll take you. We are a safe landing spot. We have lots of work for you to do here.