I cringe when I look back at many of the posts I made here some 20+ years ago. I was fully dug in and committed to the conservative agenda. I know I pushed back hard on so much of what you all were patiently trying to show me, but please know that I was also taking in what you were telling me even though it may not have appeared that way then. I'm not only embarrassed by so many of my views then but also at how long it took for me to admit I was wrong about them. It probably had to do with my pride getting in the way of accepting that I was wrong and the understanding that it was going to take a lot of work on my part to start over again—to knock it all down and rebuild it in a way that made sense—this time without the input from conservative voices/media. 

MAGA people have been given off-ramp after off-ramp but they don't take them. They're not interested. Twenty years ago, people like me could still be reached and reasoned with. I don't think we can say the same for those who continue to cling to the racism, hate, fear, and ignorance. I listened to a psychiatrist on CNN a couple of years ago talk about his 70-year-old mother who had fallen into the QAnon alternate universe. He talked about how even though he's trained to deal with people such as that, he was helpless to get his own mother to see the truth. That was a sobering interview to watch because he was saying in so many words that nothing short of a deprogramming was going to help her or others in her position break free from the madness. It became clear to me that my pleadings with family and friends were no match for whatever they were consuming from conservative media. But I continue to try.

I think the fight moves from trying to show people the peril of continuing to support conservative candidates to convincing those who are apathetic about being involved in the election process that we need them now more than ever. 80 million eligible voters chose to sit out the 2020 election and now we're dealing with some serious voter suppression targeted at minority voters. (Thank god for Marc Elias and the work that he's been doing to fight it.) That's a lot of people that we need to wake up to the authoritarianism that's knocking on our door. It's daunting. 

I still have much more to learn but I've made so much progress since the days of first engaging with you all here, and I thank you. I'm a work in progress.

Kevin g