The Person I Was
In 2016 and 2020, I voted against Trump with absolute conviction. I didn't just disagree with him. I genuinely believed he was a threat to democracy, a racist, and possibly a Russian agent. I believed these things because every source I trusted told me they were true.
I'm not writing this to tell you I was wrong about everything. I'm writing this because I discovered I was wrong about some very important things, and the process of discovering that changed how I think about all political information.
The First Crack
It started with a conversation with my uncle at Thanksgiving 2024. He asked me a simple question: "Can you name one good thing Trump did as president?" I couldn't. Not one. And that bothered me, because I knew intellectually that no president does literally nothing good in four years. So why couldn't I name a single thing?
What I Found
I started looking, genuinely looking, for the first time. I found the Abraham Accords. I found the First Step Act criminal justice reform. I found historically low unemployment across every demographic. I found that NATO allies did increase their defense spending. I found Operation Warp Speed.
None of these facts made me a Trump supporter. But they made me question the narrative that everything he touched was destructive. And once I started questioning one narrative, I started questioning others.
The Hardest Part
The hardest part wasn't changing my mind. It was admitting to myself that I had been wrong. That I had dismissed legitimate information without examining it. That I had judged people I cared about for holding views that, as it turned out, were more evidence-based than my own.
Where I Am Now
I still don't agree with everything Trump says or does. But I now evaluate each claim on its own merits rather than through a filter of predetermined conclusions. And honestly, that feels like freedom.
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