January 12, 2025 • 24 mins
Courtney Rae, a former MAGA voter from Michigan, broke the spell of MAGA lies and deceit, and is encouraging others in the MAGA community to do the same.
To view our conversation at the MeidasTouch Network, please visit the below link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnphM4KCjbM&list=PLX_rWdQSOcZMOcyZZwdVhJAfL5NGGoCKK&index=15
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm Courtney and I left MAGA.
(00:02):
Hey everybody. Rich coming to you here with Leaving MAGA at
Leaving MAGA.org with our latest Midas Touch Network video.
Got a brand new testimonial for you today.
Really courageous lady who left MAGA.
Her name is Courtney Ray. I want to bring her in here.
Hi. Hey, Courtney.
How's it going? Hey, welcome. Welcome so much.
(00:22):
Thank you for for being here with us.
You know, I just want to say first,
welcome to the Midas Touch Network community.
I know you've done a couple of videos elsewhere, but this one here,
this is this one's going to be the most viewed.
So no pressure. OK, no, no pressure on you here.
But you've been telling your story and I want you to talk a little bit
(00:46):
about your your upbringing and how you feel like that may have.
Prepared you in some way
for why you gravitated to the MAGA movement in the community?
Yeah, that's a good question.
So I grew up in a pretty
suburban Michigan town and it was fairly affluent.
(01:10):
And I grew up in a religious type of family ish.
So it's interesting because my mom was raised like Greek Orthodox.
My dad was raised Catholic, but he wasn't practicing.
But I did go to a Catholic school, a high school.
And although I was fortunate, the high school that I went to
was pretty progressive for a Catholic school.
(01:32):
But I was very ingrained from early on into religion and into how can I say,
like there was a lot of internal misogyny
that I was exposed to early on in my life to no fault of my parents.
I think it's a big generational thing where I, you know, my parents are boomers
(01:56):
and they had no offense to anybody out there,
but they had a very rigid stance of, you know, men.
Women get their approval from men.
Right. And your worthiness as a and this was never an overt lesson
that they taught me ever. So I want to make that clear.
They never sat me down and said that it was just
(02:18):
how it was reinforced, how they moved, how they spoke.
I always gravitated to doing well with male teachers.
I wanted their approval and I get positive reinforcement for that.
And when I went to college, I was hired by a very prominent family that as a nanny.
(02:42):
And I also worked at a lot of the bars that they worked at or they owned.
And they were really they became my surrogate parents almost.
And they were very Republican.
To back up real quick, my parents never told me how they voted.
They never told me their affiliation at all.
They alluded to it.
There was a lot of talk about immigration and frustration in that arena,
(03:09):
especially considering the area that I live in has very high,
very high a Muslim population as well as Chaldean population.
And there was times that my parents would say things that were very ignorant
around that, you know, feeling like they were becoming the minority, et cetera.
So then when I graduated, moved off and I became this nanny to this family,
(03:35):
they were wonderful.
And that was right before the Obama McCain election.
And I had never voted before.
I was like 19 years old and I remember them asking me, hey, who are you voting for?
And I said, I don't know. I know nothing about politics.
I don't care. And he said, well, do you want to learn?
Because it's kind of important.
And they sat me down and they sort of taught me everything they knew about politics.
(03:56):
And they were very Republican.
I will say there is a difference.
I feel like the McCain Republican and the Trump Republican,
because they're not even Republican.
They're MAGA.
But that was my toe into the realm of being Republican.
And I vividly remember them telling me that when you're young, you have a big heart.
(04:20):
So you're liberal.
And when you're older, you have a big brain.
And so you're conservative.
And I remember saying, well, can't I be both?
And they said, no.
And ever since then, I had this like superiority complex
because all of my friends, all of my peers were so excited about Obama.
(04:40):
They were so excited to vote for him.
They were excited when they won.
And there was this like collective effervescence of victory.
And I was not a part of that.
And weirdly, that made me feel special.
I felt different.
I remember criticizing Obama or not about Michelle Obama saying things like,
(05:02):
oh, she plays the race card too much.
I don't think I ever even heard her say a speech.
I was just regurgitating things that my employers would say
because I felt like I was in this elite community of people who were richer than me,
smarter than me, more successful than me, and that I was part of that.
(05:23):
So by aligning with their values and their beliefs.
And again, getting their approval, I was part of that like club, if you will.
Thank you for sharing that.
So here's what I'm hearing, and I'm going to read something for a moment
as part of your testimonial, which everyone could find at our site at weavingmaga.org.
(05:44):
You know, religion, organized religion,
feeling like maybe you had some inside track or or some specific knowledge
or information, I think these are all.
It makes sense why to hear that from the communal aspect,
because all of us need that community existence,
(06:05):
that it essentially set you up well for.
The entree into MAGA, so I want to I want to read something here.
And this is again, it's a testimonial that people can find at our site,
weavingmaga.org.
It really goes into detail about Courtney's
story here, so think of it as something complementary to our conversation here.
(06:27):
So you wrote Trump was the perfect candidate for me.
I thought he was this incredible person.
Everything I admired.
I loved how he spoke.
I loved his whole spiel about draining the swamp.
He was so masterful at painting a picture of a corrupt government,
of a system in which everything was going wrong.
And he was the one who was going to fix it.
(06:48):
Trump created the feeling that you were part of something bigger,
something that nobody else saw.
I love feeling like he was going to save us all.
I was MAGA all the way.
That's something that you could have applied to my life.
You know, you know, like my my own,
my own attraction to MAGA and why I found it so enticing.
(07:12):
So once you once you get into that community,
tell me what life is like for you at that point for the next several years.
So when he announced his candidacy and I,
I was in a partnership with somebody that was very much about he loved Donald Trump.
Because again, at this point, I was Republican and none of my peers
(07:37):
were Republican except for the men that I dated.
And I mean, the online dated and it put in there.
If you were Republican or Democrat, so I would attract these people
and I would get feedback like, oh, wow, it's so nice and refreshing
to see like a Republican girl and blah, blah, blah.
So when he got his candidacy
and he started talking about Hillary Clinton
(08:02):
and how corrupt she was and how could we possibly have a criminal running
I can't even say it with a straight face anymore because it's so ironic,
running our government, running our country.
Oh, but the emails I didn't even when I tell you that I didn't even know
what the emails even meant.
I remember asking to telling somebody about Benghazi.
(08:26):
I said, well, what about Benghazi? How how could you ignore that?
Thankfully, they didn't ask me to elaborate on that
because I didn't even know what that really meant.
I never.
Even considered digging in to these things that I was talking about
or the reasons it wasn't it was that he was so charismatic
(08:47):
and the things that he said, but what he was so brilliant of was
painting a picture that everyone else was so evil and corrupt
and he was the only person that could save us.
And I didn't I didn't even consider digging into any of that.
And I was so shocked.
I didn't even consider digging into any of that.
And I would regurgitate things that people I respected would say.
(09:11):
And I went to I loved the whole QAnon stuff.
Like when that started happening, that was very seductive to me.
And then it got it got too much for me, but we can get into that in a little bit.
But yeah, it was just that.
It was just feeling like I was in the know
(09:32):
that everyone else was not.
And it feels like you're in a movie a little bit.
It feels romantic in a way like.
It makes life more interesting, I think it makes things more important
when you feel like you're a part of something a little bit bigger,
if that makes sense.
No, it makes perfect sense.
(09:52):
And thank you for your candor in that right before we came on.
We were talking about the Truman Show and, you know, and I don't know, I guess
for me, there are some parallels
about feeling again, like you're you've got some inside track
to some information. Yeah.
You know, and you mentioned also in our testimonial again,
(10:16):
your testimonial that everyone could find at our site, leavingmaga.org.
Talk to us about what you remember about when your
your doubts started to commence, because it had to do with
conspiracy theories at the time.
That's right. That started to get you on a pathway of questioning
your support and wondering
(10:40):
if being in the MAGA community reflected who it turned out you actually were.
So talk to us a little bit about what you remember, about when
everything started to shift for you and around when that was.
Yeah. So about that, about conspiracy theories.
For context, if I had known who like Joe Rogan was, for example,
(11:03):
back then, you know, 2016, 17, I probably would have been all about that
because it's like I had this veil on and I was seeing everything through.
A conspiracy theory lens.
And I I believed and I still believe to an extent
that the government is and and the leadership
(11:26):
are corrupt in a lot of different ways.
And I don't think that is exclusive just to Republican or Democrat.
I think that there is bad apples in every single basket,
not just the two of those.
And I think that's a much bigger issue regarding like
oligarchs and capitalism and that rabbit hole.
But I was siphoning that into the wrong bucket.
(11:51):
I was so focused on the Democrats being bad.
I fell into this rabbit hole of.
And I don't I'm so used to talking on like TikTok lives.
I'm like censoring what I say, because I don't I don't know
if there's things that I can't say or not.
But like the whole like trafficking and the Jeffrey Epstein
(12:12):
connections with the Clintons and Hillary, all of that.
And I really got into.
It's hard. I'm sorry.
It's hard for me to explain it concisely.
I just really believed at that time that there were some really bad stuff
going on with the Hollywood elites and the New World Order.
And then I was talking to my aunt who is very MAGA about the New World Order.
(12:38):
And this is somebody I respect greatly.
And she was explaining things to me.
And I was like, oh, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
And she was explaining things to me and talking to me about Pizza Gate.
And I don't know if you know what that is or remember that.
But it was essentially a pizzeria.
I believe it was in D.C.
(12:58):
And evidently, they were running a human trafficking ring out of there.
And in the basement, they were drinking children's blood
and they were doing all kinds of wild stuff.
And that was the first moment I thought.
Wait a minute, this doesn't sound right.
And I remember going home and researching the Holocaust
(13:20):
because I remembered learning about Germany
and the mustache man saying the same exact stuff.
And I'm like, what is going on here?
And that was the first thing that kind of got my...
It was me being educated on history, honestly.
It was the first time I was like, wait a second, this sounds familiar to me.
(13:41):
And then I kind of went deeper and she started sending me articles
about Wayfair and children being smuggled or no,
trafficking with the company of Wayfair.
Like they would name big cabinets, like children's names.
And it was this whole...
And I just remember being like, this is not OK.
(14:04):
This is not true.
And that was sort of the point in time where my blinders started coming off.
And I thought, how are...
And these are the people I'm aligning with and they believe it.
And they believe it with their whole heart.
And there's something weird about this.
So how long was that process, though?
(14:25):
Because for me, I always talk about how when I started to have
a little bit of suspicion about the honesty of the movement,
what I did is I diversified my news and information sources.
(14:45):
And once I did that, I started realizing that a lot of what I believed was just inaccurate.
It was verifiably false and wrong.
But it took me an entire year to come to this final decision of leaving
because I was going to walk away from a community, from a second family.
(15:06):
And then you realize your grave mistake and you think all of what I believe,
not one or two beliefs, but years of beliefs that accumulated.
I thought I was...
It's not that I thought I knew it.
I came to this...
There was this epiphany gradually and then suddenly all at once.
Is that...
Was that your experience when you finally...
(15:30):
Around what time was it in your life in terms of year,
period of time that you remember thinking,
okay, officially I'm leaving, I'm out?
Well, I know exactly when that was.
January 6th was the official, official, like I can't align myself with this.
But it started prior to that.
(15:51):
I think COVID was a really unique time period for me because I was in quarantine
and my boyfriend who I lived with at the time was apathetic politically.
He was the first person I had ever dated.
And again, going back to the whole men for approval thing,
I always dated men that...
(16:14):
My whole identity was before then who I dated.
And this person, God bless him, he's not a very good person,
but I love him in the fact that he was apathetic.
And he gave me the space during COVID to make my own decisions
without being infiltrated by other people.
We were in quarantine.
(16:36):
We had the news on all the time because of COVID.
So I loved Trump still, but after I had voted for him,
he kind of just became in my periphery.
I didn't pay much attention to him until COVID happened.
And then he's on my screen all the time.
And I am talking to my family members, most of which were MAGA.
(17:00):
And so here I am getting bogus and crazy conspiracy theories.
And then I'm seeing the guy that they follow on TV
telling people to inject disinfectant in themselves.
And I'm watching how he's mocking people for wearing masks.
One of the most profound moments was talking to my partner at the time,
(17:20):
his parents who are MAGA.
And they were saying, oh, did you see Biden's rally?
He has nobody.
No one is at his rallies at all.
And Trump, he has thousands of people.
And I remember seeing Miss Ma'am, his mom's name.
It's a pandemic.
(17:40):
Biden is doing the right thing.
He's encouraging people to not be around each other.
And Trump is encouraging people to make his rally numbers huge.
Who gives a crap about American health and safety right here?
And that was, as I remember, as I was speaking, I'm like, wait a minute,
am I a Biden supporter right now?
(18:00):
It was this weird moment for me.
And I never liked Biden, but that was the first moment I was like, wait a second.
I might be on the other side of history at this point.
Well, it does, for those who are watching this, you know, I think sometimes there's
there's a maybe a misconception that everyone wants it to be the case where someone thinks,
(18:27):
OK, I'm mistaken, I'm wrong.
That's it. I'm leaving.
But it and I don't mean to make this sound like a competition, but anyone who was really
in the community doesn't just get up and leave on the spot, even if they're starting to feel like,
I'm not sure this represents and reflects who I am.
And, you know, you may have seen and for those out there who didn't see it again,
(18:51):
they can find out our site, leavingmaga.org.
I had a video testimonial that aired night one at the DNC.
And it was this it was this vignette, very brief.
But in there, I talked about how the way that he mismanaged covid was really one of the
the primary catalysts for me to eventually put me on my road to Damascus moment with the
(19:16):
scales falling from my eyes and eventually leaving.
And I hear that in your story.
Right. I'm hearing that in what you're saying.
And speaking of that, something I want to ask you here as a wrap up, and I want you to to
really address in particular those who would see this, who are still in the community,
(19:37):
but maybe they're having their own doubts.
Why do you feel it's important for you to publicly tell your story like this?
Have you ever seen the movie Meet the Crudes?
I need to now I need to see it because I haven't.
It's a it's a kid's movie.
But the Cliff Note version is that it's about cave people and there's a family and the dad
(19:59):
is wanting to protect the family.
There was a big cataclysmic event.
They are safe in their cave.
They've got food, not on water, all of that every now and then they can leave the cave,
but they have to go back to their home.
Every now and then they can leave the cave, but they have to come straight out because
outside the cave is dangerous.
And this is this is family.
This is all you need.
(20:21):
And of course, the rebellious rebellious daughter goes outside of the cave and says, well,
it is kind of scary out there, but it's also really beautiful.
And the whole movie is about them coming out of the cave.
And in my in my opinion, Magda is that cave and people in it.
(20:41):
Like to remind you that you're safe there and that everyone feels the same way that
you do.
And we are all in this cave together and look, it's great.
It's cozy.
It's comfy.
We have everything that we need and out there are bad people and it's scary.
But I want people to realize that it is OK to look beyond what you know to be true.
(21:08):
The coolest thing that I ever did when I was leaving Magda was being consistently proved
wrong about my beliefs, because that means that I was getting smarter and I was gaining
knowledge and culture.
And that's that's viral.
You can go down those rabbit holes all day long, too.
(21:30):
And the biggest thing is just be discerning.
And it is OK to be wrong.
It is OK to have new experiences and it's OK to leave your dang caves and go.
You can go back if you really want to.
It's always going to be there.
But like, check it out.
I think when so when I founded our organization, leaving Magda, one of the.
(21:55):
Amongst many, one of the goals we had was to destigmatize changing one's mind.
Because societally, there's not a lot of incentive to do it.
Great point.
You're ostracized, you're judged, and especially just like you've been so astutely pointing out
today that there are real pressures in staying in a community where you're welcomed and you're
(22:20):
respected and appreciated and validated.
I was a right wing pundit.
I had bylines and Fox and a lot of other sites that are trafficked by the millions.
Every single month, I spoke at groups.
I was a sponsor.
You know, I had a professionally produced podcast.
Like, I wasn't just this wasn't just like a hobby for me.
You know, it was my second.
(22:41):
Yeah, like I, you know, so much so that that I I had all of the hats.
I may not have wore them publicly, but I had all of them.
And now I have one that says I left.
So you're I just want to thank you for.
Being a strong and intrepid woman who is a very, very, very, very, very, very, very,
who broke the spell.
(23:02):
The way I look at it is there's there is a certain enchantment that's understandable
about being in that community and you you broke that you were able to find a way out of it.
And so I just in wrapping up and in closing here, I just want to welcome you
(23:23):
to the Leaving Magga community.
I want to welcome you to the Midas Touch Network community as well.
And as I always like to sign off, I'm Rich and I left Magga.
And I'm Courtney and I left Magga.
I'm honored to be here.
Thank you so much.
It's our honor to have you with us.
Really appreciate you being with us today, Courtney.
(23:45):
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Hey, guys, if you like this video, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any
Midas Touch Network videos from us here at Leaving Magga.
Have you left Magga or are you having doubts about your support?
Or do you have a friend or a relative who is still in the Magga community?
We want to hear from you.
Make sure you reach out to us at LeavingMagga.org.
(24:07):
And thanks so much for watching.
Love this video.
Make sure you stay up to date on the latest breaking news and all things Midas
by signing up to the Midas Touch newsletter at MidasTouch.com slash newsletter.
I'm Courtney and I left MAGA.
(00:02):
Hey everybody. Rich coming to you here with Leaving MAGA at
Leaving MAGA.org with our latest Midas Touch Network video.
Got a brand new testimonial for you today.
Really courageous lady who left MAGA.
Her name is Courtney Ray. I want to bring her in here.
Hi. Hey, Courtney.
How's it going? Hey, welcome. Welcome so much.
(00:22):
Thank you for for being here with us.
You know, I just want to say first,
welcome to the Midas Touch Network community.
I know you've done a couple of videos elsewhere, but this one here,
this is this one's going to be the most viewed.
So no pressure. OK, no, no pressure on you here.
But you've been telling your story and I want you to talk a little bit
(00:46):
about your your upbringing and how you feel like that may have.
Prepared you in some way
for why you gravitated to the MAGA movement in the community?
Yeah, that's a good question.
So I grew up in a pretty
suburban Michigan town and it was fairly affluent.
(01:10):
And I grew up in a religious type of family ish.
So it's interesting because my mom was raised like Greek Orthodox.
My dad was raised Catholic, but he wasn't practicing.
But I did go to a Catholic school, a high school.
And although I was fortunate, the high school that I went to
was pretty progressive for a Catholic school.
(01:32):
But I was very ingrained from early on into religion and into how can I say,
like there was a lot of internal misogyny
that I was exposed to early on in my life to no fault of my parents.
I think it's a big generational thing where I, you know, my parents are boomers
(01:56):
and they had no offense to anybody out there,
but they had a very rigid stance of, you know, men.
Women get their approval from men.
Right. And your worthiness as a and this was never an overt lesson
that they taught me ever. So I want to make that clear.
They never sat me down and said that it was just
(02:18):
how it was reinforced, how they moved, how they spoke.
I always gravitated to doing well with male teachers.
I wanted their approval and I get positive reinforcement for that.
And when I went to college, I was hired by a very prominent family that as a nanny.
(02:42):
And I also worked at a lot of the bars that they worked at or they owned.
And they were really they became my surrogate parents almost.
And they were very Republican.
To back up real quick, my parents never told me how they voted.
They never told me their affiliation at all.
They alluded to it.
There was a lot of talk about immigration and frustration in that arena,
(03:09):
especially considering the area that I live in has very high,
very high a Muslim population as well as Chaldean population.
And there was times that my parents would say things that were very ignorant
around that, you know, feeling like they were becoming the minority, et cetera.
So then when I graduated, moved off and I became this nanny to this family,
(03:35):
they were wonderful.
And that was right before the Obama McCain election.
And I had never voted before.
I was like 19 years old and I remember them asking me, hey, who are you voting for?
And I said, I don't know. I know nothing about politics.
I don't care. And he said, well, do you want to learn?
Because it's kind of important.
And they sat me down and they sort of taught me everything they knew about politics.
(03:56):
And they were very Republican.
I will say there is a difference.
I feel like the McCain Republican and the Trump Republican,
because they're not even Republican.
They're MAGA.
But that was my toe into the realm of being Republican.
And I vividly remember them telling me that when you're young, you have a big heart.
(04:20):
So you're liberal.
And when you're older, you have a big brain.
And so you're conservative.
And I remember saying, well, can't I be both?
And they said, no.
And ever since then, I had this like superiority complex
because all of my friends, all of my peers were so excited about Obama.
(04:40):
They were so excited to vote for him.
They were excited when they won.
And there was this like collective effervescence of victory.
And I was not a part of that.
And weirdly, that made me feel special.
I felt different.
I remember criticizing Obama or not about Michelle Obama saying things like,
(05:02):
oh, she plays the race card too much.
I don't think I ever even heard her say a speech.
I was just regurgitating things that my employers would say
because I felt like I was in this elite community of people who were richer than me,
smarter than me, more successful than me, and that I was part of that.
(05:23):
So by aligning with their values and their beliefs.
And again, getting their approval, I was part of that like club, if you will.
Thank you for sharing that.
So here's what I'm hearing, and I'm going to read something for a moment
as part of your testimonial, which everyone could find at our site at weavingmaga.org.
(05:44):
You know, religion, organized religion,
feeling like maybe you had some inside track or or some specific knowledge
or information, I think these are all.
It makes sense why to hear that from the communal aspect,
because all of us need that community existence,
(06:05):
that it essentially set you up well for.
The entree into MAGA, so I want to I want to read something here.
And this is again, it's a testimonial that people can find at our site,
weavingmaga.org.
It really goes into detail about Courtney's
story here, so think of it as something complementary to our conversation here.
(06:27):
So you wrote Trump was the perfect candidate for me.
I thought he was this incredible person.
Everything I admired.
I loved how he spoke.
I loved his whole spiel about draining the swamp.
He was so masterful at painting a picture of a corrupt government,
of a system in which everything was going wrong.
And he was the one who was going to fix it.
(06:48):
Trump created the feeling that you were part of something bigger,
something that nobody else saw.
I love feeling like he was going to save us all.
I was MAGA all the way.
That's something that you could have applied to my life.
You know, you know, like my my own,
my own attraction to MAGA and why I found it so enticing.
(07:12):
So once you once you get into that community,
tell me what life is like for you at that point for the next several years.
So when he announced his candidacy and I,
I was in a partnership with somebody that was very much about he loved Donald Trump.
Because again, at this point, I was Republican and none of my peers
(07:37):
were Republican except for the men that I dated.
And I mean, the online dated and it put in there.
If you were Republican or Democrat, so I would attract these people
and I would get feedback like, oh, wow, it's so nice and refreshing
to see like a Republican girl and blah, blah, blah.
So when he got his candidacy
and he started talking about Hillary Clinton
(08:02):
and how corrupt she was and how could we possibly have a criminal running
I can't even say it with a straight face anymore because it's so ironic,
running our government, running our country.
Oh, but the emails I didn't even when I tell you that I didn't even know
what the emails even meant.
I remember asking to telling somebody about Benghazi.
(08:26):
I said, well, what about Benghazi? How how could you ignore that?
Thankfully, they didn't ask me to elaborate on that
because I didn't even know what that really meant.
I never.
Even considered digging in to these things that I was talking about
or the reasons it wasn't it was that he was so charismatic
(08:47):
and the things that he said, but what he was so brilliant of was
painting a picture that everyone else was so evil and corrupt
and he was the only person that could save us.
And I didn't I didn't even consider digging into any of that.
And I was so shocked.
I didn't even consider digging into any of that.
And I would regurgitate things that people I respected would say.
(09:11):
And I went to I loved the whole QAnon stuff.
Like when that started happening, that was very seductive to me.
And then it got it got too much for me, but we can get into that in a little bit.
But yeah, it was just that.
It was just feeling like I was in the know
(09:32):
that everyone else was not.
And it feels like you're in a movie a little bit.
It feels romantic in a way like.
It makes life more interesting, I think it makes things more important
when you feel like you're a part of something a little bit bigger,
if that makes sense.
No, it makes perfect sense.
(09:52):
And thank you for your candor in that right before we came on.
We were talking about the Truman Show and, you know, and I don't know, I guess
for me, there are some parallels
about feeling again, like you're you've got some inside track
to some information. Yeah.
You know, and you mentioned also in our testimonial again,
(10:16):
your testimonial that everyone could find at our site, leavingmaga.org.
Talk to us about what you remember about when your
your doubts started to commence, because it had to do with
conspiracy theories at the time.
That's right. That started to get you on a pathway of questioning
your support and wondering
(10:40):
if being in the MAGA community reflected who it turned out you actually were.
So talk to us a little bit about what you remember, about when
everything started to shift for you and around when that was.
Yeah. So about that, about conspiracy theories.
For context, if I had known who like Joe Rogan was, for example,
(11:03):
back then, you know, 2016, 17, I probably would have been all about that
because it's like I had this veil on and I was seeing everything through.
A conspiracy theory lens.
And I I believed and I still believe to an extent
that the government is and and the leadership
(11:26):
are corrupt in a lot of different ways.
And I don't think that is exclusive just to Republican or Democrat.
I think that there is bad apples in every single basket,
not just the two of those.
And I think that's a much bigger issue regarding like
oligarchs and capitalism and that rabbit hole.
But I was siphoning that into the wrong bucket.
(11:51):
I was so focused on the Democrats being bad.
I fell into this rabbit hole of.
And I don't I'm so used to talking on like TikTok lives.
I'm like censoring what I say, because I don't I don't know
if there's things that I can't say or not.
But like the whole like trafficking and the Jeffrey Epstein
(12:12):
connections with the Clintons and Hillary, all of that.
And I really got into.
It's hard. I'm sorry.
It's hard for me to explain it concisely.
I just really believed at that time that there were some really bad stuff
going on with the Hollywood elites and the New World Order.
And then I was talking to my aunt who is very MAGA about the New World Order.
(12:38):
And this is somebody I respect greatly.
And she was explaining things to me.
And I was like, oh, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
And she was explaining things to me and talking to me about Pizza Gate.
And I don't know if you know what that is or remember that.
But it was essentially a pizzeria.
I believe it was in D.C.
(12:58):
And evidently, they were running a human trafficking ring out of there.
And in the basement, they were drinking children's blood
and they were doing all kinds of wild stuff.
And that was the first moment I thought.
Wait a minute, this doesn't sound right.
And I remember going home and researching the Holocaust
(13:20):
because I remembered learning about Germany
and the mustache man saying the same exact stuff.
And I'm like, what is going on here?
And that was the first thing that kind of got my...
It was me being educated on history, honestly.
It was the first time I was like, wait a second, this sounds familiar to me.
(13:41):
And then I kind of went deeper and she started sending me articles
about Wayfair and children being smuggled or no,
trafficking with the company of Wayfair.
Like they would name big cabinets, like children's names.
And it was this whole...
And I just remember being like, this is not OK.
(14:04):
This is not true.
And that was sort of the point in time where my blinders started coming off.
And I thought, how are...
And these are the people I'm aligning with and they believe it.
And they believe it with their whole heart.
And there's something weird about this.
So how long was that process, though?
(14:25):
Because for me, I always talk about how when I started to have
a little bit of suspicion about the honesty of the movement,
what I did is I diversified my news and information sources.
(14:45):
And once I did that, I started realizing that a lot of what I believed was just inaccurate.
It was verifiably false and wrong.
But it took me an entire year to come to this final decision of leaving
because I was going to walk away from a community, from a second family.
(15:06):
And then you realize your grave mistake and you think all of what I believe,
not one or two beliefs, but years of beliefs that accumulated.
I thought I was...
It's not that I thought I knew it.
I came to this...
There was this epiphany gradually and then suddenly all at once.
Is that...
Was that your experience when you finally...
(15:30):
Around what time was it in your life in terms of year,
period of time that you remember thinking,
okay, officially I'm leaving, I'm out?
Well, I know exactly when that was.
January 6th was the official, official, like I can't align myself with this.
But it started prior to that.
(15:51):
I think COVID was a really unique time period for me because I was in quarantine
and my boyfriend who I lived with at the time was apathetic politically.
He was the first person I had ever dated.
And again, going back to the whole men for approval thing,
I always dated men that...
(16:14):
My whole identity was before then who I dated.
And this person, God bless him, he's not a very good person,
but I love him in the fact that he was apathetic.
And he gave me the space during COVID to make my own decisions
without being infiltrated by other people.
We were in quarantine.
(16:36):
We had the news on all the time because of COVID.
So I loved Trump still, but after I had voted for him,
he kind of just became in my periphery.
I didn't pay much attention to him until COVID happened.
And then he's on my screen all the time.
And I am talking to my family members, most of which were MAGA.
(17:00):
And so here I am getting bogus and crazy conspiracy theories.
And then I'm seeing the guy that they follow on TV
telling people to inject disinfectant in themselves.
And I'm watching how he's mocking people for wearing masks.
One of the most profound moments was talking to my partner at the time,
(17:20):
his parents who are MAGA.
And they were saying, oh, did you see Biden's rally?
He has nobody.
No one is at his rallies at all.
And Trump, he has thousands of people.
And I remember seeing Miss Ma'am, his mom's name.
It's a pandemic.
(17:40):
Biden is doing the right thing.
He's encouraging people to not be around each other.
And Trump is encouraging people to make his rally numbers huge.
Who gives a crap about American health and safety right here?
And that was, as I remember, as I was speaking, I'm like, wait a minute,
am I a Biden supporter right now?
(18:00):
It was this weird moment for me.
And I never liked Biden, but that was the first moment I was like, wait a second.
I might be on the other side of history at this point.
Well, it does, for those who are watching this, you know, I think sometimes there's
there's a maybe a misconception that everyone wants it to be the case where someone thinks,
(18:27):
OK, I'm mistaken, I'm wrong.
That's it. I'm leaving.
But it and I don't mean to make this sound like a competition, but anyone who was really
in the community doesn't just get up and leave on the spot, even if they're starting to feel like,
I'm not sure this represents and reflects who I am.
And, you know, you may have seen and for those out there who didn't see it again,
(18:51):
they can find out our site, leavingmaga.org.
I had a video testimonial that aired night one at the DNC.
And it was this it was this vignette, very brief.
But in there, I talked about how the way that he mismanaged covid was really one of the
the primary catalysts for me to eventually put me on my road to Damascus moment with the
(19:16):
scales falling from my eyes and eventually leaving.
And I hear that in your story.
Right. I'm hearing that in what you're saying.
And speaking of that, something I want to ask you here as a wrap up, and I want you to to
really address in particular those who would see this, who are still in the community,
(19:37):
but maybe they're having their own doubts.
Why do you feel it's important for you to publicly tell your story like this?
Have you ever seen the movie Meet the Crudes?
I need to now I need to see it because I haven't.
It's a it's a kid's movie.
But the Cliff Note version is that it's about cave people and there's a family and the dad
(19:59):
is wanting to protect the family.
There was a big cataclysmic event.
They are safe in their cave.
They've got food, not on water, all of that every now and then they can leave the cave,
but they have to go back to their home.
Every now and then they can leave the cave, but they have to come straight out because
outside the cave is dangerous.
And this is this is family.
This is all you need.
(20:21):
And of course, the rebellious rebellious daughter goes outside of the cave and says, well,
it is kind of scary out there, but it's also really beautiful.
And the whole movie is about them coming out of the cave.
And in my in my opinion, Magda is that cave and people in it.
(20:41):
Like to remind you that you're safe there and that everyone feels the same way that
you do.
And we are all in this cave together and look, it's great.
It's cozy.
It's comfy.
We have everything that we need and out there are bad people and it's scary.
But I want people to realize that it is OK to look beyond what you know to be true.
(21:08):
The coolest thing that I ever did when I was leaving Magda was being consistently proved
wrong about my beliefs, because that means that I was getting smarter and I was gaining
knowledge and culture.
And that's that's viral.
You can go down those rabbit holes all day long, too.
(21:30):
And the biggest thing is just be discerning.
And it is OK to be wrong.
It is OK to have new experiences and it's OK to leave your dang caves and go.
You can go back if you really want to.
It's always going to be there.
But like, check it out.
I think when so when I founded our organization, leaving Magda, one of the.
(21:55):
Amongst many, one of the goals we had was to destigmatize changing one's mind.
Because societally, there's not a lot of incentive to do it.
Great point.
You're ostracized, you're judged, and especially just like you've been so astutely pointing out
today that there are real pressures in staying in a community where you're welcomed and you're
(22:20):
respected and appreciated and validated.
I was a right wing pundit.
I had bylines and Fox and a lot of other sites that are trafficked by the millions.
Every single month, I spoke at groups.
I was a sponsor.
You know, I had a professionally produced podcast.
Like, I wasn't just this wasn't just like a hobby for me.
You know, it was my second.
(22:41):
Yeah, like I, you know, so much so that that I I had all of the hats.
I may not have wore them publicly, but I had all of them.
And now I have one that says I left.
So you're I just want to thank you for.
Being a strong and intrepid woman who is a very, very, very, very, very, very, very,
who broke the spell.
(23:02):
The way I look at it is there's there is a certain enchantment that's understandable
about being in that community and you you broke that you were able to find a way out of it.
And so I just in wrapping up and in closing here, I just want to welcome you
(23:23):
to the Leaving Magga community.
I want to welcome you to the Midas Touch Network community as well.
And as I always like to sign off, I'm Rich and I left Magga.
And I'm Courtney and I left Magga.
I'm honored to be here.
Thank you so much.
It's our honor to have you with us.
Really appreciate you being with us today, Courtney.
(23:45):
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Hey, guys, if you like this video, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any
Midas Touch Network videos from us here at Leaving Magga.
Have you left Magga or are you having doubts about your support?
Or do you have a friend or a relative who is still in the Magga community?
We want to hear from you.
Make sure you reach out to us at LeavingMagga.org.
(24:07):
And thanks so much for watching.
Love this video.
Make sure you stay up to date on the latest breaking news and all things Midas
by signing up to the Midas Touch newsletter at MidasTouch.com slash newsletter.
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