The Political Scene | The New Yorker · The New Yorker

Why Is Leaving MAGA So Difficult?

December 1, 2025·22 min·2 clips

A former MAGA activist admits he once believed Democrats were more dangerous than Nazis—and reveals how media fueled that delusion.

The Political Scene is the New Yorker's weekly political analysis podcast, hosted by editor David Remnick. This episode is drawn from The New Yorker Radio Hour and centres on Rich Logis, a suburban man who in 2016 was drawn to anti-establishment politics — he had previously voted for Ralph Nader — and became a full MAGA true believer. He wrote freelance articles, hosted a produced MAGA podcast, and contributed to phone bank scripts for the Trump campaign. He eventually left the movement and built Leaving MAGA, a website where former MAGA supporters share their stories and provide a resource for people with MAGA believers in their lives. Logis describes what the movement provided: an explanation for economic and cultural grievance, a community, a set of enemies, and a media ecosystem that required no engagement with contradicting information. He had written that the Democratic Party was the most dangerous group in American history — more dangerous than Islamic extremists or the Nazis. He confirms he believed this at the time, attributing it entirely to his consumption of MAGA media. He describes calling friends who were Democratic voters to apologise for how he had thought about them. On the question of what keeps people inside the movement, Logis argues that MAGA is in large part a response to real suffering — political, economic, social — that has been misdirected onto false targets. He says rather than asking what is wrong with MAGA supporters, a more useful question is what happened to them. He explicitly declines to make clinical claims, noting he is not a therapist. The episode notes that only 30% of Americans identify with MAGA in NBC polling, while the movement exercises disproportionate influence over the full electorate.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Political Scene | The New Yorker