Newsletter: Keeping the Holidays Happy This Season
Yes, There IS a Way to Talk to Your MAGA Friends and Family
We will not be doing a multi-platform livestream this week, as my team and I are enjoying the holidays with friends and family. The Freedom of Mind team wishes you and yours all the best during this festive season and hopes for a much better 2026.
No matter what holiday you celebrate, or if you celebrate, this time of the year is a time to be with people. So if possible, gather with friends, family, and chosen family. However, for many people during these times, it means tense conversations with our loved ones as we navigate the polarized political atmosphere fostered by the Trump government. Here and throughout the world, what would be peaceful gatherings of family and friends have too often become fraught with political arguments and less-than-friendly debate.
To help my paid subscribers communicate with their friends and family entrapped in the MAGA belief system, I have compiled a special post, “How to Talk to MAGA Believers: A Toolkit For Taking the First Steps.” In it, I lay out a comprehensive guide, discussing the best way to reach out to members of the Trump cult, including:
How to ask a good question
Creating openings to constructive conversations
Discussing authoritarianism without discussing Trump
What to do when the discussion grows challenging or provocative
If you aren’t already a paid subscriber, now is an excellent time to become one. Next week’s paid subscriber post will be talking about “Love Bombing,” a common technique of authoritarian groups and abusive partners alike. This form of manipulation is used to lure people into a sense of community and belonging - and keep them from spotting any red flags.
Paid subscribers have access to my full range of interviews with experts, helpful articles and guides, including the hopeful stories of those who were once entrapped in the MAGA mindset, but have worked their way out:
Ex-MAGA Troll David Weissman Gives Interview About His Process of Realizing That Facts Matter
Exiting the Cult of Trump with #Jan6er Pam Hemphill
The Game Is Up: Disillusioned Trump Voters Tell Their Stories - with Melissa Jo Peltier
Strongmen: A Talk with Ruth Ben-Ghiat
Last week, I published a public video on how to talk with your MAGA friends and family, “How to Help a Trump Supporter Think for Themselves,” offering practical tips and heartfelt advice. In addition, yesterday we posted another video, “Things MAGA Family Say (and How NOT to Trigger Them),” featuring my friend and Freedom of Mind team member, Jim Picariello. I hope both videos will help you navigate this season with grace, compassion, and goodwill to all.
This week, we are re-releasing a “best of” our podcast, an interview that is as relevant now as it was when we recorded it.
“Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present - The Rising Tide of Online Authoritarian Influence” is a fascinating and hard-hitting talk with Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a celebrated author, MSNBC columnist, and professor at New York University, as well as an expert on fascism and authoritarianism.
It’s a deep dive into the psychology of authoritarian leaders like Putin and Trump, and you’ll definitely want to listen in.
Listen on Apple | Spotify | Watch on YouTube
Or read the full blog post version:
STRONGMEN: Mussolini to the Present - The Rising Tide of Online Authoritarian Influence
As always, please let us know what you think about these pieces or what you’d like to see us discuss in the future. Thanks so much!
In Bob Marley’s words, “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery; None but ourselves can free our minds.”
Dr. Hassan, your story of freeing your mind reminded me of the story Anthony Fauci told on The Rachel Maddow Show in June 2024. He was part of a community that believed in an incredibly harmful delusion, and with his community, he responded to the truth as if it was an imminent threat. In describing his response to when the truthtellers managed to connect with his true self, he said, “Probably one of the best things I’ve ever done in my career was I just started listening … and what they were saying was making absolutely perfect sense.”
The story is in the mid to late 1980s after he was appointed the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The harmful delusion the members of his scientific community believed in involved “the rigidity of the clinical trial, the inclusion and exclusion criteria, the extraordinary amount of time, understandably, that the FDA took to approve a drug without any basis at all for getting drugs to people who needed a compassionate use for it.”
He describes his community’s harmful response to the truth by saying, “The scientific community, myself included at the time, and the regulatory community, … pulled back from” the gay community’s ideas about how to be more compassionate in terms of getting drugs faster to people with HIV AIDS.
For years, leading AIDS activist Larry Kramer referred to Fauci as an “incompetent idiot” and a “pill-pushing” tool of the medical establishment. After Fauci “just started listening,” Kramer called Fauci “the only true and great hero” among government officials during the AIDS crisis.
Maybe what happened to you is different than what happened to Fauci, but I think the same underlying cognitive process occurred. What do you think?
I understand the security of having subscribers pay and also having a little funding to offset costs. Still, I think this diminishes your and any experts’ messages a bit. I really wish this didn’t have to be.