When Your Son Turns MAGA

Several weeks ago, a journalist from the New York Times reached out to me. She came across my Medium story from a couple of years ago where I noted that my oldest son — he was finishing high school at the time — was leaning conservative in his views. Back then, I found this curious considering he’d spent all of his formative years in California, initially in the Bay Area and later in Southern California. Orange County, where we lived, is known to be more conservative, but California is still California — a very Democratic state.

“We are doing a story about conservative children of liberal parents,” she said.

I agreed, and we scheduled a call.

I took the journalist through our story and emphasized several times that overidentifying with political labels — “liberal,” “right,” “pro-Trump” and so on — is something I resist. For most of my adult life, I’ve considered myself a liberal — and I remain such — but the most important thing is that I form my own independent opinions on individual topics. If some of these opinions are different from the values assigned to one party or another, there shouldn’t be shaming or canceling or all this primitive labeling. Not liking Kamala Harris as a presidential candidate doesn’t make you a racist or misogynist. Questioning the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports doesn’t make you phobic-something. Liking J.D. Vance’s memoir doesn’t make you MAGA. And so on. In my experience, most of the shaming in recent years came from the left, and that’s why in the most recent election cycle I found myself alienated from America’s Democratic Party.

So I discussed this topic at length with the journalist. My son’s journey and mine are different. I didn’t influence him, and he didn’t influence me. But there is a common theme — both of us were annoyed by the excessive forcing of the left “agenda” upon us by mainstream media. It was impossible not to notice biases, censorship, and intolerance.

I also explained how at the same time, I understand (and explain to both of my sons) why so many people pick Democrats over Conservatives, as the “lesser evil.” At a very existential level, it’s hard to see Democrats hurting you. In contrast, it’s easy to understand why so many groups of people feel threatened under Trump. Women, people of color, immigrants, the gay community — there is fear.

The point of this story on Medium is not to go through the actual political arguments. I thought I had a…