I Interviewed a ‘Redhat’—and What She Revealed Will Change Everything

One Woman's Journey to Freedom

I Interviewed a ‘Redhat’—and What She Revealed Will Change Everything by Dr. Pru Lee (Pru Pru)

What if the villain in your story… was also the good guy?
What might it take for a person—shaped in the echo chamber of racist parents, neighbors, church members, everyone they ever knew—to become an antiracist ally?
What might it take for a person to choose love, when they were groomed to hate?
And what if a moment of proximity to pain—so raw they could feel it in their teeth—was the very thing that cracked it all open?

These were honestly questions I never bothered to ask, not until now.
Not until I saw a comment—tucked beneath a post, written by a stranger—
and it shook everything I had held true.
Not just my assumptions about her.
But my assumptions about me.

Everyone carries bias, even me.
I’ve got my own idea of who proudly claims to be MAGA—and I won’t lie, it ain’t pretty and
most of those ideas are earned.

But if I’m being honest?
That snap judgment is still a kind of unfair shortcut.
A preloaded story I tell myself so I don’t have to make space for a new one.
And that makes me no better than the folks I critique.
So when I stumbled on a post from a self-declared ‘redhat’ turned No Kings marcher,
something in me paused.

Not just out of curiosity.

But because of something deeper—the raw conviction in her words.

The kind of conviction that made her walk away from everything she knew.

The kind witness in others that made me stop scrolling and start reading.

It gripped me. Made me question my own assumptions.

And that’s when I knew—I needed to hear her whole story.

I reached out.
And to my surprise, she was ready.
Ready to talk. Ready to share. Ready to be seen.

And when her face appeared on my Zoom screen?
She wasn’t what I expected.
She was more.

Thoughtful.
Kind.
Raw and real in ways that felt holy.

This wasn’t a White tears tour.
This was a woman peeling back the scaffolding of her old beliefs, heavy brick by heavy brick.

Exposed.

This beautiful woman opened my eyes, my mind, and my heart

and when you hear what she said,

I think you will feel what I felt.

Not pity.
Not praise.
But possibility.

I had the rare privilege of interviewing someone who used to wear that red hat. Not just figuratively. She voted MAGA. Believed the headlines. Repeated the lies. But somewhere along the way, the static broke. Her channel changed. And what I heard from her wasn’t defensiveness or denial. It was grief. Courage. And a quiet kind of liberation.

This is not a redemption story to make you feel sorry for the poor white girl who finally figured it out. This is a testimony of what it costs—emotionally, spiritually, relationally—to wake up and walk away from an entire ecosystem designed to keep you loyal.

Not all harm is rooted in hate—some is rooted in misinformation, disconnection, and systemic grooming. This distinction invites grace without excusing behavior. It's the beginning of accountability with humanity.

She told me: “Grace is where change happens. It’s not in the shame and the judgment and the pointing [of] fingers.”

Grace isn't passive. It's courageous, especially when offered by the formerly complicit. Her entire shift began because someone gave her space, not scorn.

Amber didn’t start in hate. She started in trauma.

Before she ever cast a ballot or picked a side, she was a little girl learning to survive in a world that told her she was the problem. She was punished for speaking up, blamed for protecting herself, and handed silence when she needed safety. The grownups around her called her a liar. A manipulator. A difficult child. But what she was—what she always was—was brave.

“I was a kid who stood up to abuse and got punished for it.”

Her earliest resistance wasn’t political. It was personal. It was raw and instinctual. And it cost her. The harm she endured didn’t just mark her—it shaped how she saw herself. By the time she reached adulthood, shame had settled into her bones. Religion was weaponized to control her. Her voice was muted by guilt. And in that silence, she looked for something that could make the pain feel purposeful. Something that could make her feel righteous, seen, and strong.

That’s where the web began.

MAGA didn’t reach her as a policy platform—it reached her as a promise. A way to reclaim control in a life that had spun far too long without it. It offered order. Identity. Certainty. She thought she was choosing morality. What she was really being sold was judgment wrapped in a flag.
She wore the hat not because she hated others—but because she didn’t yet know how to love herself.

“I was told I was evil, irresponsible, manipulative—but I was resisting.”

Amber’s story doesn’t begin at the ballot box. It begins in the ache of being unseen, the hunger to matter, and the deep need to feel safe in a world that had never made room for her truth. MAGA didn’t create her pain—it exploited it.

And that’s the part most people miss.

But even the strongest illusions can’t hold forever.
Not when you start listening.
Not when your work demands that you look into the eyes of people you’ve been told to judge—and you see not evil, but pain.
Not when the walls you once leaned on begin to crack under the weight of real stories, real suffering, real truth.

And that’s exactly what happened to Amber.

Amber didn’t wake up one day and flip sides.
The shift was slow. Intimate. Unraveling.
It came in stories.
In faces.

As a counselor and case manager, Amber found herself sitting across from people the MAGA narrative had told her to condemn.
Women who’d had abortions.
Mothers whose babies wouldn’t survive outside the womb.
Survivors who weren’t irresponsible or immoral—but devastated, heartbroken, and doing the most humane thing they could.

And suddenly, the lie didn’t fit anymore.

“This wasn’t someone who hated kids or was being irresponsible. This was a woman who wanted her baby… who already had a nursery.”

The propaganda she'd absorbed for years began to feel brittle—like old paint peeling from the truth beneath.
And it wasn’t just abortion. She started seeing the rot in the system itself—how addiction recovery was exploited by profit, how Medicaid fraud thrived under fake Christian business owners, how marginalized clients were being chewed up and billed out by people who didn’t even belong in the field.

So she pivoted.

She moved into government work, into DEI spaces, into anti-racist trainings.
She started reading—really reading.
She threw herself into books like The Sum of Us and into deep self-work.
And each time she peeled back a layer, another illusion shattered.

“I didn’t care what people thought anymore. I stopped clinging to what I was taught and just… opened myself.”

The turning point wasn’t a single moment—it was a hundred thousand quiet ones.
Her politics didn’t shift first—her spirit did.
She began to see her own childhood with new eyes.
How her punishment was resistance.
How shame had been used as a muzzle.
How privilege isn’t just wealth—it’s having access to healing.

“There’s a privilege we don’t talk about—tools. Coping skills. Introspection. I almost died to get them.”

And with every story, every session, every training—Amber didn’t just learn.
She shed.
Judgment. Bitterness. Resentment. Gone.
What was left?
A heart that had been there all along.
Now uncovered. Now unafraid.

She wasn’t walking away from her values—she was walking toward them.
Maybe for the first time.

By the time Amber stepped fully into her new way of being, it wasn’t hate she had to leave behind—it was the armor she'd built from it.

Because when you're raised to survive instead of thrive, judgment becomes a shield.
Righteousness becomes a drug.
And shame? Shame becomes scripture.

But when she laid it all down—when she let the judgment go—something extraordinary happened.

“All of that toxic shit… it just fell away. What I was left with was a very loving, compassionate heart that was always there.”

This wasn’t about politics anymore. This was about liberation.

Amber started showing up to rallies.
She began making what she calls “living amends” to the people she’d once judged—simply by being different, by showing up with empathy, and by sharing her truth.

And while the outside world may not have noticed the shift right away—Amber did.

She noticed the lightness.
The room in her chest where rage used to sit.
The peace that came when she finally stopped bleeding on everyone around her.

“There’s more freedom now than I’ve ever had.
For a party that screams freedom, I’ve never felt less free in my life than when I was with them.”

Because the truth is, MAGA didn’t give her clarity—it gave her chains.

What gave her clarity was recovery.
Tools. Books. DEI work. Real relationships.
She started defining privilege not by money—but by healing.
By access to therapy, emotional language, coping strategies, and the courage to question everything she once called truth.

“My skill set was: you sinned? Go to the Bible.
But that Bible was used to condemn me and justify everything they did.”

And so now, when she hears a cruel comment, or sees a post dripping in judgment, she doesn’t fight with facts—she fights with empathy.

A small story. A piece of her own journey. A human truth dropped like water on fire.

She doesn’t always get it right.
She still gets mad. Still wants to flip tables.
But even that—especially that—is part of the work.

Because grace isn’t the absence of anger.
It’s knowing when to lead with love anyway.

Amber didn’t lose her love of country.
She redefined it.

It wasn’t the anthem or the flag that changed—it was who she believed deserved to be free beneath it.
And that reimagining? It didn’t just test her beliefs—it tested her marriage.

“My husband’s a Trump supporter. I was, too, when we got married.”

Now, they live in what she calls a purple home—two hearts with different histories, learning how to love each other without losing themselves.

They don’t talk politics. Not yet.
They’re not there.
But they’ve made a pact: no debates, no destruction.
Because for Amber, the goal is no longer to win an argument.
It’s to protect the relationship, and to model a different kind of transformation.

“If I let myself get too deep in the weeds, I start seeing him as Trump. So I stopped fighting him.
I just love the shit out of him.”

And quietly, it’s working.
He sees her.
He sent her a text that said, “I know why you’re where you are. I know it’s your heart. You’re a good person.”

That’s growth. That’s possibility.

I know it well—because I’ve lived it, too.

My husband wasn’t MAGA, but he was a fan of Trump in the beginning.
And I couldn’t fathom it.

But every time he asked a question—about affirmative action, welfare, or the prison system—I answered with grace. With care. With just enough truth to open a door without slamming it shut. I avoided the fights that would’ve turned teachable moments into battlegrounds.

And sometimes, when I’d watch documentaries that told the stories of enslaved people… or traced the pipeline from plantations to prisons…
I’d catch him in the kitchen, silent.
Not talking. Not arguing.
Just listening.
Eyes transfixed.

Eventually, Jan 6th happened. And that was the end of it for him.
He walked away.
He may never wear a blue badge, but he made it clear—he wanted no part of hate.

I shared this with Amber—not to center my story, but to offer hope for hers.
To remind her that hearts can turn.
Not because we shame them—but because we give them something truer to follow.

Her husband, at least, could see her heart. Even if they don’t align politically, he recognizes the goodness in her—why she believes what she believes.
But not everyone in her life came with that kind of grace.
Her mother, still deeply loyal to the old ways and old narratives, couldn’t meet her where she was.
Couldn’t even see the version of Amber that had finally found peace.

Amber has learned to grieve the family she never had.
To accept that her mother may never become the person she needs.
That’s a loss deeper than politics—it’s the ache of unreturned hope.

“There’s still a four-year-old Amber inside me who just wants her mommy. But I can’t wait for her to love me the way I need.
I have to love me that way now.”

And that’s the new kind of patriotism she walks in every day:
Not loyalty to a party.
Not blind allegiance to a broken past.
But fierce love for herself, her growth, her relationships, and a vision of America that finally feels like home.

Because sometimes the most radical act of patriotism is this:
Choosing peace over performance. Choosing love over loyalty. Choosing truth over tradition.

Amber didn’t change because someone shamed her.
She changed because someone showed her grace.
She changed because she finally—finally—learned how to love herself.

Not perfectly.
Not with grand speeches or viral posts.
But with consistency. With presence.
With enough grace to crack open a space where growth could take root.

“It wasn’t in the shame, or the judgment, or the finger-pointing.
It was people who came into my life and loved me anyway.”

And that’s the part too many of us forget:
Change doesn’t happen when you win an argument.
It happens when someone feels safe enough to lay their armor down.

Amber gets that now.
It’s why, when she hears someone say something ignorant or cruel, she doesn’t lash back.
She doesn’t post a think piece or drag them into debate.
She just tells the truth—gently. Personally. As a gift.

“I don’t argue. I just say, ‘Yeah, I was on Medicaid, working two jobs, raising a kid, and sometimes I didn’t eat so he could.’
That’s all.”

She doesn’t try to convert them.
She tries to connect.

Because grace isn’t soft. Grace is strategic.
It’s what opens the door for people who’ve been taught their whole lives that the truth will destroy them.

Amber’s story is proof:
You don’t have to sacrifice your fire to walk in love.
You don’t have to lower your standards to raise your hand in peace.
You don’t have to forget what they’ve done—just remember who they could become. People don’t need to be attacked to transform.
They need to be seen.
They need to be held.
And most of all, they need permission to put the poison down without being executed for ever driving it.

“Most people aren’t waking up saying, ‘I want to be the shittiest human I can be today.’
Most people are just… doing the best they can.”

And if we want to see more Ambers—more transformations, more homecomings, more bridges built between broken worlds—then we have to give them somewhere to land.

Because if we don’t?
The only ones waiting with open arms will be the ones selling them fear.

A Message From Amber: To the Ones Still Inside

I know what it feels like to double down when you’re scared.
To cling tighter to the lie because the truth feels like drowning.
I know what it feels like to be told your beliefs make you a good person—while everything around you is bleeding.
I know what it’s like to wear that hat and call it honor.

But I’m telling you now, as someone who used to believe what you believe:
You don’t have to stay there.

You don’t have to keep performing loyalty to people who would watch you suffer and still ask for your vote.
You don’t have to keep defending things that don’t feel quite right in your gut.
You don’t have to keep swallowing your questions just to fit in.

If you’ve started to notice the cracks—good. That’s where the light gets in.
If you’ve started to feel something tighten in your chest when you see another lie on TV—good. That’s your soul waking up.
If someone in your life has made you feel small for even wondering what else might be true—I see you.

I stayed quiet for years because I thought asking meant betraying the people who raised me.
But staying silent was betraying myself.

And let me say this plainly:
You are not a bad person because you were misinformed.
But you become responsible when you know and choose not to change.

There is so much more waiting for you on the other side.
Not just better policies—but peace.
Not just a new vote—but a new voice.
One you can trust because it finally belongs to you.

This isn't about shame.
This is about freedom.

And if you’ve started to feel the tug to walk away from what you were taught—follow it.
Even if you don’t know where it leads yet.
Even if it scares you.
Even if you’re the only one in your family who feels it.

I promise you—you’re not alone.
I’m out here.
We’re out here.

And there’s still a place for you.
Right here.
Right now.
On the side of truth.

7 Things We’re Learning From Amber and Others Like Her

Now that you’ve felt her story, here’s what it can teach us.

Amber isn’t alone. There are more like her—quietly waking up, slowly untangling, tenderly turning away from everything they once called truth.

And as we gather these stories, a pattern begins to emerge.
Not a formula. Not a shortcut.
But markers—emotional, spiritual, relational shifts that seem to appear again and again in those who make the leap.

These are the signs of transformation we’re learning to recognize:
They don’t happen overnight.
They’re not always loud.
But when they show up, they’re unmistakable.

---

1. Emotional Rehab from a Theology of Fear
They were raised on if/then love:
– If you obey, you’re worthy.
– If you conform, you’re safe.
– If you dissent, you burn.

They were groomed in sanctuaries where scripture was weaponized, where whiteness was divinity, and questioning was sin.
When asked to hold space for someone else’s pain—especially pain they’ve helped cause—they panic. Not because they’re heartless, but because they were never taught how to love without transaction.

This isn’t just political deprogramming.
It’s spiritual detox.
And for Amber, it began when someone loved her without condition.
She didn’t know what to do with it.
But eventually, she trusted it.

---

2. Isolation Fuels Indoctrination
She didn’t grow up around difference. Most don’t.
The first Black boy she remembers? Huey, in first grade. They were punished for being friends. He disappeared.
Difference wasn’t lived—it was mythologized. And always as threat.

But life intervenes.
They move.
They meet a refugee.
They fall in love with someone from “the other side.”
And real people start replacing propaganda.

Amber told me about women who had abortions—women who wept, wrestled, and loved their unborn children fiercely.
They weren’t faceless anymore. They weren’t headlines.
They were human. And they were hers.

---

3. There Is No Blueprint for Becoming Free
There is no manual for unlearning White supremacy.
No syllabus for shedding indoctrination.
Just grief, if they’re honest. And guilt, if they’re human.

And guilt? It paralyzes. Makes them retreat. Makes them defensive.
But grace?
Grace is the game changer.

Amber didn’t find her way to allyship through textbooks.
She found it at kitchen tables.
In held silences.
Through people who stayed near, even when she got it wrong.

---

4. They Are Still Tethered to the People Who Ain’t Coming
She still shares holidays with folks who say “those people.”
She still hears “I love you, but…”
She still walks into rooms where Fox News plays louder than grace.

And sometimes, she stays quiet. Not because she’s afraid of truth—but because survival still has a place in her nervous system.

When you wake up in a house full of people still asleep, you don’t just risk discomfort.
You risk everything.

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5. Love Is the Tool of Disruption
She said: “Me loving him when he's not lovable… is the thing that changes.”

That’s not martyrdom.
That’s not codependence.
That’s resistance.

Because in a world built on performance and punishment, love is a radical disruption.
Amber isn’t matching hate with hate.
She’s modeling what it looks like to interrupt it.

---

6. You Can’t Scream Someone Out of White Supremacy
Amber wasn’t shamed out of MAGA.
She was loved out.

She was invited into truth.
Given room to mourn.
Told:
You can leave.
You can still become someone better.

“It was people who came into my life and loved me. That’s where I found the space to grow.”

Not because they excused her past.
But because they believed in her future.

---

7. The Process Is Raw and Painful
She cried in the interview.
Not performative tears.
Not white fragility.
Just grief.

Grief for who she used to be.
For what she once believed.
For the people she hurt along the way.

This process isn’t neat.
It’s not linear.
It’s not Instagrammable.

It costs.

Because she’s not just leaving a political party.
She’s leaving an identity. A worldview. A sense of belonging.
And she’s doing it anyway.

---

If you’re someone who used to wear the red hat and you’re ready to take it off…

We see you.

There is no map.
But there are markers:
– Grace without excuses
– Truth without cruelty
– Relationship without performance
– Love without superiority

Start there.

And when you’re ready?
We’re not building purity tests.
We’re building bridges.

Because this movement doesn’t need more already-woke voices echoing each other.
It needs the brave.
And maybe that’s you.
Finally. Beautifully. Becoming free.