To most people on the Left, conservatives are lost souls in need of deprogramming. They’ve convinced themselves that anyone who votes Republican must have been brainwashed by Fox News, MAGA rallies, or misinformation. But if anyone has ever been deprogrammed, it’s me. I was once deep inside the Democratic Party — and I got out.

And when I say deep, I mean deep.

I wasn’t just a kid who once voted for Obama. I was the National Chartering Director for College Democrats of America, tasked with resuscitating dormant state chapters like New Hampshire’s ahead of the 2016 election. I served as Vice President of the College Democrats of Massachusetts and President of the College Democrats at UMass Amherst, where I grew our meetings from a dozen attendees to nearly a hundred. I canvassed neighborhoods in Georgia, Virginia, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. I ran phone banks. I worked in the office of a long-time Democrat congressman.

I even drove motorcade for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign — not for Clinton herself, of course, but for senior staffers, including Huma Abedin. I sat at dinner with Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action. I was a gun control activist working alongside survivors of school shootings.

Democratic politics wasn’t a hobby. It was my daily life.

So, what changed?

The first cracks showed up on the campaign trail. In New Hampshire, when I went door to door, I met ordinary voters — independent-minded, skeptical, pragmatic. Many wanted to talk, even if they disagreed. Then I’d come back to Massachusetts and meet with activists who seemed allergic to honest debate.

That divide became glaring when I attended a 2016 event at UMass Amherst featuring Milo Yiannopoulos, Steven Crowder, and Christina Hoff Sommers. I was still president of the College Democrats. I attended out of sheer curiosity. The event became infamous when a protester, later dubbed “Trigglypuff,” screamed to drown out the speakers.

Yes, Milo could be combative. But what struck me was not his provocation — it was my peers’ refusal to even hear him out. Their instinct was to shut him, and others like him, down entirely.

That night clarified something I had been noticing for months: Democrats didn’t want debate. They wanted obedience.

In private, some of my peers admitted to positions so extreme they didn’t dare say them on camera: wanting to abolish prisons, to allow abortion without limit, harboring a true hostility toward free speech itself, and even wanting to “rip up” the Constitution. These weren’t fringe positions in the rooms I was in. They were alarmingly mainstream. And whenever I asked questions, I realized these ideas (and individuals) were incredibly fragile, unable to withstand an iota of scrutiny.

Progressive ideas, you see, are like a Prince Rupert’s Drop — seemingly unassailable, but the moment you touch on the right point, the whole thing shatters.

The left responded not with introspection, but with censorship. No-platform. Safe spaces. Trigger warnings. Violence, if necessary.

Meanwhile, I had grown up in a Catholic family in Massachusetts, with John F. Kennedy’s photo on the wall and his books on my shelf. Being a Democrat had always seemed like the natural choice for me. But the more I read — Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, modern conservative thinkers (and liberal ones) — the more I realized how far left the Democratic Party had drifted, and how illiberal its instincts had become.

Whereas the Republican Party felt increasingly like a church where “visitors are welcome” and questions could be asked, the Democratic Party felt like the opposite.

I wasn’t leaving a church. I was leaving a cult.

And the cult didn’t take kindly to apostasy.

When I left the party in 2017, I went public in a Washington Post op-ed titled "Coming Out as a Conservative." My story was picked up by Fox News and others. The reaction from the left was vicious. I received violent death threats, one so deranged I had to take it to the Amherst police. Imagine that — all for the crime of changing my mind.

Would that happen if someone like me left the Republican Party? Somehow, I doubt it.

After leaving, I stepped away from politics. I met my wife, became a father of two, and moved abroad to Warsaw, Poland, in 2020. I taught high school history at a private British school and, for several years, politics was far from my daily life. Then something pulled me back in.

Brandon Straka’s WalkAway movement was running a contest for stories about leaving the Left. I submitted an entry and my video was selected as a finalist. And then something remarkable happened: Charlie Kirk saw it, shared it, and even tweeted about me by name. Conservatives, including Brandon, Charlie, and many others, welcomed me with open arms.

Charlie’s tweet was a small thing, but it felt huge. For someone of his character and influence to recognize my journey was humbling. Charlie gave me a renewed sense of purpose.

That spark faded somewhat as I changed careers and life became more complicated. But when Charlie was assassinated last month, I knew I had to get back in the arena in whatever small way I could, which is what brings me here today, to writing this article and planning to write many more.

You see, none of us can replace Charlie Kirk, who was, in the truest sense, one-of-a-kind. But collectively, we can carry forward his legacy. For me, that means stepping forward again — telling my story, engaging in debate, and reminding conservatives of an essential point: people can change.

Charlie often warned that when conversation stops, violence begins. The Left has chosen censorship, deplatforming, and, too often, violence as its tactics. Our answer must be the opposite: facts, dialogue, and courage.

If someone like me — someone who built his college years around Democratic activism, who sat at the table with Shannon Watts, who chauffeured Hillary Clinton’s inner circle, who rose to national leadership in College Democrats — if someone like that can be “deprogrammed,” then anyone can.

The Left doesn’t want you to believe that. They want you to think their voters are locked in forever. They’re not. People can change. Minds can open. Hearts can turn.

But that only happens if conservatives don’t give up on their fellow Americans.

So, my message is simple: Don’t cast off your liberal friends, neighbors, or classmates. Don’t assume they’re unreachable. Engage them. Challenge them. Debate them. Do it with facts and do it with kindness.

I was once like the sword in the stone — set deep in the Left’s orthodoxy, certain never to be moved. But with time, I came free. The cult I left behind can be escaped — not with distance or condescension, but with dialogue and patience. If my mind can be changed, so can many others. Go find them.