Breaking with Trump increasingly happens when “people start to really feel the effects of what this administration is doing, including the rising gas prices right now that are happening before our eyes, and the tariffs and the cost that we're bearing because of these insane, ridiculous approaches to trying to raise money in this country,” Francisci, a 50-year-old mental health influencer from Chesapeake, Virginia, said.
Francisci’s own transformation from a MAGA-hat-wearing Trump supporter to a member of his local Democratic committee was part of a “deconstruction journey” that took place over years of trauma-informed therapy starting in 2022.
He is now a part of Leaving MAGA, an online community and nonprofit for former Trump supporters who found themselves embracing Christian nationalism, lost in conspiracies, losing friends and committing crimes in Trump’s name.
“That version of me that I lived for so long was crumbling before my eyes, and then I had to also deconstruct my politics,” Francisci said.
“I was starting to understand why I was so attracted to Trump because I was previously highly narcissistic, and I previously thought that being that alpha male, masculine guy is what we needed for the country.”
Steven Francisci (provided photo)
While his third marriage “literally was falling apart,” Francisci said he began to focus on his mental health and reevaluate his religious beliefs having become “really, really deep into evangelical Christianity, really supportive of Trump.”
“It's very important to understand religion and how it ties into politics today,” he said.
While less supportive than they were a year ago, white evangelicals remain among Trump’s strongest supporters, with 69 percent approving of how Trump has handled his presidency, according to a February report from Pew Research.
Francisci said his break from MAGA and evangelical Christianity was “more of a slow, gradual process and a slow awakening.”
But, by the time of the 2024 presidential election, he said, “there's no way in good conscience that I can vote for Trump a third time, and so I didn't.”
“I voted for Kamala Harris … it just helped me to continue to move in the path of the person I want to be today.”
‘Damaging’
Francisci wasn’t interested in politics when he joined the U.S. Navy shortly after his 18th birthday and spent about seven years in the military.
Not long after he left the Navy, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks happened. Growing up in New York City, he had family there he couldn’t reach for a time to let him know they were safe.
“Everything was just bananas, and it was incredibly terrifying,” Francisci said.
“After that, I really started to watch Fox News. It became really a main source of my media diet, and I also noticed that I started to become, I would probably say, Islamophobic.”
Francisci said he saw himself continue to “gravitate more and more right-leaning.”
Fast forward to the time Trump first ran for president in the 2016 election, Francisci said he “had a ton of anger and rage, and then I continued to watch Fox News.”
At the time, Francisci said he had a “close call with suicide” that brought him to a Veterans Affairs hospital. He experienced marriage troubles and was still recovering from a nearly fatal motorcycle crash the year before that left him with a traumatic brain injury and every bone in his face broken.
Politics “became way more emotional to me than thoughtful,” he said.
“I just started to listen and believe everything you heard on Fox News, and I didn't really realize how damaging that was at the time.”
By the end of Trump’s first term when he lost the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden, Francisci said he was confused by the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021 but felt “that's what we need to do if this election was stolen … we need to take back our country.”
‘Move the dial’
It wasn’t until he began his trauma-informed therapy work in 2022 that everything changed. He started a mental health advocacy social media platform called Healing Roots On Up and became a court-appointed special advocate working with abused and neglected children.
Francisci recently applied to a masters in counseling program to become a trauma-informed therapist and was appointed to the Chesapeake Integrated Behavioral Healthcare Board of Directors. He self-published a book in January, “From A**Hole To Alright: A Life Rewritten Through Self-Reflection, Therapy, and Conscious Change.”
Steven Francisci at Chesapeake City Hall (provided photo)
With other former Trump supporters, Francisci has identified a common experience of “a lack of empathy and compassion, a lack of being in touch with their emotions.”
Francisci said it’s important for him to share his “growth and journey” with others and has been particularly upset by the “lack of kindness and the cruelty” exercised by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
For instance, ICE has detained a breastfeeding mother, proposed a plan to deport unaccompanied immigrant children, physically assaulted bystanders and deported young adults with pending immigration cases, just in cases reported by Raw Story.
“I think we are starting to move the dial on helping people become more aware of what's happening and what Trump is doing,” Francisci said.
