Even in Africa, MAGA Rears its Head
As a strong nationalist and cultural conservative, Charles Ekokotu was drawn to Donald Trump. Now he sees him as "an African strongman: despotic, nepotic, corrupt, and breaking laws with impunity."
The MAGA ideology has not only infested the United States; it’s hoodwinked people in other countries as well. Charles Ekokotu is an educated professional in Nigeria who fell for Donald Trump’s snake oil — and then found his way out of MAGA.
In his testimonial on the Leaving MAGA website, Charles relates how he grew up the oldest of five kids in Benin City, about 100 miles east of Lagos. He has a huge family: “My grandfather had three wives, so I had a lot of uncles and aunts and cousins.”
Charles was “reserved as a kid…I connected with the world through reading.” His parents encouraged his habit, which he was able to feed in his father’s extensive library. “I read a lot of books by western authors. I also watched a lot of American movies and interacted with American culture through the media.”
That left him — “like many Nigerians” — with “an idealized impression of America in my head as the land of opportunity and freedom.”
Charles followed US news, mainly on CNN. “I got interested in American politics during the 2016 presidential race. I first listened to Hillary Clinton and was impressed by her.” He thought all her government experience made her well suited to the job.
“Then I started hearing about Donald Trump and all the terrible things he was saying. I thought, ‘How is it possible for an American politician to say these things and still have a political career?’”
After a while, Charles felt “some of the things Trump said resonating with me. He was hyperbolic, but I thought he was simply using common sense. I was a very strong nationalist at the time; I believed in people being patriotic to their country, to their national identity. I felt Trump was restoring pride in American national identity. I didn’t understand why anybody wouldn’t want that.”
Charles explains that, growing up in Nigerian culture, “I had very traditional views about marriage and cultural issues. I opposed gay marriage and transgender rights. I believed you had to respect authority, have faith in God, and be loyal to your family. So it was natural for me to align with the Republican Party.”
The Democratic Party “seemed crazy to me,” he writes. “I saw people losing their jobs over what they had said because of cancel culture.” Democrats’ championing of homosexuality and transgender rights cemented Charles’ connection to the Republican Party.
“I thought Trump would be an effective counter to the Democratic Party’s extremism,” Charles says. “I liked that he was very open to speaking his mind, that he wasn’t censoring himself. He seemed fresh, different from typical American politicians. And he was talking about combating abortion, gay marriage and the trans agenda.”
Charles writes that he was “MAGA all the way” throughout Trump’s first term. “I absolutely supported everything he did, except for when he talked trash about the FBI and Justice Department.”
He was not a fan of Fox, but (in addition to CNN) he read the Daily Wire, and followed Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, Candace Owens, Glen Loury, and Thomas Sowell.
When the pandemic hit, Charles initially ignored Trump’s outlandish remarks, like when he advised people to ingest bleach. “As I became more aware of his bad behavior regarding the pandemic, I still rationalized it,” he says. “I’m a pharmacist, so I should have known better. I told myself, ‘Ah, typical Trump, we shouldn’t take him seriously regarding certain things.’ Or I would characterize criticism of his actions as just a personal attack against him.”
When Joe Biden defeated Trump in 2020, Charles at first believed Trump’s lie that the election was stolen. But the episode started his journey out of MAGA. “I expected him to come forward with credible evidence. But then he went to play golf; he wasn’t presenting anything besides his claim that the election was stolen. I told myself, ‘This guy actually lost.’ That’s when my image of Trump began to dissipate.”
Trump’s role in January 6 “was another watershed” for Charles. The attack “made me realize this guy is actually dangerous. He wasn’t committed to a peaceful transfer of power.”
Charles started seeking out other sources of information in an effort “to critique my conservative beliefs.” He found Leejah Miller, The Majority Report with Sam Seder, Kyle Kulinski, Daivd Pakman, and some other left-leaning commentators. He was struck that “their arguments were much more evidence-based and researched than what I was hearing from the right wing.”
Charles’ reassessment of his positions continued throughout 2021 and 2022. “More and more things about Trump made less and less sense,” he says. “I found it harder and harder to explain away his incessant lying as inconsequential. To me, his insults started to sound lame and overused, his rhetoric became disgusting, and his lack of character was more and more evident.”
He maintained his fealty to the Republican Party because of the Democrats’ stance on cultural issues.
Charles finally broke with MAGA and Trump in late 2022. He cites two triggers. One was Trump’s attacks against Ron DeSantis, particularly when Trump called him Ron DeSanctimonious. While Charles had found it “cool” when Trump called his Republican adversaries names in the 2016 campaign, “[n]ow it just seemed childish, like a tired act.”
The other trigger involved a spat between Trump and Candace Owens over the Covid vaccine. “The particulars don’t really matter, but what stood out to me was that Trump treated Owens rudely despite her having been a loyal supporter for years…Trump’s willingness to throw a friend under the bus for no verifiable reason showed a lack of character and integrity, and there is nothing I hate more than a lack of integrity.”
Some of Charles’ attitudes have shifted. He still believes “marriage should be between a man and a woman, and that a man can’t be a woman,” but he now thinks “people have the right to express themselves the way they want to. Who am I to tell you how to live your life? Why should I be crusading against your lifestyle?”
While he is not fully aligned with the Democrats, “I think their positions make more sense for a multicultural society. They’re trying to expand freedoms for people, and Republicans are trying to do the opposite. And Republicans are now acting in exactly the same way they accused Democrats of acting: being thin-skinned, trying to stifle speech, and canceling people.”
Charles views Trump’s second term as “a shit show.” He cites cabinet appointments like RJK, Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, “who for all intents and purposes is a Russian agent. They’re woefully underqualified and underprepared. Now I see that when Trump talks about draining the swamp, those are just the words of a slick-talking fake.”
Instead of firing corrupt officials, Trump and Elon Musk are “going after federal workers…They’re dismantling agencies without even understanding how they function. It just seems so haphazard; there’s no thought behind any of it.”
Charles bemoans Trump’s cozying up to Russia and his hostility to Ukraine, along with his starting trade wars with allies. “It seems he’s an anarchist who wants to burn down the US and start again from the ashes. It all seems so irrational.”
In the end, “[w]hat really breaks my heart is that after all this madness there are still people who rationalize what Trump’s doing, who say he’s doing the right thing.”
Charles says when he regards Trump now, “I see an African strongman: despotic, nepotic, corrupt, and breaking laws with impunity. In Nigeria, politicians flat out ignore the law. I never thought in my wildest dreams that it would happen in a country like the US.”
Charles is a fellow Substacker. You can follow him at Critical African Thinkers.