Dog years: A decade as a MAGA exile in Los Angeles

Twelve years ago, my mother had a manic breakdown. She was found in Molokai, Hawaii, after disappearing for several days. The fugue state — in which she turned into a nightmare version of herself, eyes afire, flagellating her loved ones with a stream of deranged insults and delusions — lasted about six months until someone finally got her on lithium.

As she returned to herself, I pressured her to get a dog. She lived alone, so it would help her get a grip on reality. She said she liked whippets, so I found a local breeder. I wanted to name him Knut after Knut Hamsun, but she decided on Eliot after T.S.

I lost many jobs, many friends, many family members, all of whom called me problematic crazy fringe incel bigot weirdo resentful loser failure. But I just couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t not see the lie.

When the fugue began, I was finishing law school. When it ended, I’d taken the bar and moved to Los Angeles. I’d already experienced my parents’ terrible divorce as an only child at 17, but this year, 27, was the toughest and most isolating of my life. The safety net had ripped open, and I’d fallen through. Everything was most definitely not going to be okay.

After hitting the ground and dusting yourself off, making sure you aren’t dead, there is a sense of relief. “That happened.” There on the ground, you see the world as most people on earth do, all victims of abandonment or neglect or abuse or poverty or other societal failure, just not the upper middle-class American suburban milieu I’d been comfortably incubated within.

And when you hit the earth, you suddenly want to tell the truth. You don’t want to “win” any more. You want to help other people figure this thing out.

I was always edgy, but a good boy politically. In fact, I thought if myself as edgy for a good cause, that cause being “equality.” I’d dutifully campaigned for Obama, and my diverse group of friends had tearfully celebrated when he won in 2008.

But now it was 2012, and I worked for a gay Hollywood agent with six other young men, all of whom were gay. The time came to vote for Obama again, but this time, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. It felt phony, a little numb spot where my righteousness had once curled.

What the hell did this guy know about anything? He certainly wasn’t talking to me. I told my co-workers this, and they were deeply offended. Didn’t I understand their rights were at stake? I already didn’t fit in, but this made it terminal. I was out within three months.

And thus began a decade of professional, personal, and familial torment as I slowly came out of the closet as a political bad boy, just as much to myself as to the world. I was, and still am, a liberal — it’s not possible to completely erase my deracinated bohemian upbringing. But it became increasingly clear to me that the good guys were in fact a mask covering a barely perceptible leviathan pulsing under the surface, rapidly reaching its tentacles across the earth.

As Eliot grew and my mother healed, I lost many jobs, many friends, many family members, all of whom called me problematic crazy fringe incel bigot weirdo resentful loser failure. But I just couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t not see the lie.

In L.A., I became a lone Trump supporter. I had zero MAGA friends, zero contacts to celebrate with when he won, maybe only one or two even in 2020 to lament the loss. On Tuesday, I celebrated with 100 friends, all culture kids and almost all recent converts who, like me, just couldn’t bring themselves to lie any more.

The thing we share in common? A breaking. Some loss, failure, death — the cozy cloak of a bourgeois upbringing ripped off, however fleetingly. All men used to be broken by war. Now far fewer are. But everyone in that room had gotten a glimpse. Tuesday: a decade of pain vindicated in a single night.

Wednesday morning after the all-nighter, I drove down to San Diego to put Eliot to sleep. He had a tennis ball-sized sarcoma dangling off his arm and typical whippet heart issues. It was time. Two guys came to the house and did it — it took 20 minutes. A decade transcended in a few quiet moments.

Mom is doing better now, but she still hates my politics.

This essay originally appeared on the Carousel.