Voices In My Head Podcast Episode 341: David Weissman's Journey From The Trump Troll To Peacemaker

Hey friends, Rick Lee James here. I just wanted to step on here real quick to let you know that today's episode is a little different than normal. It wanders into some of the political territory that I try to shy away from on the show just a little bit, but David Weissman is our guest and I wanted him to have a chance to be able to tell his story, and it's kind of hard to do that without letting him express some of his political views. And we just wanted to let you know right at the top of the show that David's views are David's views. We respect them, and we know that our listeners are coming from a lot of different places, and you may have different ideas than David. But mostly what I want you to focus on with this episode as well, no matter what your political views are, is the way that humans really can change, and that changing our minds tends to change our lives in many ways. Matter of fact, when we talk about repentance in Christianity, that's what we mean, that we turn and go another direction, another way, So I'm fascinated by David's story. He's a really nice guy, and I appreciate him taking some time to be able to share his life going from being a Trump troll to being a peacemaker. And so with that in mind, I just wanted to kind of give you a little bit of a preface. There is a little background noise on his end because he had to record the call outside on his phone from where he was calling from, but it still, I think, comes through very well, and you'll be able to plainly hear our conversation. So thanks for listening to Voices in My Head. Let me know what you think of today's episode. All right, here we go.

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Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I'm your host Rick Lee James, and I'm so glad that you can be here with us today. A question I want to ask today as we begin is, can a person change? And how does a person change? You know, in the Bible, in Romans chapter 12, verse 2, there's a verse that says, do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So with that in mind, if we change the way we think, can we change our lives? My guest today on Voices in My Head is blogger and activist David Weissman. David is a person of the Jewish faith. He is also a writer for the Times of Israel, which is found at www.timesofisrael.com. David was born in New York, and he served in the U.S. Army for 13 years with 2 deployments in Afghanistan. He is a former Republican and has now joined the Democratic Party and is doing his best to fight for the rights of others. And that isn't the most interesting part of the story, however. We all know Republicans, we all know Democrats, and chances are that they are our good friends and family, and even if we aren't even on the same page together, we still know and love them. But what's so fascinating about David's story wasn't that he was just a Republican, and it wasn't just that he was a staunch Republican, David was a full-throated Trump supporter, and in fact was a Trump troll online. The fact that he now supports Elizabeth Warren should tell you that there has been a change that has happened. Well, I'm fascinated with that change, and the purpose of today's show is not to endorse a political party, but to have a discussion about change and how it happens in people, and to listen to a person who has had a major change in his life. David Weissman, after that long introduction, welcome to Voices in My Head.

Well, that was a perfect introduction, and thank you. I appreciate you having me on.

Well, it is a pleasure to have you, and I came across you first, I guess on Twitter was where I first became aware of you, and I noticed the way that you, you do talk a lot about politics, but you also have a different way about you because you are very gracious to people, even people who are not necessarily very kind to you. And what I found amazing was to find out that at one time you were a Trump troll online, that you were literally trolling people and kind of making their life miserable.

Yeah, um, I, I was, I was a very angry, you know, conservative troll. And, um, you know, I trolled people, I gave them a lot of hard time for blaming the things they do. Um, I was always conservative for like the longest, you know, for many, many years I've always voted Republican. And I, I believed in a lot of that propaganda on Fox News and other conservative outlets and had this fear that Democrats are taking our rights away. So a lot of that fearmongering installs a lot of anger in people thinking that this is what's happening. And when you see people are fighting for other people's rights, it's like, "No, they'll take our rights away." So it gets people so angry and walled up, and that's why there's That's why, you know, platforms like that are so toxic because there's no boundaries, no enforcing policy on how people should be treated on that platform. So, I mean, I was very trollish and, you know, and it felt— I mean, I don't know if it's because of PTSD from being in the Army or— I mean, it felt like when I logged in, It was like going to combat, social media combat. Everybody had their armies. You had your conservative army, you had your liberal army, and everybody was going at it 100%. So that's what it seemed like every day until that one moment. And that's changed my life.

Sure. Well, let's dive in a little bit to your story here so we can find out about your journey from where you were and where you are now.

If we could, let's go to your background in the military.

As you already alluded to, if I'm correct, I believe you were a chaplain assistant in Afghanistan.

Correct. I was in for 13 years. I went to 2 deployments in Afghanistan as a chaplain assistant, and even though I wasn't a chaplain, you know, I did a lot of security because a chaplain doesn't carry a weapon, and that's where I came in to make sure chaplain was safe. And, you know, we went where the soldiers went. You know, a lot of it were front lines and seeing action, stuff I didn't want to see. But, you know, that comes with the territory, you know, being in the Army.

And I wonder if that was— you were working for a Christian chaplain, but you are a Jewish person yourself. So what was that like?

Um, oh, that was interesting. I mean, you learn about each other's faith. You know, we had questions and talks and No, it was respectful. You know, in the Chaplain Corps, you're supposed to respect all faith groups. I mean, in fact, when you sign in, you sign a waiver saying that you would support all faith groups. And I know there are some people like, you know, sort of hesitant, but understand, you know what, you're there for the soldiers. You know, you're not there for yourself. You are there for yourself too, but you know, freedom of religion, everybody has right to practice their faith, even if you don't agree with it.

Sure.

So it's been an experience.

Well, that's fascinating, and I've made some really good friends over the years who are chaplains in the military, and that's been my experience with them as well. And even someone like myself who is pretty anti-violent when it comes to the way that I live my life, they have been so wonderful to me, and we've been able to share such good fellowship. So I'm glad to hear about that. Sort of the fellowship you had with them together. I want to ask, while we're talking about your service, how did being in Afghanistan and being really on the front lines and being with the chaplain, how did that change your views on war?

Well, I think I did have a negative outlook towards people of Islam because I thought that was I mean, not just with the deployments, but being as if you already hear the stories in Israel with the war between Palestinians and Israelis, you know, you always already have a negative outlook on that. So it wasn't really good, even though I should have known better being a soldier. But I mean, you know, when you see 9/11, because before 9/11, you know, there wasn't really much talk about the Islam faith and what they actually practice. People and what they contributed to society. It's like 9/11 happened and, you know, all you think is like terror attacks, terror attacks, terror attacks. And that's, that's part of the fear-mongering that a lot of the conservative propaganda, um, said about the Islamic community. And part of my— I don't know if you know, but part of my journey, actually, I went to, um, I actually went to a Ramadan service and learned a little bit about You know, and I was kind of floored how it was nothing compared to what I originally thought about Islam.

Well, and that is fascinating. We've had a few people of the Islamic faith on our show here. Matter of fact, this coming weekend at the time of recording this, I'll be— I've been invited once again to be a guest at an Islamic Day celebration here in the city where I live at. And as a Christian minister I take that to be quite an honor, and I was able to be with them last year. And you're right, it's not what we're often told, and when we start developing relationships with people, we start to understand many different things, and there's a lot of diversity there that we didn't understand before.

Right.

So I want to kind of find out how your writing career began and who some of your influences were. It sounds like up to this point in the story, and I think always, you were probably trying to approach this from a good place. You probably felt like you were doing the right thing. You felt like, for instance, Islam was a threat and you wanted to protect people. Exactly.

Yeah.

So how did you—

So yeah.

Yeah, just tell us a little bit of your journey into how you started writing about this and how you got more and more involved in it.

Sure, and that's been kind of a funny thing too because people, 'Cause you'll see Trump supporters saying, "Why did this liberal get a blue checkmark?" Which is kind of funny because, you know, a lot of people know that I actually began writer even before I was a columnist, even before 2016. In fact, I did a lot of posting on Facebook, just, you know, expressing how I felt. 'Cause you're right, 'cause a lot of people are basically misinformed and a lot of it is through misinformation. So I was concerned about the Iran deal. That was one of my biggest concerns being in Israel at the time, 'cause after my military career, lived in Israel for a few years before I came back to the States. And so I was talking a lot about that, and my influence at the time were Sean Hannity, a lot of people at Fox News, Breitbart, CRTV, a lot of different conservative outlets. And that's where I was getting my information. And so in fact, there's an outlet called the Conservative Dispatches from the Conservative Underground that I first took my first blog that I've written for. And in fact, it was actually about the Iran deal. And you know, and it took off from there. So I mean, I was inspired by Hannity and others to get involved politically. And that's where it started.

Okay, so Sean Hannity was a really big influence, and this was back even when George W. Bush was president, I think, so it wasn't just like yesterday or anything like that.

Exactly, exactly. It's been a major influence for a long time.

Okay, so this sort of philosophy had kind of been something that you had been immersing yourself in more and more. So what I'm interested in is this whole idea of trolling. I'm not sure that all of us understand exactly what trolling is and, and how it operates sometimes. And, and, but you became one, is what we would call a troll.

Yeah.

So maybe you can explain a little bit to us, like, how do trolls meet and sort of devise strategies, and what do they do? What's that kind of look like?

Well, I was invited to different Twitter groups. I was in different Facebook groups, but the trolling actually happens more on Twitter. And, you know, as you can see with different conservative people would speak out on an issue, things would start to trend. Then you see the trends, the different high-profile accounts would bring them into the groups, talk about it, and then you work on saying, hey, this— you go after this person, this this person is doing this, this person is doing that. So it's sort of like, it is like a coordinated attack, I guess we'll call it that, on Twitter to go after that person, try to tell them, hey, they're wrong, this is not right, violating this, blah, blah, blah. So it's very well coordinated and there's tons and tons of groups. I was in several. A lot of these groups. Wow. So yeah, it's very, very, very coordinated. They know what they're doing. I mean, that's why they've been so successful.

So it's interesting that just today, I had literally just a few minutes before we got on to chat today, there was a report that came out from the Senate Intelligence Committee. And the report— this is one very interesting thing, and it may be so new I'm not even sure you heard it yet, but I'm going to read it real quick just for reference to the kinds of things that began being shared. It says, from the Senate Intelligence Committee report, says according to one November 2016 analysis, in the final 3 months leading up to Election Day, calculated by a number of shares, reactions, and comments, the top-performing intentionally false stories on Facebook actually outperformed the top news stories from 19 major news outlets. The analysis found that in terms of user engagement, the top 2 intentionally false election stories on Facebook included articles alleging Pope Francis' endorsement of Donald Trump for president and Hillary Clinton's sale of weapons to ISIS. So it's interesting, you know, we have all these stories that are, are blatantly fake, like Pizzagate and birtherism and things like that, um, that are interesting. But I'm fascinated by the way that these false narratives get started, and then not just get started, but then get perpetuated, and then even to the point of outperforming actual news stories from major, major news outlets.

People, people like drama, people like, um, clickbait articles. Is to, you know, get people reacting, um, even though it's completely false. I mean, it's, it's, that's how Trump does. I mean, Trump tweeted today about the emails, uh, from Hillary today, you know, 2019, about the emails situation that happened, you know, back in 13, you know, 2013 or 12, I believe. And it's, it's reaction. It's the startup stuff, very divisive. And that all comes from trolling. That's all connected to the trolling behavior.

Hmm. So you were, you know, at the same time, you were talking about how there is something about the reaction that it feels good. And you were sort of welcomed into a group of people, you know, who sort of shared these beliefs together. And what was your agenda? Let's, let's go back to like the 2016 election because that's just a little bit closer to mine. What would your agenda have been at that time?

It was very conservative agenda. In fact, I was so conservative I originally voted for Ted Cruz prior, prior to picking Trump. That's how conservative I was. I care. I cared about the Second Amendment. You know, nobody touched it. Guns, don't touch them. You know, I believe that Democrats wanted to take guns. I believe, you know, that they wanted to take our free speech, religion away. A lot of this misinformation I believed in, and I, you know, I felt, and a lot of people feel that, you know, rights wanted to be taken away instead of just, you know, what I know now, that people are, they can actually fight for other people's rights without taking your rights away, which is actually the truth. But at the time I didn't know that. So a lot of people are afraid about the rights being violated, rights being taken away. And that's— so a lot of this is fear and we're thinking that we're all being patriotic. And then, you know, when Trump won the nomination, I felt that, okay, he's the guy. Okay, so he's not very, very conservative, but he knows what's priority. And he knew, you know, he knows what's going on, which I thought he was patriotic, he cares about the military. And I'm thinking all these things because I trust in Hannity at the time. Okay, Hannity wants him to be president, you know, then he's definitely better than Clinton because everybody hated Clinton on the Republican side. So it was pretty simple choice to say, all right, I'm gonna go with Trump. You know, Trump was saying a lot of stuff that we wanted anyway. Wanted wall, security, keep immigrants out. He knew exactly what conservatives wanted. So it was like, okay, this is the guy. And once I decided to vote in support of Trump, they welcomed me in and I began supporting each other and we were working together trying to get more votes for Trump.

Yeah, well, it's fascinating to me too, because again, one thing that— and by the way, I think this is, this is an admirable thing for conservatives, and in the fact that you were really a family values person, you know, and, and it sounds like that could be a good thing, you know, and, and you were thinking you're protecting the American way of life and And there's a lot of anxiety going on about Muslims and Mexicans. And it's interesting that often those anxieties are in places where there are not a lot of Muslims and Mexicans. And they're sort of this, you know, invisible presence in people's lives.

And that's the thing too. A lot of conservatives are, they have this conception that America is one way of life. And I've learned that's not the case. No.

Yeah, and that's true. There's a lot of different American ways of life. I always say the different parts of the country that I go to, I feel like I'm in multiple countries just in the middle of the United States at times.

Right? It does seem like that sometimes.

Well, I'm curious for you because I see this a lot and I just am curious as to how you justified something like, for instance, where it was just 3 years ago when the infamous Access Hollywood tapes came out, you know, where Trump is caught on tape saying very demeaning things about women. And, you know, which is nothing new if you've followed Trump for a while. That's not, you know, nobody's ever thought he was any sort of a saint at all. But to hear it that way, you know, it was shocking to me at the time. I remember being very shocked by it. And it was interesting though, I would see especially because I am a Christian, a lot of my evangelical friends, they quickly found ways to justify it and, and, you know, call it, well, it's just locker room talk. And it made me think, yeah, well, you're not in my locker room because I don't hear people talking like that, you know.

It's always, always been excuses because it felt like, um, that the, you know, what has been called the left and Hollywood and all them were trying to demonize him, you know, trying to make him this bad guy. And it's like, oh no, just locker talking, always seem to make an excuse for him. And you mean some people— I mean, I, I never really studied his whole history, but I knew he wasn't a great guy. And I'm thinking, I'm thinking to myself, oh, he's just an average guy, you know, because guys are like that. I mean, I admit that I'm not a saint. I am far from a saint. Um, and you know, so I'm thinking he's just a guy like me, so what's the big deal? You know, that's what I thought.

And And it's interesting that, you know, people like you, for instance, were, you know, would probably have been very quick to protect and justify and, you know, and it's interesting, isn't it, that sometimes we will ignore all indecency in order to protect decency, isn't it?

Well, it's the agenda that people are protecting, their interpretation of the Constitution. Their way of life. They— that's all they care about, money, because they think that Trump was going to bring a good economy, even though it's actually Obama's economy that really helped our country. But these were the things that the Trump supporters were very concerned and protective about and would defend him no matter what, because, you know, he supports their agenda regardless of decency, right?

Well, and that's, that's the interesting thing about this. I— it turns into a lot of whataboutism, as it's called. And anytime you— which I never understand. I always think like, well, maybe we should just— doesn't matter which side we're on, if we should do our best to be people who seek truth. And there was a turning point for you along the way that actually has to do with you discovering some truths.

Yeah, exactly. One of the truths I learned is that liberals do hold their own accountable. I've seen Democrats hold their own accountable. And yes, what happened, how that started is during a time where conservatives were supposedly being banned. I don't believe that now, obviously, but conservatives were saying they were being banned or shadowbanned. I made a tweet attacking two celebrities because of their comedy. Sarah Silverman is one of them and Stephen Colbert is another and said, hey, Jack, you know, why are you silencing conservatives? We allow these guys— you know, running amok and there's no accountability. And then Sarah actually replied in a kind way, which I was really surprised. She said, you know, comedy is constructive. It's not cause— meant to be offensive. It's cause reaction to get people talking about issues and things like that. And so I was surprised that she responded because normally when you go after celebrities, they block you and it's sort of like like a badge of honor, you know, they block, you know, they block anyone on Twitter. And so I thought, okay, she responded, why didn't I find out why she doesn't like Trump? Because, you know, she's Jewish like me and he cares about Israel. Um, so why, you know, what's her, what's her deal? So I told, and then she actually told me about how he's anti-Semitic about Jews in America because you can actually be an anti-Semite and care about Israel based on, you know, evangelicals and, um, said how he was misogynist and racist and different things like that. I was like, okay. And, you know, when I was dialoguing, I had no plans of leaving Trump support. I had no plans of leaving the Republican Party. I was just talking. So then, then I wondered, okay, she's actually talking to me here. So why don't I find out why liberals believe the way they do? Because to me it seems weird. Like, why would liberals care more about illegal aliens than they would care about the military? So I didn't— in fact, I actually asked that to her, and it's on Twitter still up, you know, it wasn't a private conversation. If you were to do an advanced search, you could actually see our conversations on Twitter. So with that—

just to interject real quick, if you don't mind, sorry. So, you know, ultimately It was a— not a conversation with a person you necessarily knew, but it was a conversation online with Sarah Silverman, who had the poise at the time, at least, to actually have a real conversation with you and not necessarily be defensive, but actually just started talking. And so you started this kind of relationship talking back and forth where you could ask questions you were wondering about.

Exactly. And it was someone as progressive as she, you know, because conservatives consider Hollywood to be the enemy of America, almost like comparing it to terrorism in so many ways, you know, because like I said, we think that, um, they were trying to take our rights away. So this is kind of a shocker, you know, and it really shocked me that this happened. And so I asked her more questions like, you know, why do you guys care about leaving the aliens? We're military veterans, and she said that's not true. You can actually care about immigrants and military veterans at the same time. And one, we're a country of immigrants. And then when she was— a lot of her followers were talking with me, showing me facts, you know, concerning me at least, how things like seeking asylum, where they actually have the right to come to our country, and it's actually a human rights violation on what this administration is doing. And, you know, there are many immigrants who served in the military, you know, undocumented immigrants that are in the military and are being deported because they're undocumented immigrants. You know, that's not right. They're serving our country and getting the boot, you know. And so there's different things like that, you know. And I asked about gun control, and, you know, when it came to the Second Amendment, it was right to bear arms. That's all I took for it. I didn't actually read the fine print about well-regulated militia. So when I asked her about that, she's like, no, we don't want to take your guns. We just want common sense laws, you know, and bring mass shootings down and things like that. So, um, you know, more and more, a lot— so what was going on, and I realized a lot of the conservative talking points I learned was a lot lies. So it was sort of a really shock to me that I, you know, this was going on. And I asked what I learned about Hillary Clinton, President Obama, and truth about them. And, you know, my world basically was turned upside down from that point. Um, wow.

So literally, when some new information started coming into your life and your mind started changing, it started changing your life. As well. Did you start finding yourself being— was it strange to start being more open to some people that you had maybe been closed off to before?

It was very strange. I mean, because, you know, originally you didn't want to hear it because, you know, the fake news bit that Trump uses It's actually been around prior to Trump. A lot of conservatives called, you know, called CNN, MSNBC fake news. So that was, you know, something that was believed among conservatives. So, so, yeah, I mean, it really changed my point to like to be open-minded because I wrote a column I made an article about, you know, understanding, because when she started talking, a lot of other people saw what was going on and they made a lot of different contacts and relationships. After her, I learned about, you know, police brutality and different things like that. And I was surprised because you never hear, see things like that on conservative media. So I made an article understanding why, understanding, you know what, Keiffer Dink had the right to kneel. You know, free speech is not what we think is free speech. Free speech should be right for everybody. And what Trump was doing, encouraging punitive actions, was unconstitutional. Uh, not the part— I mean, NFL had the right to say what is allowed, but it was wrong for Trump to get involved. That was the unconstitutional part. And then when she, she made a comment saying, hey, we became friends You know, she said, hey, I like Trump. So at the time I still liked Trump. I had no intention of leaving. And she appreciated that I was learning from them, learning her and from other liberals and Democrats. And so then I— that's where I really began. I let down my wall, my own wall, and I began asking more questions, talking to more people about different issues. And when, you know, MAGA saw this, they saw it as like, you know, I'm not allowed to do that. And, you know, there's a lot of backlash. I mean, I encourage them to look up the mentions. It's crazy stuff that they come up with.

So when you— if you don't mind me interrupting for just a moment— when you said there was a MAGA backlash, is that a particular group of people that you were involved with online or just sort of anybody that was kind of trolling people for, I guess, the Trump train or whatever at this time, right?

Um, it was— the reactions were something else. I mean, being called traitor, being called— and I'm thinking to myself, I'm a veteran here and they know I'm a veteran. Why are they— why are they calling me a traitor? Why are they saying this, you know, these things about me? I mean, I I thought they were friends, I thought they were allies, and here they're calling me out like this just for dialoguing. And it seemed to like snap a trance. Like, I don't know, it's like when you sign up for it, you know, you really get so involved that, you know, you can do no wrong. Like, I really believe that the president was the enemy of the people, and you know, you get to a point where you believe all of that stuff. So when the trance was snapped out of it, trust me. I see how vile some of these people were, and I saw how Trump was about it. And I didn't— then I decided, okay, that's, you know, this isn't good for the country. And I, then I actually began to research, and because I— when I realized a lot of the stuff that conservatives have said were wrong, I began to question their judgment on Trump. And I went back and researched about him, learned that he was a draft dodger. I learned that he, um, didn't like military members, you know, things he said about soldiers having PTSD, um, you know, different things like that. And, you know, he had a lot of failures. He wasn't great a businessman. He had a lot of bankruptcy, a lot of issues, um, you know, he wasn't this Captain America guy that I thought he was. And You know, because you start letting them believe that that's almost like a patriotic superhero. But, you know, I'm seeing that that's far from the truth. That's not reality. And then I decided, you know what, I'm no longer going to support Trump. And when I saw his meeting with Putin, where he left himself vulnerable, having a closed door, meeting with our enemy, Putin, of all people, that confirmed that I made the right decision. And—

Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.

Oh, I was saying, at the time, I hadn't fully crossed over to Democratic Party. I was sort of an independent at the time because I went from leaving the Republican Party from all the lies and stuff that they said about liberals that weren't true. I was independent. And so, and then the more I learned, I saw how Democrats fight for rights of others, want common sense gun laws. You know, a lot of the stuff that they fight for sort of hit me home, and I realized the truth of these things. And, you know, the Democratic Party actually seems like a pretty good place. I mean, of course, no one's perfect, you know, in either party. Corruption, you know, all around, you know, no one's perfect. But the stuff that I learned, stuff that I believe in now, and so my values have changed, um, were in line more of the Democratic Party, so I decided to join them.

Well, this is, this is a fascinating story, and I, I appreciate you sharing it. I, I know that I personally have, have never really felt like I found a home on any side of the political spectrum, probably because of my religious beliefs, and I always feel like a lot of things fall short. But what I have always appreciated is when I'm able to pull away from social media and actually sit down with people and have good conversations and hear different perspectives. I have different friends that are pretty liberal in their beliefs beliefs. I have different friends that are pretty conservative in their beliefs, but I always am amazed at how much we all really have in common together and the way that we really, I think, are hopefully looking for the truth. And sometimes when we're able to get away from some of these online worlds, you know, we're able to actually be a part of our community. And it's not that we have to agree with each other on every single thing, but I— the part that I really love about your story is it seems like there has been a new openness as you've been able to change your mind about some things, to be able to have some new relationships and to be able to see some new truths that maybe you weren't able to see before. And one thing I really want to commend you on in this conversation, it is such a hard thing for a person to make a change, isn't it? I mean, it is— it can disrupt everything.— and in Christianity we call it repentance because it means a literal turning around and going the opposite direction of where we went. And it's a hard thing, right?

Yeah, it's very hard. It wasn't easy. And you know, that's the thing, I don't think people realize how hard it was, or how hard it still is. I mean, this happened— I mean, it wasn't fast, but yet it was. And it was a lot to to digest, and it still is. And I mean, it's like your whole world has been turned upside down, like everything you were led to believe were lies. And I mean, how do you— how does someone process all that stuff?

Yeah, and, and a lot of it is learning to, to read, um, you know, better sources and things like that. So often we find, just maybe because we haven't done research, uh, that, that is actually pretty easy to do online anymore whether a site is legitimate or not and things like that, but a lot of people, we just don't know that. And I think it's a lot of people like yourself who I can tell just from talking to you, you probably have a heart as big as Texas, you know, and that you really wanted the best for people at all times. And it's interesting how we can get so caught up in things that at one point in our life we were so involved and later on down the road we've made a complete change from that. I just find that kind of very fascinating, and I want to commend you just for your openness and doing that hard work, which I know must still be ongoing, that you're still seeking and trying to grow as a person.

Right, and I'm glad I've seen a lot of stuff outside of Twitter because you can't just— you can't make any changes— meaning can, but can't at the same time. I've been to different parades, I've been to different meetings, I don't know. It encourages you to want to do more for the community, and it's been an amazing experience. It's worthwhile, I mean, yeah, I know sometimes I often talk about the trolls trolling me, but there's definitely been a positive experience too, not just the negative.

Hmm, well, I'm glad to hear that. And you're still at this time having a lot of, a lot of people attack you because you've changed your mind, aren't you?

Right, yeah, personal attacks, um, professional attacks, all, I mean, from all over the place. I mean, it's kind of ridiculous, but you know, hey, I was, I was part of them, so I can understand why they, why they go that route. But I just gotta learn to ignore it.

Yeah, well, and you know what, I've noticed that you just following you a little bit on Twitter, you do seem to have such a gracious way, at least what I've seen, and the way that you interact with people who are sometimes just seemingly pretty nasty to you. I can so appreciate the way that you are trying to respond in grace to them and, and the way that you're trying to actually help have dialogue, and I know that's just as difficult as anything else because sometimes people don't want to hear it. We tend to get into our little bubbles and it's hard to get out of those things, but I appreciate the gracious way that I've seen you have a number of times online.

Well, I mean, I'm here paying it forward, you know. If it wasn't for that happening to me, I would still be that guy, you know. I just want to pay that that same caring attitude over to other people. But it doesn't always work, sometimes it does.

Well, David, this has been really great to get to just spend some time talking with you about the changes that can come about in lives. And the purpose of the show today was really not to bash conservatives or lift up liberals or anything like that, but it really was just an opportunity to have a chance to think about the ways that when we change our minds, that really can change our lives and it can change our perspectives. And this could apply to a whole lot of different things, not just politics, right?

Right, absolutely.

Yeah, we definitely can be people who— I know a lot of people say that people can't change, but I truly do believe we can. And it's a much easier change if we have people walking on the journey together with us. We may not believe things 20 years down the road that we believe today, but hopefully we will still have relationships that we had 20 years down the road with people that are good enough to walk alongside of us. And I want to thank you for spending some time here with us today, just kind of telling your story. It's fascinating to me.

Well, I appreciate you having me on. Thank you so much.

Sure thing. Well, as I say to my guests each week on this podcast, David Weissman, thank you for being one of the voices in my head this week.

Thank you for joining me here this week on Voices in My Head. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com, where you can find out more about me, get my music on vinyl and CD, follow my blog, and even schedule me for a concert or a speaking engagement. Better yet, even a book signing in your neighborhood. You can find all that more at rickleejames.com. Also, it would mean a great deal to me if you could write a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast will be online. And now for the benediction. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you you may abound in hope. God bless you, and thank you for listening to Voices in My Head.