Ex-Maga supporters unpack their role in bolstering Trump’s platform and share what brought them to the Leaving Maga non-profit support network

• Life after Maga: the group offering an ‘exit ramp’ for rightwingers questioning Trumpism

Since Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign a decade ago, “Make America Great Again” (Maga) has evolved from a slogan into an identity, one that claims to center conservative, “America first” values and relies on lies and conspiracy theories to stay afloat. And while Maga has survived impeachments, indictments and a lost election, some devotees are walking away – and doing so loudly.

Rich Logis, a former Trump campaign volunteer, left Maga in 2022, publishing a public apology to help others see that it was OK to challenge the movement. The overwhelming response led him to found the non-profit Leaving Maga, a network of support groups and meetups for people to unpack their role in bolstering Trump’s platform. Logis said he doesn’t persuade people to leave; he just gives them a place to land when they do. The group’s billboard campaign, now running in 27 states, is built around a simple message: “Having doubts? You are not alone.”

Inquiries come after conservative thinktanks claim unions are using member dues to support Democratic causes

House Republicans are investigating several US labor unions based on claims from far-right non-profits alleging union dues are being used for illegal political funding.

Republicans on the House’s education and workforce committee opened the investigation this summer after multiple reports from the conservative thinktanks targeted unions and their spending, claiming that unions are using member dues to support Democratic causes.

Mike Rogers isn’t merely campaigning alongside a controversial supporter. His campaign put an extremist on its faith leadership team

Hasan Piker.

Turn on cable news. Pick up a newspaper. Log on to Twitter. It doesn’t seem to matter where you get your political news: for the past month, the leftist Twitch streamer has become one of the dominant subjects of coverage, conversation and controversy surrounding the crucial Michigan Senate race between the Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and the Republican Mike Rogers.

The non-profit Leaving Maga is built on the premise that abandoning the Trump-built movement is like fighting a disease or breaking an addiction

Stephania Messina kept birthing boys. In the Quiverfull conservative Christian church she belonged to outside Detroit, Michigan, that made her a community celebrity. Your quiver, as the church taught it, is your womb, meant to be filled with as many arrows – a metaphor for children – as you can shoot unto the Lord. She shot five. “They treated me like I was Mother Mary, like I was this gift to the church,” she said.

But while she was quickly pushed into leading worship and Bible study groups for women and children, she wasn’t permitted to talk about politics.

The deluge capped a summer of extreme climate events, from deadly heatwaves to wildfires. We must take action now

For millennia, the high peaks of the Himalayas were held together by an invisible, frozen cement – permafrost and glacial ice that bound ancient rock into seemingly unshakable fortresses. But as the planet continues to warm, this alpine glue is liquefying.

The glacial collapse and deluge in Nepal and Tibet was not a freak weather event; it was the structural failure of a mountain itself, nature’s latest commentary on the deadly consequences of human-caused planetary warming. And it was the exclamation point on a summer of extremes, illustrating with a sole unnatural disaster the apocalyptic future that lies in store if we fail to take dramatic climate action.