The Red Hat Fits: My Three Years Inside

How good people get lost in dangerous movements

Falling deeper into a world of fear and rage fueled by utter bullshit.

It's funny how clear things become once you're on the outside looking in. But that clarity? It's expensive. Cost me my marriage, half my friends, and two years of Thanksgivings with my parents. Sometimes I wonder if it was worth it.

The Beginning

I never thought of myself as political. Sure, I'd vote in presidential elections, but I couldn't tell you who my state representatives were. Politics was something that happened elsewhere, to other people. Until it wasn't.

The mill closing wasn't a surprise, exactly. Rumors had been floating for months, but we'd heard them before. Riveredge Steel had been the backbone of our town since before I was born. My father worked there, my grandfather before him. I'd been on the floor for fifteen years, made shift supervisor three years back.

Then one Tuesday, we all got text messages to gather in the parking lot. Portable speakers were set up hastily. A man none of us recognized announced the closure. Effective immediately. Something about market forces and foreign competition. He wouldn't take questions.

Six hundred people stood in stunned silence. That's when Bobby, who ran the coating line, ripped off his hard hat and threw it against the chain-link fence. "This is what they've done to us," he shouted. "They've sold us out."

Everyone knew who "they" were. The politicians, the coastal elites, the foreign interests. The people who'd never set foot in Riveredge but decided our fate anyway.

I didn't sleep for three nights. Lois tried to be supportive, but the worry lines around her eyes deepened. Our savings would last four months, maybe five if we cut back. The mortgage payment loomed. Jason was starting community college that fall.

The job search was worse than I expected. At 43, I was "overqualified" for entry-level positions and "underskilled" for anything that paid close to what I'd been making. Each rejection email felt like another small betrayal.

That's when Dan, my brother-in-law, invited me to a "community meeting" at the VFW hall. "Just some folks talking about bringing jobs back," he said. "Might do you good to get out."

I went because I had nothing better to do. Because sitting at home scrolling through job listings that wouldn't call back was slowly killing me. Because Lois had started taking extra shifts at the hospital, and the silence in the house was deafening.

The meeting room was packed, mostly with faces I recognized from town. There was an energy I hadn't felt since the mill closed – a kind of crackling anticipation. The speaker was a local businessman I vaguely knew, someone who'd made good running a chain of auto parts stores.

"They want us divided," he said, pacing the small stage. "They want us fighting each other over scraps while they ship our jobs overseas, open our borders, and laugh all the way to the bank."

He pointed to a map of our county with red pins marking closed factories. "Each one of these was killed by the same people. The globalists. The elites. The illegal immigrants who'll work for nothing while you lose everything." His voice hardened. "And when they're done taking our jobs, they'll take our neighborhoods, our schools, our way of life."

A woman behind me yelled, "That's right."

"These people hate us," he continued. "They hate our values, they hate our faith, they hate everything we stand for. And they won't stop until they've erased it all."

It wasn't anything I hadn't heard whispered before. But something about being in that room, surrounded by people nodding in fierce agreement, made the words land differently. The shapeless anxiety I'd felt since losing my job suddenly had a focus, a name, a face. For the first time in months, I didn't feel alone in my anger.

When he held up the red hat, there was a roar from the crowd. I didn't cheer, not then. But I felt something stir inside me – not hope exactly, but its hungrier cousin.

I left with a pamphlet, a bumper sticker I didn't plan to use, and an invitation to join a Facebook group. Small commitments, I told myself. Just staying informed.

The Middle Ground

The Facebook group was active at all hours. During those sleepless nights when anxiety gnawed at me, there was always someone online. Sharing links about manufacturing returning, promises of better days ahead. These strangers understood what I was going through in a way that even Lois couldn't.

"These liberal news channels won't tell you this," one post would start, followed by a story about factories reopening in Michigan or Pennsylvania. Another would share a meme about coastal elites who couldn't change a tire but wanted to decide how the rest of us should live.

When I shared my own story about the mill closing, dozens of people responded with support and understanding. Some shared similar experiences. One woman wrote, "They've forgotten about us, but we haven't forgotten about them." The "us" and "them" required no explanation.

The language of the group became my language. The jokes, the shorthand, the nicknames for political figures – they created a sense of belonging I hadn't felt since my early days at the mill. I found myself checking the group first thing in the morning and last thing at night. And whenever I could during the day.

Lois noticed the change in me. "You seem... different," she said one night over dinner. Jason had already retreated to his room.

"Different how?" I asked, though I knew what she meant.

"You're talking about things you never cared about before. Sending me these articles. Last week you got into that fight with my cousin on Facebook."

I had almost forgotten about that. Carlos had posted something snarky about people who supported the movement, and I had responded with facts and figures I'd learned from the group. It wasn't my fault he couldn't handle the truth.

"I'm just paying attention now," I said. "You should too. This affects all of us."

She sighed and started clearing the plates. "I'm not saying it doesn't. I just miss when we could talk about other things."

But what other things mattered? The future of our country was at stake. If Lois couldn't see that, it was because she was still listening to the mainstream channels, still believing what they wanted her to believe. Fake news.

I bought my first red hat a month later. Wore it to Dan's barbecue. His wife rolled her eyes, but Dan clapped me on the back. "Finally saw the light, huh?" he said, and the phrase stuck with me. I had seen the light. Everything else had been darkness. A lie.

By the time I found a new job – quality control at a warehouse thirty miles away, forty percent pay cut – I was fully immersed. My feed was curated to show me what was really happening. I knew which channels told the truth and which ones lied. I could spot the buzzwords that signaled enemies and allies.

The language had changed subtly. It wasn't just about policies anymore – it was about threats. The immigrants weren't just taking jobs; they were bringing crime, disease, foreign values. The political opponents weren't just wrong; they were evil, corrupt, working actively to destroy the country from within. The language of infestation and invasion became normal. "They're flooding across the border." "They're infecting our communities." "We need to take our country back."

Each new crisis was linked back to the same shadowy enemies. A bad economy? Blame the globalists. Crime in cities? Blame the immigrants. Schools failing? Blame the liberals trying to indoctrinate your children.

The solution was always the same: remove them. Deport them. Lock them up. Take away their power. Only then could America be great again.

When Jason came home for winter break and challenged something I'd shared online about "illegals" bringing in drugs, I was ready with counterarguments, statistics I'd memorized from my trusted sources. When he persisted, I felt a flash of anger that surprised us both. "You've been brainwashed by that liberal college," I told him, and watched his face close like a door.

"Dad," he said quietly, "Mr. Lopez from your bowling league is undocumented. You've known him for years."

"That's different," I snapped. "He's one of the good ones."

Later, I would identify this as the point where I could have turned back. Instead, I pushed forward.

The Deepening

The first rally was a revelation. Thousands of people in red hats, American flags everywhere, a palpable sense of being part of something greater than myself. The energy of the crowd moved through me like electricity. When the chants started, my voice joined without hesitation.

I returned home transformed. Lois noticed immediately. "You look like you've found religion," she said, and in a way, she was right.

That night, I dreamt of a country restored to greatness, of the mill reopening, of Jason coming home from college and admitting I had been right all along. I woke up with a sense of purpose I hadn't felt in years.

I became a volunteer, making phone calls, attending meetings, recruiting others. The movement gave shape to my days. There was always work to be done, always a new battle to fight. The world outside the movement – with its complicated problems and nuanced solutions – fell away.

The language of war came naturally now. We were soldiers in an information battle. Every share, every comment, every conversation with a doubtful friend was part of the fight. Those who disagreed weren't just wrong – they were enemies of the country, complicit in its destruction.

At meetings, the rhetoric escalated. "We need to cleanse this country," one speaker said to thunderous applause. "Drain the swamp. Remove the parasites." No one specified exactly how this cleansing would happen, but the implication was clear. The fantasy of retribution against our enemies – the ones who had taken everything from us – was intoxicating. We would destroy them before they could do any more damage.

I found myself fantasizing about the day of reckoning, when they would finally get what they deserved. The details were vague, but the satisfaction was visceral. They had made us suffer; soon it would be their turn.

When Lois asked me to stop talking politics at family gatherings, I saw it as weakness, as capitulation. "This isn't about politics," I told her. "It's about survival. They want to replace us. Can't you see that?"

We began to fight – not the productive arguments of our early marriage, but bitter exchanges that left us sleeping in separate rooms. She couldn't understand why I couldn't see what was happening. I couldn't understand why she refused to open her eyes.

The movement had answers for this too. "They'll try to separate you from the truth," Dan told me when I mentioned the strain at home. "They'll say you've changed, that you're obsessed. It's because they're afraid of what you know."

And I did know things now. I could recite statistics about immigration and crime, could explain exactly how the election had been compromised, could name the players in the deep state and their connections to each other. The world had never been so clear, so ordered, so comprehensible.

When Jason announced he wouldn't be coming home for Thanksgiving, choosing instead to stay with his mother's family, I recognized the forces at work. They were taking my son from me, just as they had taken my job, my community, my country.

I doubled down, spending more time online, attending more events. The red hat wasn't just an accessory now – it was an identity, a declaration, a promise. The line between myself and the movement blurred until I couldn't say where one ended and the other began.

And yet, in quiet moments, doubts would surface. A prediction that didn't come true. A promise unfulfilled. A contradiction I couldn't resolve. But the group had answers for these moments too – complicated explanations involving hidden agendas, strategic misdirection, enemies more powerful and devious than we had imagined.

Accept the explanation, and the doubt would subside. The alternative – that I had been wrong, that we had all been wrong – was unthinkable.

The Breaking Point

It was a Tuesday again, almost three years to the day since the mill closed. I was scrolling through my feed during lunch break when I saw the post. It claimed that a school shooting in another state had been staged, that the grieving parents were actors, that it was all a plot to take away guns.

I'd seen similar claims before, but something about this one stopped me cold. Maybe it was the photos of the parents, their faces carved with a grief I recognized from my own father's funeral. Maybe it was the certainty with which people I'd come to trust were declaring it all fake.

My father. Wounded in Vietnam. He risked his life to protect the people of America. All the people. Not just the ones who looked like him or voted like him. When I was eight, he'd pulled over in a snowstorm to help a family with out-of-state plates. "They're Americans too," he'd said simply when I asked why. He would have been one of the first to put on a mask during the pandemic. If it meant keeping someone safe, any stranger safe, he wouldn't have thought twice.

What would he think of the man I'd become? The one who forwarded memes mocking the "sheeple" who wore masks? The one who'd come to see half his fellow citizens as enemies?

For the first time in months, I found myself checking other sources, ones I'd long ago dismissed as propaganda. They told a different story – one of real children, real deaths, real mourning.

That night, I couldn't sleep. The question that had been building somewhere deep inside finally broke through: If they were wrong about this, what else were they wrong about?

It was like standing on what you thought was solid ground, only to feel it shift beneath your feet.

I began to look back at the past three years with new eyes. The booming economy that never happened. The enemies that never materialized. The solutions that always seemed just around the corner but never arrived. The empty promises. The lies that now seem so outrageous and manipulative. I had bought it all.

But most of all, I looked at what I had become. The husband who couldn't talk to his wife about anything but conspiracy theories. The father whose son avoided coming home. The friend who had cut off anyone who disagreed. An angry, angry man.

The next morning, I left the red hat on the shelf. At work, I avoided political conversations for the first time in years. That evening, I called Jason and asked about his classes, really listened to his answers.

Leaving wasn't as simple as taking off the hat, of course. The beliefs had become part of me, the community a source of identity and purpose. There were days I slipped back, days the anger and certainty were more comforting than the confusion of rebuilding a worldview.

The Facebook group noticed my absence. Messages came in, concerned at first, then accusatory. "Thought you were one of the strong ones," Dan texted. "Guess they got to you too."

Lois watched my struggle with cautious optimism. "I've missed you," she said one night, and I realized how long it had been since we'd really talked.

The path back was lonely. I'd alienated old friends, and the new ones couldn't understand my doubts. There were nights I almost gave in, almost put the hat back on, almost surrendered to the comfort of absolute certainty.

The hardest part was looking at myself in the mirror. I had dehumanized entire groups of people, reduced them to caricatures, blamed them for problems with complex causes. I had fantasized about their punishment, their removal, their suffering. All based on stories I'd been told, fears I'd been fed, anger I'd nursed like a precious flame.

I remembered the things I'd said about immigrants, about liberals, about anyone who disagreed. I remembered forwarding memes that portrayed them as animals, as vermin, as threats to be eliminated. I remembered the rush of belonging that came with that shared hatred.

When I finally reconnected with Carlos, Lois's cousin whom I'd fought with online, I could barely look him in the eye. "I was in a dark place," I said, which felt like a pathetic excuse.

"We all go through dark places," he said. "Not everyone joins a cult."

The word stung, but he wasn't wrong. The movement had all the hallmarks: the charismatic leader, the apocalyptic worldview, the demonization of outsiders, the isolation from dissenting voices, the special knowledge only insiders possessed.

But I didn't. Instead, I began the slow work of reconnection – with my family, with reality, with myself. And hardest of all, with the people I had dehumanized, the "them" who, it turned out, were just people trying to live their lives, same as me.

The Aftermath

It's been a year since I left the movement. Some days are harder than others. When I see red hats in the grocery store, something stirs in me – not agreement anymore, but understanding. I know what they're feeling, know the certainty and belonging the hat provides.

Lois and I are in counseling. Jason comes home more often. Last Thanksgiving, politics never came up once.

I've lost friends, of course. Dan doesn't speak to me anymore. Called me a traitor, said I'd regret abandoning the cause when the reckoning came. The reckoning is always coming, always just around the corner.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if the mill hadn't closed, if I'd found another job quickly, if I hadn't gone to that first meeting at the VFW. Would I have been immune? I doubt it. The vulnerability was there, waiting to be activated.

That's what I understand now that I didn't then: no one is immune. We all have the human need to explain our pain, to find community in our struggles, to believe that better days are ahead and that someone has the answers.

What makes a cult isn't the specific beliefs. It's the gradual surrender of independent thought, the comfort of absolute certainty, the fear of exclusion that keeps doubts buried. It's the way it isolates you from those who might question. The way it becomes your identity until you can't imagine yourself without it.

I still wear a hat sometimes – a plain blue one from the hardware store. No message, no meaning. Just a hat. Some days, that feels like the most radical act of all.

The mill never reopened. The jobs never came back. At least not the way they were promised. But something else returned – my capacity to see the world in its full complexity, to hold space for uncertainty, to connect with people beyond the boundaries of "us" and "them."

It wasn't the salvation I was promised. But it's real. And after three years of living in a world of shadows and conspiracies, reality – messy and complicated as it is – feels like freedom.

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Image ©2025 Gael MacLean