Podcast Summary: Work In Progress with Sophia Bush
Episode: "Ex-MAGA Carter Brown - Part 1" (March 25, 2026)

Episode Overview

In this thought-provoking episode, Sophia Bush sits down with Carter Brown, a former "deep evangelical MAGA world" insider, who is openly navigating the painful but liberating process of deconstructing her conservative beliefs. Sophia and Carter explore what it means to leave a culture of harm, especially when doing so comes at a cost to family, faith, and one’s own sense of self.

Together, they tackle topics of privilege, shame, and redemption, offering listeners an honest look at the complexities involved in transforming political, religious, and social convictions in real time.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Privilege and Exposure as Early Influencers

• Sophia talks about privilege and upbringing

  • Sophia reflects on how her multicultural community and family history gave her early exposure to diversity, which shaped her beliefs.

  “Part of the reason I’ve been in the fight for so long is because of my privilege… geography and exposure as a kid.” (06:41)

• Vice President Harris’s perspective on information silos

  • Sophia recounts being called out by Kamala Harris, learning that people operate with different sets of information, not just different opinions.

  “Information is information… And she was like, ‘You’re not listening to me. There are people who literally have an entirely different set of information than you do.’” (08:39)

2. Carter’s Journey of Deconstruction

• Bittersweet liberation of leaving MAGA/right-wing evangelicalism

  • Carter describes her deconstruction as equal parts painful and freeing.

  “The best way I can describe my deconstruction is bittersweet liberation… I literally feel like I was living in The Truman Show.” (13:26)

• Beginning the process by trusting her intuition

  • Carter shares how letting go of negative self-talk and listening to her intuition helped her start questioning her community’s teachings—eventually leading her to more progressive beliefs after debunking rapture, hell, and other doctrines.

  “I shed this care of what other people thought of me… I also realized that I love everybody.” (14:35)

• Struggles with family and faith

  • Carter reveals the inner turmoil of realizing her actions contradicted her growing empathy for marginalized groups and the figure of Jesus she read in scripture.

  “It was just hard battling of belief systems… picking up breadcrumbs to get me to where I’m at.” (15:23)

3. The First Fracture: Recognizing Harm in Childhood Discipline

• Spanking as an entry point for questioning
  • Carter describes realizing the harm in spanking after research and her own trauma, despite pressure from family and religious interpretations.

  “By literally picking up a breadcrumb, I found the study from Harvard about where it triggers the same part of the brain as sexual assault… Not my God.” (25:25)

  • This led to her first major break from the worldview she was raised in:

  “I can read the Bible differently than my dad. And so that was… the first fracture for me.” (26:54)

4. Learning to Trust Herself – and the Power of Systemic Gaslighting

• Culture of female submission in evangelicalism
  • Carter discusses how she was always taught to defer to male authority, made worse by undiagnosed learning disabilities.

  “Were you always taught to be deferent to your father, or your spouse, or the men in the room? For sure. Submissive.” (34:20) “I grew up thinking I was stupid, legitimately thought I was stupid. And so I just took this as I don’t understand, but the people that love me are telling me that this is what reality is, and I’m going to trust that.” (34:34)

5. Inside the MAGA Media Bubble—Trump’s Rise and Information Siloing

• Sophia’s (and many liberals’) disbelief at Trump’s rise

  “I never thought he could win… he’s not smarter than a fifth grader… what was it like in your world for Trump to hit the political scene?” (35:19)

• Carter’s recollections from 2015-2016

  • Carter recalls being personally vulnerable (recovering from injury & addiction), but notes how her community was looking for “a business person” and that Trump was seen as bringing a new perspective.

  “Everyone around me says this is a great option, okay. The ‘grab them by the’ statement… I’m under this impression that anybody can change. God can get anybody at any moment.” (36:32 & 37:19)

• On excusing Trump’s behavior in evangelical circles

  • Sophia and Carter dissect the ‘repentance eraser’:

  Sophia: “That’s always the eraser on the whiteboard, right? It’s like, well, they did a bad thing, but that’s washed away now. They’ve repented.” (37:57)
  Carter: “He probably hasn’t even repented, though.” (38:06)

• Media manipulation and damage control

  • Carter describes how conservative media minimizes allegations:

  “If there was a headline on Fox News… it would be like, anonymous woman from three decades ago says this… They make it seem like it’s so far-fetched.” (40:26)

6. The January 6th Capitol Attack—Missed by the Media Silo

• Lack of real-time awareness
  • Carter admits she did not know the details of January 6th, even though a friend was present. Conservative media portrayed it as fabricated or overblown.

  “She basically made it seem like it was not like what the media made it seem to be… my algorithms were basically saying this was the ‘fed boys’… the FBI.” (43:24)

7. The Impact of the Renee Good Shooting

• A turning point in her racial awareness
  • Carter realized the universal vulnerability to state violence when a white mother was killed by police—contradicting her previous beliefs shaped by race and law enforcement narratives.

  “I want to see what the right is saying about this… and then I just went to the raw video. I made my own opinion, was sickened, disgusted… if this can happen to someone who looks like me…” (50:03)

  • Carter acknowledges the discomfort in recognizing her prior ignorance about violence against marginalized groups.

  “It makes me sick to my stomach that I could be just like that, disconnected from humanity. This is hard.” (52:25)

8. Processing Shame and Building a Blueprint

• Owning shame and using it for transformation

  • Carter shares her ongoing work in therapy and self-reflection—visualizing shame turning into “gold.”

  “I meditate imagining turning my shame and alchemizing it into gold. Like, literally, I visualize what I think that that might look like… processing my shame out loud allows others… I want to be able to provide a blueprint for other people.” (53:50)

  • She acknowledges criticism from those harmed by the systems she participated in, commits to not centering her own emotions, and to do the work—in private and public—to not cause more harm.

9. White Allyship & Movement Building

• Sophia on protection and coalition
  • Sophia shares her belief that those with privilege must show up for others, referencing protest tactics and the need to meet people where they are.

  “I’m going to come to the front and have conversations with certain communities so my friends of color can stay in the center and don’t have to… If we’re just having a purity test all the time, we’re not doing anything but feeding the machine that caused this mess in the first place.” (58:01)

  • Both Carter and Sophia discuss their ongoing partnership with Patrisse Cullors—a Black Lives Matter co-founder—working to strategize and build real coalition across former divides.

  Carter: “We want to strategize. We want to figure out if people from this side and this side come together, what can we do? And we don’t know, but we know… we will figure it out.” (60:19)

10. The Reality of Public Deconstruction

• Carter’s unique journey of learning in public

  • Carter rejects the idea of doing this work privately, pointing out how few public examples there are of people dismantling their MAGA beliefs in real-time.

  “Have you ever seen someone deconstruct from MAGA? That’s why I’m doing it. I don’t think anybody has. And that’s why it’s like, my mission… overcomes the shame at the end of the day.” (54:40)

• On not being able to please everyone

  • Both acknowledge that this work is slow, incomplete, and deeply necessary, even if controversial on all sides.

  “If we’re just having a purity test all the time, we’re not doing anything but feeding the machine that caused this mess in the first place.” (58:01)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Sophia on how to meet people where they are

  “Are we going to be pissed about it, or are we going to do the work to welcome people who start looking for information outside their silos?” (08:50)

• Carter on her journey

  “The best way I can describe my deconstruction is bittersweet liberation.” (13:26) “I literally feel like I was living in The Truman Show.” (13:30)

• On shame as part of the process

  “I meditate imagining turning my shame and alchemizing it into gold. Like, literally, I visualize what I think that that might look like… That shame will be alchemized into gold somehow.” (53:50)

• Sophia on building tables, not walls

  “I’m a big believer in building bigger tables and I’m really working to practice how to do that.” (06:41)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Privilege and information silos: 06:41 – 11:25
• Carter’s personal deconstruction journey: 13:26 – 22:19
• Abuse and spanking as first cracks: 25:25 – 26:54
• Gaslighting and submission in evangelicalism: 34:20 – 34:54
• Trump’s rise and media manipulation: 35:19 – 41:38
• January 6th and information bubbles: 43:10 – 44:28
• Renee Good shooting & rethinking police violence: 49:14 – 52:37
• Processing shame and finding a blueprint: 53:50 – 56:40
• Movement building and coalition strategy: 58:01 – 60:58

Tone & Language

The conversation is emotionally raw, contemplative, and honest. Both Sophia and Carter express accountability, mutual respect, curiosity, and a desire for change, often using candid, relatable language and sharing personal anecdotes for illustration.

Conclusion

This episode provides a rare, intimate look at what it means to leave behind a worldview steeped in faith, family, and politics—to step into the unknown and be accountable for both past complicity and present change. Carter Brown’s willingness to deconstruct publicly gives hope to others considering their own transformation. Sophia Bush’s interviewing foregrounds the importance of humility, patience, and coalition-building as the path forward.

Part Two will continue the conversation, focusing on what comes next.