She was a young leftist who believed republicans were all “bad people,” but following the election of Donald Trump in 2016 Ashley Smith would bail the progressivist ship and wash up a new person on right-leaning shores. She became an influencer on social media, sharing her freshly-discovered conservative viewpoints with marked accuracy and wit. Today, Smith, 31, produces short, punchy clips, about her fascinating, yet gut-wrenching, exodus from the left toward having “a much more well-rounded view of the realities of the world.”
She also has a fair bit of fun dismantling progressivist positions that don’t stand up to logic along the way—leaving the leftist house of cards in a heap. Here is a tidbit from that dismantling content:
“People ask me all the time, why people on the left are angry—you know, coming from the left, I guess I’m a fairly good source,” Smith said.
“Cognitive dissonance—one—which if you don’t know is the discomfort one feels from having contradicting thoughts or beliefs.
How It Started: Victim Mindset, Leftist Tears, and Trump
Her heart started out in the right place. Adopted by family members after her parents died, growing up “really poor,” Smith came to believe “everyone is a victim of their circumstances.” Following her adoptive dad’s death, she and her mom lost their house and “pretty much everything.” The idea of socialism started sounding pretty good. Twenty-something Smith believed in compassion. She wanted others to be cared for the way she wasn’t.The first hairline fractures in Smith’s worldview appeared after her husband voted for Trump in 2016. “He told me after the election results came in, and it was because I was, like, hysterical,” she told The Epoch Times. “When they finally called it, I just broke down.” Though nowhere near as far left as she, he’d also made a political shift. Now he wanted to have productive conversations with his wife. “It really felt like every time I was proven wrong about something the rug was being pulled out from under me,” she said. “I went through this process where my entire worldview, essentially, was crumbling around me.”
Years later, in a video, Smith responded to a commenter’s question: Why don’t you “break up with your difference of opinion boyfriend?” Smith answered: “Did you know that cult school encourage their members to exile people out of their life if they don’t agree with whatever they say? You’re just promoting echo chambers here.
“Did you ever think that sometimes people just love each other and they don’t want politics to get in the way of their relationship?
“You know what the real fear is? The real fear is that you start having conversations, and then you start questioning.”
That might lead to doing research, which might lead to one’s changing their mind.
She adeded, “And if there’s one thing the left doesn’t want you to do, it’s change your mind.”
In her earlier years, whenever Smith came across leftist ideas she often thought, “Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, I’m just going to go with that,” but never stopped to probe deeper to the granular level to inspect the truth herself. Now, with her husband, she forced herself to listen. “I started really exposing myself to other perspectives,” she said, mentioning voices she once despised, like Ben Shapiro. “I thought they were bad people, but I made myself listen to genuinely understand what was being said.”
Then there was the notorious fault line overlaying what she now calls “weaponized compassion,” related to the issue of immigration. During her leftist years, Smith recalls, the raging issue of the day was the war in Syria with the thousands of refugees flooding into Europe or seeking to migrate to the United States. She was all for it then, but not now. “There is the potential for criminals, there’s the potential for a lot of human trafficking, and drug smuggling,” she said. “I didn’t think of any of that. I just thought of, ‘Well, the poor people are trying to escape and come here for a better life.’”
How It’s Going: Trump or DeSantis?
Turning to world events of today, Smith says she does not support United States’ involvement in the war in Ukraine. So much of our money is being “wasted” which could be put to far better use here, she said. It could go toward our veterans or protecting our border.As for the ever-divisive split on politics and elections, we queried Smith—who maintains loyalty to no political party and identifies as an “independent conservative”—whether she supports either Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis as GOP presidential candidate. She said she likes the one with “decorum,” who “leads by example.” “I think DeSantis has shown a good track record in Florida,” the southern Michigan mom said. “I think that he is a bit less divisive, and I think Trump is pretty egotistical. I’ve never enjoyed the way he talks.”
She said, “I would vote for [Trump as president if he were to win the Republican nomination]. It would just not be my preference.”
The ex-leftist has all the complexity and nuance of someone who isn’t pretending. Yet with all the fakers on TikTok, there is plenty of reason to be skeptical. Smith gets her share of detractors. One commenter accused her of lying about not being a Christian to get “internet clout.”
In her usual surgical manner, she dismantles the criticism thusly:
Once a self-described “militant atheist,” since making her political shift, Smith has revamped her religious stance.
“It’s only been within the last two years that I’ve come to a much more neutral place and calling myself ‘agnostic,’ because I do think there is a possibility of something governing the universe; but what that is, I don’t know.
“I’ve met a fair number of agnostic conservatives. They do exist.”
The name “Smith” is a pseudonym. She asked that her last name not be published for security reasons. For someone prying apart the leftist war machine from within, doxing is a real issue with risks. A mom of two, Smith has nevertheless shared photos of herself and her family.
