On January 6, 2021, Penny Swan, a local Republican activist and avowed Trump supporter, stayed home while dozens of her neighbors boarded buses from Michigan to the U.S. Capitol. But it wasn’t for a lack of enthusiasm: Swan wanted to join the crowd fighting to block the certification of the 2020 election, but she has a heart condition and worried she wouldn’t be able to keep up.
Instead, she watched in awe on social media as friends and neighbors swarmed the Capitol.
That was then.
Since 2021, Ms. Swan, a medical equipment manager, has distanced herself from the right-wing groups that organized the Jan. 6 bus drive from her tiny ruby-colored town of Hillsdale, Michigan. Her once-close friends from the movement are now political enemies. And come November, she won’t be voting for Mr. Trump.
In an era of deepening political polarization, Swann’s story of immersion in and defection from the MAGA movement is a rare one.
According to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey, “partisan antipathy” — the strong dislike that political party members have for opposing groups — has deepened in the United States over the past decade. Democrats and Republicans are more likely to describe each other as “stupid” and “close-minded” now than they were a decade ago. Republicans also tend to overwhelmingly support Trump, as evidenced by his landslide victory in the Republican primary.
Swan, the owner of a popular online page about local politics and a longtime political activist, didn’t just grow up a voter: She also documented and at times helped dismantle the county’s conservative movement, which, like the state Republican Party, has been at odds over far-right politics.
A decade before 2,000 of Trump’s most ardent supporters stormed the Capitol, Swann, a lifelong Republican and Hillsdale resident, began recording local government meetings, some of which were livestreamed but not all, such as those of county commissioners.
“I thought people needed to know the whole truth,” Swan said. “You read something in the newspaper, there was a story, you heard something on the radio, there was a story, but you didn’t know the whole story. So I thought people should actually be able to see the whole process.”
For years, Swan has been recording every local government meeting she can attend and uploading the videos to her Facebook page, “Penny Swan Political Activist Facts Matter,” a treasure trove of citizen journalism and infuriating commentary. With more than 1,400 followers in a town of about 8,000 people, Swan’s page has become a vital clearinghouse for political updates, a hub for heated debates, and a window into the tense world of conservative politics in Michigan.
In Michigan, a battleground state that saw the administration switch from Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 election, a rift has widened between the party’s establishment and its enthusiastic MAGA supporters. The split has spread to county Republican chapters, with local party organizations splitting into factions. In Hillsdale, a group of Republican activists aligned with the party’s Trump wing organized an informal caucus within the chapter.
The Hillsdale group, which has since renamed itself America First Republicans, aimed to transform the local party “from a neoconservative, old establishment, George Bush-like bunch to a more modern conservative group,” said John Smith, who helped form the caucus in late 2019. The goal, Smith said, was to transform the local GOP from what he thought of as a lackluster, bureaucratic organization into one that was more agile.
Swan was excited when Smith approached her about the local party’s new, more dynamic organization. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to step up her political activism.
“They were like, ‘Oh, we’re going to take over the party and do something even better,'” Swan said. “And I said, ‘That sounds great. I want to do something and I want to be proactive, so I’m in.'”
And they did. In 2020, Darren Wisely, a right-wing ally, was elected chairman of the Hillsdale County Republican Party. Swan continued to work with the party, taking on the role of deputy treasurer and joining the organization’s executive committee. The group was tight-knit; they confided in each other about personal matters and spent time together after meetings; Swan even spent holidays with Smith’s family.
It’s not clear when the relationship began to deteriorate: Mr Smith explained that Mr Swann was turned down for a job as deputy treasurer.
“When the accountant left, [Swan] “Penny, as deputy treasurer, was late in submitting reports,” Smith said. “That kind of pressure was too much for her to handle.”
Swann tells a different story. He said he raised concerns about the organization’s financial management but that leaders were unable or unwilling to act. In an April 7, 2022 email to former president Wisely, Swann resigned.
“It is with great regret that I must resign as deputy treasurer,” Swan wrote. “I have discussed my concerns with you, Vice Chairman Lashaway and Secretary Smith on numerous occasions over the past six months, to no avail.”
Four months later, as the county party prepared for its annual convention, Swan’s old friends expelled dozens of members they deemed insufficiently loyal to the MAGA Right. During the convention, armed guards blocked the entry of delegates who had been officially “repudiated.” The standoff in the convention parking lot exposed divisions that had been simmering within the organization for months and set the stage for a drawn-out legal battle over the rightful leadership of the Hillsdale County Republican Party. A 2022 court ruling ruled that the America First faction could not legitimately claim to represent the county party was a victory for Swan’s faction.
To her former friends in the Hillsdale Republican Party, Swan is a traitor and her departure from the party a betrayal.
For others in the community, Swann is one of the few ally with inside knowledge of the far-right.
“She was kind of brainwashed,” said Gail McClanahan, a Hillsdale County resident who successfully campaigned to unseat Town Clerk Stephanie Scott, who was not up for election in 2023. “It’s different now. Penny, she’s not scared,” McClanahan said. “She continues to tell us the truth in Hillsdale.”
Swan said leaving the America First group was like leaving a “cult.” Her relationships with former friends in the group deteriorated after she left and began speaking out online, and she said she has even faced harassment and threats over her new political stance.
In a letter sent to Swann’s close associates, a person identifying himself as “Lance” claimed that Swann had “spread hate, lies and misery” and warned that “this is her only last chance to save her from herself.” […] “I don’t take responsibility for doing what I needed to do to protect my friends who didn’t deserve what she did.” Swan filed a police report and installed cameras in her apartment.
In April 2022, Swan launched a campaign for a vacant city council seat on a platform of transparency. The race was fierce.
When a fierce battle erupted at her local library over the placement of LGBTQ+ themed children’s books, Swan She defended the librarian and the book. Memes calling Swan a pedophile were shared by her former friends and went viral online.
Former Hillsdale librarian Jessica Spangler said in an email to the Guardian that the protracted dispute had “severely deteriorated my health and caused serious and lasting problems due to the undue stress I endured during my tenure.”
The seat vacated by Joshua Paladino, a right-wing graduate student at Hillsdale College who campaigned on removing the book from libraries, was won.
Swan suffered a third heart attack in December 2022, which prompted him to step back from political activity, he said, no longer films every city council meeting and he tries to resist the temptation of heated online debates.
But her goal remains the same: to resist the tide of right-wing extremism that has come to define the politics of her town and county.
She has found allies within the Republican Party, such as Hillsdale County Republican and former Hillsdale mayor Scott Sessions.
“To me, the America First Group is not really conservative,” Sessions said of the America First Group. “It’s radicalized.”
With the Aug. 6 election looming for many county seats, Swan is helping with a few campaigns she thinks are important in fending off far-right pressure. Two stand out: the county sheriff race, which pits the Republican incumbent against self-described “constitutional sheriff” John Rutan, and the county clerk race, which pits current elections chairman Abe Dane against Stephanie Scott, who was recalled from her previous position after spreading election conspiracy theories.
With the election looming, Swan returned as a political reporter.
“I wake up at 5 a.m. and read and write until I have to go to work,” Swan says. “Most of the time, as soon as I get home at 2:30 or 3 a.m., I work until I go to bed.”
