Just because you are gay or black doesn’t mean you can’t be a Republican, according to an influencer who has spoken about the backlash he faced when switching from being a liberal to a conservative.
‘I was very much following the script of thinking all Republicans were racist and homophobic, thinking that because I was black, I had to believe it and stand with Black Lives Matter…’ said Amil Odom in an interview with Fox News Digital.
‘That, because I’m gay, I have to be [a] Democrat, I have to support all the LGBTQ causes because that’s who was there for me. Until I realized that wasn’t the truth.’
It took a date with a white guy for him to start to question his own beliefs, when he was asked why he hated the police and sided with Black Lives Matter, Odom explained.
‘I thought I had to fit in this ideological box. And then it wasn’t until like my own views were getting questioned,’ Odom said.
Amil Odom is a Black LGBTQ influence on YouTube and Instagram
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‘I really didn’t know where I stood because I was just regurgitating headlines regurgitating what someone else said what another influencer said and when I started doing the research on my own, that’s when things really blew up.
‘And within one year, I went from marching in the streets with BLM to shaking Donald Trump’s hand in the White House.’
The former president recently launched a group targeting black voters as he looks to continue making inroads with a group that were central to President Joe Biden’s win in 2020.
A New York Times/Siena College poll of battlegrounds recently found that Trump was winning more than 20 percent of African-American voters, which would be a record high if it carries through to the election result in November.
At the same time, Odom, who has more than 200,000 followers on Instagram and more than 240,000 on YouTube, said he realized that you did not just have to pick a side and stick with it.
‘It’s okay to not agree with every single thing that a Republican says and does same thing, same thing, it’s okay to not agree with everything that a Democrats says and does done,’ he said.
‘It just so happens that with the way our political landscape is right now, I more so agree with a lot of things the Republicans the conservatives are doing.
Odom described going from being a Black Lives Matter supporter to being a Trump fan
‘Pretty much all of the Left, saying yes, you should let a kid transition. Like, I’m sorry … I’m not going for that.’
But Odom said that was an example of a subject which demanded a form of ideological purity on the Left.
‘This trans topic … It’s lit a fire under a lot of people on the Left, because the second someone on the Left, all they have to say is, ‘I don’t agree with the trans kids [thing].’ Boom. [They] think you’re transphobic, homophobic people,’ he said.
‘Pretty much all of the Left saying, yes, you should let a kid transition. Like, I’m sorry. I’m not going for that. I’m just not. I can’t defend that.’