The Cost of Believing: From Marcos to MAGA

My father’s family supported Ferdinand Marcos during his dictatorship in the Philippines. They were not just sympathetic. They were active supporters. They donated money. They believed in his promises of discipline, nationalism, and restoring pride. To them, he represented order in a time of chaos. They thought they were securing the future by backing a strongman.

But when the Marcos regime fell, that loyalty became a threat to their safety. The new government and public sentiment turned against anyone associated with the dictatorship. My father’s family had to flee to America, not because they were victims of the regime, but because they had helped prop it up. Once the balance of power shifted, their past alliances marked them as enemies.

This pattern repeats itself across history. And today, I see the same thing happening in the United States.

The MAGA movement and its offshoots like QAnon have created a culture of loyalty to a leader rather than to democratic values. People I know have lost friends, jobs, and even family members because of their devotion to Trump. They believe they are protecting their country, restoring something great. But history has shown us that when authoritarian power collapses, the true believers are often the first to be left behind or punished.

My father was raised in a Marcos-supporting household. He was expected to serve in the military, but he got caught up in crime instead. Despite his family’s political support and financial standing, the same regime turned him into an example. He was thrown in jail. Their connections did not protect him.

To get out of prison, he made a deal. He agreed to work for the American government as a soldier of fortune. After the Vietnam War had officially ended, he was sent into rural villages as part of a cleanup force. He was ordered to kill, and he did. He murdered civilians. Women and children. It was not war in the traditional sense. It was cold and calculated. In exchange for this service, his record was wiped clean and he was granted a visa to start a new life in the United States.

This is what extremist systems do. They use people. They discard them when it is convenient. My father paid for his freedom in blood and silence. He never fully escaped what he did.

Now think about the Hitler Youth. They were indoctrinated children trained to fight for the Nazi regime. Many of them died defending a collapsing empire. They were not poor or marginalized. They were the sons of believers. They were the children of privilege who had been taught to fight and die for an ideology that never cared about them as individuals. When the Reich fell, they were left behind. Many were killed in battle. Others were punished or broken by the world they had been told to hate.

What ties the Marcos loyalists, the Hitler Youth, and today’s MAGA youth together is a dangerous myth. They are raised to believe they are chosen. That they are protecting their people. That loyalty will bring safety and pride. But they are being groomed to be sacrifices.

This is already happening in the United States. Children are growing up in households filled with paranoia, nationalism, and conspiracy. They are being prepared to fight for a version of America that is already dying. Some of them will end up in prison. Some will end up in violent movements. Some may be used by the state in times of chaos. But very few of them will be saved by the ideology that shaped them.

My father survived, but he paid a terrible price. He became a weapon and lived with the consequences. The young people being radicalized in America today may not get even that chance. When this movement crumbles, they will be the ones left to carry the fallout. Not the politicians or influencers who led them there. The cost of blind loyalty always falls hardest on the next generation.

History does not forget the children of regimes. It remembers them in wreckage, in silence, in stories like mine. This will not be any different.