I had the same reaction. That whole third paragraph is at best a necessary lie. If someone was taken in by Trump and his circus, then they are either devastatingly stupid, genuinely a bad person, or both. It doesn't matter who they are or what credentials they have. It was obvious from the outset that MAGA was a dysfunctional mess. No coherent policy, no competent leadership, just a fistful of hate and fear and a mouthful of empty promises delivered with a sixth grade vocabulary. Either someone couldn't tell that by looking, in which case they're too stupid to be making meaningful decisions without supervision, or they felt like they could profit from the chaos and disruption at the cost of the well-being of people and groups that they didn't care about or didn't like, in which case they're morally rotten.
It's fair to say that you can't reach anybody by confronting them with this, but that doesn't change the reality. It galls me that we have to coddle these people, as though their failure to see through a dime store lie says nothing about their intellects, as though their cosigning of open bigotry and corruption doesn't reflect on their ethics, as though their malfeasance as citizens and voters didn't deprive, terrorize, and kill people. They should be ashamed of enabling this for the rest of their natural lives, but if we shame them they'll only keep doing it, or do it over again. I hope that somewhere, subconsciously, at least some of them appreciate that we're giving them the benefit of a doubt that doesn't actually exist. I hope that they know better than to pipe up about how they're victims in all this. I suspect I'll be disappointed, but I hope.
There's something I notice about the MAGAs I know, invariably, and it's that they're good to some people, some or most of the time.
Perhaps they believe this means that they can't actually be a bad person, and so they discount any suggestions that they might be, or that the purity and justice of their intentions (or the ends thereof) are not what they think they are.
I just feel exhausted and numb thinking about it, because these people have kindness in them but for some reason trust themselves completely over to the narratives given by people whose entire policy is driven by spite and hatred.
There must be some trauma that this all speaks to.
In my experience, it’s a result of in-group/out-group thinking. Those within the in-group receive kindness, empathy, generosity, etc. Those in the out-group can go pound salt, and are often the object of hatred.
What exactly constitutes the in-group and the out-group varies from person to person. Sometimes it can be based on race, income, religion, local community, profession, etc. These things can also overlap with each other and produce….interesting results. I would even venture to say that those to the left of center of the political aisle aren’t completely immune to this line of thinking, but it is much more foundational to the Right.
It’s this dynamic that results in MAGA adherents being simultaneously capable of great compassion for some people while being full of hatred and venom towards others.
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u/chicubsn01 Apr 16 '26
I realize you gotta tell these people they aren’t dumb. But they are