I think many people are mystified by the MAGA cult's unwavering penchant for voting against their own economic interests, despite Reaganomic's evisceration of the American Middle Class, and not merely their ironclad resistance to facts and logic, but outright hostility to empiricism, but therein lies the problem. While rational people prefer to live in a fact-based reality, the MAGA cult doesn't; they appeal exclusively to feelings, not facts. The most compelling of these emotions, and the easiest to tweak, is also the most primitive; fear. Mexicans are rapists. LGBT's are groomers. Black and Brown people are out to replace Whites. Democrats are literally demonic, and will outlaw Christianity. This leads to their second strategy; conflating religion with politics. Now, such nonsensical racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and aggrieved White victimhood isn't merely petty bigotry, but an article of religious faith with the imprimatur of God himself; completely unassailable by logic and reason, which become enemies themselves. It doesn't matter how many facts, figures, citations and references you come up with, they will not hear you. You're talking facts; they only speak feelings, and you are an object of their fear; you're heretical, a threatening outsider of their cult, trying to interject a terrifying degree of cognitive dissonance, and are therefore evil, demonic, and Communist; the enemy. This is not mere hyperbole. One in five adults in the United States, equivalent to about 50 million people, believe that political violence is justified at least in some circumstances. Almost one in four of the respondents – equivalent to more than 60 million Americans – could conceive of violence being justified “to preserve an American way of life based on western European (White) traditions”. 3% or 7 million people – believe that political violence is usually or always justified. More than 12% said they would be willing to “threaten or intimidate a person”, and 10% to “injure a person”. 7.1% or 18 million people - said that they would be willing to kill a person to advance an important political goal. As much as I deplore the Balkanization of America, I don't see how to engage with people who completely eschew reason and consider you so threatening to their fragile paradigm that 60 million of them are willing to physically attack you.
One might compare the cave dweler to the populist mindset easily enough, certainly a form of "echo chamber" that seems to help keep that wagon rolling
The whining, weak, brittle, fragile, delicate, feeble, puny, victim mentality of the MAGA movement is one of the most transparently sad, snowflakey, and pitiful movements really in American history," he wrote. "The incessant whining followed by the usual deflection of some harsh attack that reasonable adults would eschew has really reached a boiling point in my tolerance of typical and normal political dialogue." "The MAGA movement has become an infectious disease of helplessness and victimhood unlike any I can remember. Donald Trump himself is a master victim, suing everyone, everything, yelling loudly about how he is a poor victim of the 'deep state,' Rinos, DOJ, FBI, China, Germany, Mars, the Sun and any other possible force of nature," he then added. "But his victim mentality has spread to the GOP at large, and it’s the most annoying and destructive force in the nation. Seriously. This infection has destroyed the GOP " - Former Republican and US Representative, Adam Kinzinger.
How can democracy in the US possibly work, when both parties are funded by the corporations and then controlled by the media. Poor Donald only had to mention an import tax on China and he had to go. Meanwhile, our new King went out to meet his subjects, but forgot to take his advisors and security escort along. He certainly takes after his grandmother who regularly got lost in London, then popped into one of our theatres for a cup of tea, while we called her car. LOL
The violence we are experiencing now has nothing to do with MAGA people. Current violent threats are associated with the war in the Holy Land.
