by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Because of the quirks of my own personal history, if I were to become MAGA I would have an extensive support network of friends. I would stop alienating people who like me on a personal level, but don’t like my politics. So, by continuing to be anti-MAGA I’m only hurting myself.
As such, I often find myself — against my better judgement — struggling to figure if I’m missing something. Are they right? Why do I continue to put myself in a corner when my life would be demonstrably better if I just became MAGA and agreed with all these people who otherwise would be my friends.
I say this because there are a lot of things coming out of the center-Left echo chamber that really gets on my nerves. So, in a sense, not only would my personal life be better, but the case could be made if I could somehow square the circle when it came to MAGA then maybe my political life would make a lot more sense, too.
But every time I do this, logic and reality make it damn near impossible for me to do this. There simply is no way to rationalize supporting an idiot racist misogynist bigot grifter like Trump. This makes me struggle more. Why are all these people — many of them good natured, educated people — so wrapped up in their devotion to a ding-dong like Trump? What am I missing?
All I got is there are a combination of things that came to a head in 2016 that continue to influence events. A lot of white people who don’t see themselves as racist are alarmed by how fast America is browning. Something about the social changes of the second Obama Administration really frightened a lot of middle class conservative white Americans. As such, while they are often disgusted by Trump the person, there is a well developed permission structure established that allows them to hold their nose and support MAGA as a movement.
I don’t even know if a lot conservatives who effectively are MAGA even see themselves as such. They like Trump the “idea” but they don’t like Trump on a personal level. But what’s the “idea” of Trump that they’re so infatuated with? It seems as though a lot of white, Christian conservatives feel overwhelmed, on an abstract way, with the changes going on in American society and because Trump is a “fighter” for “real America” they support him.
Among the things that are so alien to me relative to this train of thought is that people who otherwise seem sane and normal to me are willfully allowing a demonstrably autocratic ding-dong continue to have sway over our politics. What exactly is Trump a fighter, for? What is at the heart of these all consuming abstract fears that white Christian conservatives are so terrified by? What would be so terrifying to them that when you confront them with this or that cruel thing Trump did while as president they embrace it, even though they call themselves Christians?
There’s just so much to unpack. But it definitely seems as though a lot of white Christian conservatives don’t really even know what is upsetting them so much that they support MAGA — they just know that, in general, that they don’t agree with what’s going on. A frequent refrain from MAGA people is they “just want to be left alone.”
This “just be left alone” mantra is another thing I struggle with. It seems like such an all-purpose complaint to describe any time where white Christian conservatives don’t feel comfortable, and, by extension, feel “oppressed.” The shorthand that white Christian conservatives use to describe this is “cancel culture.” And, to be fair, the thing they’re so afraid of — that something they say or do that they don’t think is wrong will go viral and ruin their life — has a grain of truth to it. There are limited, specific examples of conservatives getting in trouble for not following the media narrative and, as such, losing their job or whatever.
But not enough of a grain of truth to hand power to fascist MAGA for any reason. And, yet, here we are. That’s exactly what they want to do. They’re so paranoid about being “canceled” just for being conservative that they are willing to turn the United States into a white Christian autocratic ethno state. They look at modern Russia and see it as their goal for America. They’re willing to turn the United States from an idea, a melting pot, into an autocratic state based on the idea of blood and soil.
I’m beginning to feel a political existential dread about America’s future. I don’t know the ultimate end game or how far we’ll slide into an autocratic managed democracy, but the conditions are there for Republicans to at some point establish minority rule in the United States that will last for generations.
But I also am done arguing. The two side’s positions have hardened to the extent that debating politics is a moot point. Which, in itself, is a bad sign for our democracy.
