“MAGA” is such a clear example of the brainwashing that has taken place. This individual showed up under one of my posts on Twitter yesterday and started giving the business to people in the comments. It was all just canned MAGA this and MAGA that, the same pictures of January 6th over and over, etc.
I asked her to define “MAGA” and of course she couldn’t. Because “MAGA” is nothing more than a transparent attempt to flow from January 6th as evil to Trump to the GOP to all conservatives and then any dissent and opposition in the way. Our own President spewed this empty nonsense. “Extreme MAGA”, “Dark MAGA”, it functions like catnip for children and idiots. And yet our nation is so fired up and tribal, and the left locked in such a coma of sanctimony (really the same dynamic as TDS), that it gets gobbled up! In 2022, they had half the nation walking around chanting “semi-fascists”, “end of democracy” and “election-denial” like zombies. It worked like a dream. Still does deep into 2023. “MAGA” has no real meaning, and these others variants reveal how juvenile and mad it all is. The vast majority who swing the “MAGA” -billyclub can’t even define it. I’m not sure anyone can. It’s just the same cudgel of emotional manipulation as always; the way to turn policy debate into a morality binary, paint dissent into The Monsters.
It simply means dissent, political opposition. We all know inside that’s what this cheap magic trick is. This is the tool it was always meant to be. That’s why DeSantis became “MAGA” as soon as Trump was less important. Whoever they needed to assassinate in midterms they painted with this radioactive brush. It can never be a policy position anymore. No no, it’s an existential threat of today’s variety, the GOP/conservatives are evil, and the only salve is to keep the DNC in power. This came out of The New York Times:
Staggering language there. The Fourth Estate is dead. This transparent propaganda ploy shouldn’t have any bearing on discourse much less elections because it’s that empty. And it wouldn’t have any impact if much of the DNC base wasn’t happy to ride that wave and hide in those shadows. I run into this damn near daily, and I mean with intelligent people who I respect. Some don’t use the term “MAGA” but use variations of the same tool to keep blinders on, shut down discourse, avoid uncomfortable realities. “I could never vote for an election denier”. I hear it all the time. What about all the Hillary bullshit and 2020 “fortifying” and Hunter’s laptop? Crickets. Or more frequently, reasons why none of that matters. It’s chilling. And it’s this army of citizen soldiers that empowers this “MAGA” weapon.
Of course it wasn’t fascism that drove DeSantis’s margin from under 40k to over 1.5 million in a single cycle. We represent the different direction for America, the pushback. And they don’t like that… The Truman Show can’t have that. Don’t fall for these “MAGA” tricks. They’ll keep playing them over and over until they lose their impact. The more we call it out and expose how empty it is, the quicker it will lose that value.
