Opinion | MAGA Is Based on Fear, Not Grounded in Reality
www.nytimes.com
And the fear needn’t reflect reality.

Yet such fantasies are now the common currency of politics on the American right. Remember the days when pundits solemnly declared that Trumpism was caused by economic anxiety? Well, despite a booming economy, there’s still plenty of justified anxiety out there, reflecting many people’s real struggles: America is still a nation riddled with inequality, insecurity and injustice. But the anxiety driving MAGA isn’t driven by reality. It is, instead, driven by dystopian visions unrelated to real experience.

That is, at this point, Republican political strategy depends largely on frightening voters who are personally doing relatively well not just according to official statistics but also by their own accounts, by telling them that terrible things are happening to other people.

  • GodlessCommieEnglish
    -4•10 months ago

    The BlueMAGA cult is as deranged in their loyalty to anything with a D in their name as a mainstream MAGA.

    Nearly 100% of the stuff claims he will do cant happen. If the President had that type of unilateral power to change stuff without Congress why hasnt Biden exercised it? He couldn’t even repeal the ACA with a Republican Congress.

    There was no coup or coup attempt, there was a bunch of hillbillies that stormed the Capital building. And the same gaslighting media like the NYT, among others, see dollar signs from liberals and call it coup. In the end we will see the entire Jan 6 dog and pony show was just a distraction to keep the rabid dogs at attention and barking.

    • @[email protected]English
      1•10 months ago

      Ignoring the likelihood that you are trolling me at this point, and responding solely to the issues at hand:

      • you are entitled to your opinion, but so too can people down-vote and block you; but why not choose to educate yourself on these matters before speaking, rather than make others do that work for you? Seriously, you will find that others listen to what you say much more readily when you are very careful to ensure that they match only existing facts. Ignorance is no excuse, outside of the kiddie playground areas. Then again, I misspelled “by-by” (should have been “bye-bye”), so like, nobody’s perfect or at least *I* am not:-P, though still there’s something to this so I hope you will think about it.

      • some of his supporters are that way yes - but the only time stereotypically identifying the most extreme behavior out of an entire population and trying to pass it off as the “norm” works is in… well, politics. WE should hold ourselves to a higher standard than THEM though, no?

      • ofc he can’t do half the stuff he promises - but neither can Trump, who is even older and even more rambling-er-est, and in a contest of lying wins hands-down. Ofc I can call Biden a poopie-head McButtFace (anytime I want! especially in my own head! you can’t stop me, muwhahaha!:-P) but… why lower the discourse to that level? They both have their issues… though nowhere near equally. And some of those issues they have in common with one another, as with most politicians before and surely most after them as well.

      • I specifically said that I was not talking about January 6. I’ll leave this to you to research - you shouldn’t trust me anyway, so best to find out for yourself:-).

      Oh well, my conscience is clear - I tried to help. Make of all this what you will ofc.