Regular readers of this blog have already encountered my analysis of the MAGA cult: white people–mostly but not entirely male– terrified of losing social dominance, and deeply disoriented by a modern world in which ambiguities and “shades of gray” threaten to overwhelm the “faith-based” verities they cling to.
These are the same people who supported Hitler in the 1930s, and support other autocrats today–and the rest of us are in danger of losing America to these limited and terrified folks if we don’t understand the roots of their movement. A recent Substack essay from The Rational League mined the available research and confirmed much of my thesis. (In the quotes below, I’ve omitted the copious citations–to access them, you should click through.)
It began:
It was never about taxes or trade or immigration, at least not in the ways its supporters claim. It was about fear. About losing status. About the aching dread that the world no longer bends to you. And when power begins to slip, the mind scrambles to make sense of its new fragility. That’s when people reach not for reason, but for revenge.
As the research demonstrates, our divisions are not political –they are far deeper and more primal. The essay quotes studies that explain “what happens when large groups of people feel their dominance is being eclipsed, by demographic shifts, cultural liberalization, economic globalization, and the slow unraveling of myths that once placed them at the top of the social food chain.” In such environments, “facts become irrelevant. The mind will do what it must to protect the self. And it will vote for whomever promises to punish the world for changing.”
Support for Donald Trump, and the movement that continues to orbit him, is not best explained by ideology. It is better understood as a reaction to psychological discomfort. A fusion of fear, status anxiety, and identity protection. It draws power from ressentiment, not reason. From feelings of insulted entitlement, not informed civic interest. Trump didn’t awaken this current, he merely performed it better than anyone else .
This is not speculation. It is the clear consensus of two decades of psychological, neurological, and political science research. What follows is not just a condemnation of MAGA’s authoritarian drift, but a forensic examination of how it thrives, in the mind, in culture, and in power.
The research tells us that fear is situational–a “psychological accelerant that turns political disagreement into existential warfare.” When people feel threatened, when they find themselves living in a world they no longer understand, they respond by demanding order and obedience, and the punishment of those who refuse to obey. Fear, the academic literature tells us, isn’t just a side effect of MAGA– it’s the selling point. Trump’s message was simple: “the world is dangerous, but I will protect you, and hurt the people you fear.”
MAGA cultists believe that society is under siege. In numerous studies, MAGA folks have scored high for Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA), defined as “submission to strong leaders, aggression toward deviant groups, and strict adherence to tradition. The more threatened people feel, the more they long for control, hierarchy, and retribution, all things Trump promised in spades.”
Trump’s followers are not irrational. They are reacting, often viscerally, to a perceived collapse of the world they knew. Crime is down, but they feel unsafe. Immigration enriches the economy, but they feel invaded. Diversity increases opportunity, but they feel erased. Trump doesn’t need to solve these problems. He just needs to affirm that they exist, and promise to punish whoever caused them.
In other words, status anxiety is what motivates the MAGA base–fear of irrelevance. The MAGA base consists of those who once felt socially dominant and now feel displaced. Trump promises to put them back on top.
The essay is lengthy and well worth reading in its entirety. It cites the copious scholarship that explains the authoritarian phenomenon and the danger it poses to democracy.
This isn’t just a movement of bad ideas. It’s a movement of deeply felt insecurity, fused to a political figure who offers vengeance, not vision. And in that fusion, the need for power replaces the desire for truth. The need to dominate replaces the value of liberty. The need to feel morally superior replaces the capacity for self-reflection….
The threat is not just Donald Trump. The threat is the psychological scaffolding that made him possible, and that will remain long after he is gone, unless we dismantle it at its source.
Unfortunately, this informative essay doesn’t tell us how to go about “dismantling it at its source.”
WE THE PEOPLE FOR ALL. We are in this together. Separate we fall.
The term “status” in America has always primarily referred to level of wealth an individual has. We have been moving closer and closer to a caste system in this nation in recent decades under the Republicans; those with the highest level of wealth are not required to be humanitarian by nature, ethical in their amassing their fortunes or honest in their speech or their actions. The Republican party has voted against requiring ethics even in the nation’s Judicial system, all the way to the Supreme Court, the highest in the land. These actions by our nation are effecting other nations globally and innocent people and children are dying due to Donald Trump…America’s greatest SHAME.
The “No Kings” protest by millions of Americans must NOT remain a “one night stand” at its foundation. Trump is being supported by all three primary branches of the government and is using the U.S. military against American citizens while ignoring all Rule of Law which prevents this action. The minority level MAGAs are buying their support with cash backed by the wealthiest whose wealth comes from the sweat of the lowest paid workers and the middle-class workers who are paying a higher tax rate than billionaires who would never miss the fair rate of taxation from their coffers. The current targets are those who have the least in assets but the most to lose to placate the greedy wealthy who sit in judgement over those they have kept downtrodden for decades with no protection now from the government. There are those 70 million Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid recipients, and those denied those benefits, who were unable physically to join the millions who did protest and celebrate Pride Day who supported them in spirit but our voices are not heard.
“Unfortunately, this informative essay doesn’t tell us how to go about “dismantling it at its source.”
Of course, an academic won’t just come out and confirm the Southern Strategy is working or the Republican Party is focusing on the most racist and ignorant 33% of Americans. I suppose they might call them low-IQ individuals. Clinton called them deplorables, which was used against her, but was accurate.
I still have a few stragglers on Facebook who fit the low intelligence crowd, and they are all MAGATs. If you want to see ignorance in action, head on over to Musk’s X.com. LOL I’ve avoided it since last week when all the birthday announcements (praisola) was being shined on Donald, the chief turd.
Let’s be honest, you have to be a low-IQ individual to believe that Trump is intelligent and the cast he’s assembled in Washington are the best of the best. LOL
During the weekend, they all laughed at the paid dummies who showed up to protest on No Kings Day. Yep, someone told them (Johnson and Trump) that all the protesters were paid to attend. “In some places, they were paid as much as $1,200.” Really? Damn! I want some of that protester cash!!
The academics mentioned MAGA’s resentment against the Coastal Elites, which is true. The ignorant masses also had no idea how the government worked, and none of them could read the New York Times. They don’t understand complex topics, but Trump talks like them. Actually, Trump is brilliant compared to these dupes.
My AI research credits Lee Atwater for this and shares his quote:
“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all of these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites.”
As Sheila noted, what’s the solution? In my words, how do you fix stupid?
A: You don’t.
As Todd said, you can’t fix stupid. So what do we do? Inform the uninformed. We have to find ways to get the message out that FAUX News lies and when they’re not lying, they’re omitting. We need some great marketers to work on this. Something like “When was the last time you paid $7 hundred million for lying?” Below that just the date of the payment and a picture of all of the FAUX News hosts who did lie.
Our only hope is to beat them at the ballot box. We must get a big win, one that says, “Get over it already.”. Then we really have to get busy, codifying the restraints in the Constitution. If we don’t want our leaders (!?) to take emoluments, we need to have a penalty for taking a plane or money or land for a golf course. Then we have to deliver on the promises we’ve made. Universal health care, immigration reform including pathways to citizenship, and affordable child care would be good places to start.
“Trump’s followers are not irrational. They are reacting, often viscerally, to a perceived collapse of the world they knew.” This statement contradicts itself. Reacting viscerally is NOT necessarily rational.
I agree with Todd today, but feel compelled to add that these “fearful” people have been with EVERY society for all of recorded history. EVERY society has had to deal with the downtrodden, people that the ruling classes have in fact stepped all over.
MAGAts are and extension of what was once the Tea Party that was hijacked by the Koch brothers to act as the force behind the extreme right-wing politics these greedy bastards wanted/needed to expand their wealth. The Kochs were rational. They knew EXACTLY what they were doing and knew EXACTLY who they needed to push their narrative. And here we are.
Sometimes studies and analyses can become an exercise in separating fly poop from pepper. The fear of loss of social status? Please. So many of the MAGAts clearly never had any status other than what they currently have. Perhaps it’s just the old territorial imperative extended to the other basal tribal instincts like skin color.
Does Occam’s Razor apply here? Entrenched ignorance and the lack of motive or drive to gain knowledge of one’s surroundings and society seems to be a simpler explanation.
Peggy, you nailed it!
Thank you Vernon, pointing out that contradiction is just where I was going to go .
Acting out of fear, deep fear, does not bring out the rational, cogent aspects of one’s being.
I like Occam’s razor, it cuts to the quick.
“Trump’s followers are not irrational. They are reacting, often viscerally, to a perceived collapse of the world they knew. Crime is down, but they feel unsafe. Immigration enriches the economy, but they feel invaded. Diversity increases opportunity, but they feel erased. Trump doesn’t need to solve these problems. He just needs to affirm that they exist, and promise to punish whoever caused them.”
We are a divided country. What that means is that both ‘sides’ are driven by powerful feelings in opposite directions.
My feelings seem to come from the same primal fear of loss as the recent Substack essay from The “Rational League” outlined in the opening quote cited. I believe that my ‘status’ as a free individual came from not Trump but our Constitution, written 250 years ago. I can’t imagine that life lived under any other source of power would have brought me the happiness that I enjoy now.
I can imagine living with much less commercial clutter than we’ve accumulated; in fact, we’ve gone too far down a road powered by entertainment media brought to us by commercials on TV, including those from Trump and his supporters.
No less an authority than the Earth is telling us that.
But I can’t live with less liberty.
Interesting that no one here has called out the chaos created in everyday life by rampant technology and the erosion of generally accepted moral standards. They are a potent part of the MAGA stew.
Hope! This is how we win: Research finds 3.5% of the population nonviolently opposing tyranny is the effective threshold. We can do this! https://youtu.be/x4syl-hZ9_I?si=ODf4eas3db9xjQyc
It seems pretty obvious to me that MAGA has multiple roots. Ignorance, fear, envy, free floating anger, economic stress, and oppositional behavior can all be found below the surface of the MAGA movement. There are probably more I haven’t thought of. Right now I care less about erudite analysis and more about resistance.
I’m with Sharon Miller.
MAGA: Morons Are Governing America