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Maxdaddio's avatar

Regarding the Vance piece, I think one of the most clarifying (and to a certain extent surprising) thing about the rise of MAGA (both the politicians and the voters), is just how much they loathe me (and my wife, and our friends, and our neighbors, etc.). I mean, really loathe us. I am reminded of Tim Miller relating the story of his GOP consultant friend, an otherwise reasonable person, getting just incensed about Prius', paper straws, and "coexist" stickers. And I continue to be kind of baffled. I mean, I grew up in SE WI in Paul Ryan country, and have lived in a progressive city for a long time. I get how insufferable some folks can be sometimes. A lot of times. My progressive friends drive me bananas too sometimes. But isn't an eye-roll enough? Why does it drive the Vance's of the world to such rage filled distraction? I like a wellmade, locally-sourced, grass-fed ribeye as much as the next guy, AND a tailgate brat and beer. How do either of those things negatively or positively impact Vance and the contituency he's championing (supposedly)? I have never been able to identify the answer to that. Why does Vance or generic MAGA guy/gal care what I like or dislike? Or that someone else (also) has a kind of insipid, tenuously supported social position? Why do they see it as such a personal affront? Sometimes I think it's at least partially because a lot of MAGA America has seen their kids and neices and nephews and cousins and grandkids go off to college, then come back to tell them how wrong they were (at least according to the college family member). And they're just done with it. Which I actually kind of understand. What I don't understand is, again, why it became untenable to just roll their eyes and ignore their progressive family members, and it had to become "burn the whole goddamned place down."

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Travis's avatar

The GOP has been perfectly okay with sending out self-contradicting messaging for quite some time now. It's not a new playbook for them. The reason they do it is simple: it works. If you can make people feel in-group love and out-group fear simultaneously, you've got them at your fingertips my dude. That's just how tribalism works. Anything that is bad blame on the opposition and make it sound as terrifying and existential as possible, anything that is good claim credit for personally.

Think of it in the way you think about man's relationship with supposed higher beings from various holy books. Anything good that happens in your life is a "blessing from god" while whenever something bad happens, it's either "the devil" or "god working in mysterious ways." It's a self-reinforcing belief system for attribution. Bad things that happen are either from the devil, or they are from god--but that's okay because it's all part of his bigger plan for good things. Good things that happen can only come from god. It's now the same dynamic with political parties for the Chrisitian nationalists that fill MAGA ranks at Trump rallies.

Conservatives have internalized Christian nationalism and the religious way of viewing good/evil in the world to such a degree that it is now expressed through their politics emotionally by default. Anytime their side loses an election it must have been a trick by the devil (democrats), and anytime their side wins an election it was part of god's plan all along. Now "Real Americans" can "strap on the armor of god" and join Mike Flynn in his fight against secular government and radical liberals who are destroying the country in the name of Satan.

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