A GEORGE CARLIN TYPOLOGY OF MAGA AND THE CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT

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I was at a protest a couple weeks ago and struck up a conversation with a gentleman whom I did not know but with whom I shared an ideological foundation. We were commiserating over the decrepit, authoritarian turn in American politics. In the course of the conversation he lamented that it was hard to fight because of how stupid MAGA was that they just accept everything the Orange Don, his minions, and his media accomplices tell them.

I pushed back on this assessment. In truth, I don’t believe MAGA followers are stupid.¹ In fact, most of the MAGA people I know are anything but stupid. I did understand where this person was coming from. Frankly, in my own initial analysis of the nascent movement galvanizing around the Spray-Tan Messiah back in 2016, “Idiot” was one of three typologies I used to understand his sycophants.²

In 2020, I re-evaluated my initial analysis and decided to simplify my analysis. MAGA is not a coalition of the bigoted, the stupid, and the sociopathic. Rather, MAGA is a fascist movement. We try to candy-coat this fact because we have many friends and loved ones who are MAGA supporters, and we hate to think that they are fascists. We would much rather believe that they are stupid. But they are not. They know what they believe, they know why the believe what they believe. They even know that much of the information that is coming out of their movement is not true. It’s not that they are mindlessly acting on and spreading lies unwittingly. Rather, they are doing so because they believe that they are in on the grift, so they are actively and consciously spreading misinformation because that’s the expectation of their reference group.

The bottom line is that they are dedicated fascists. They want a strongman to restore their sense of identity and self-worth through open cruelty to “those people” they consider a threat. And they are willing to endow that strongman with any powers necessary toward that end. That’s fascism.

It doesn’t matter that immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than citizens. They don’t like immigrants. So, immigrants have to go. Spreading lies about criminal immigrants is simply part of the overall strategy to demonize, drive out, and/or get rid of “those people.” The truth does not matter. We have to get past the assumption that MAGA, for some reason, can’t see the truth. No. They know the truth. They just don’t care. The truth does not satisfy their fascist agenda.

In other words, they are full of shit!

The Carlin Typology

When I was scrolling through some Shorts on YouTube a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon this video from George Carlin. I actually remember this bit from when I saw Carlin live many years ago. I love stand-up comedy. In my opinion, some of the best sociological analysis comes from stand-up comedians. This profession, by necessity, requires a finely tuned sociological imagination. Among this elite group, the late George Carlin was among the most astute.

I’m not just saying that because the typology he offers in this bit (Fucking Stupid, Full of Shit, Fucking Nuts), aligns pretty well with my own for categorizing nascent MAGA, (Bigots, Idiots, Assholes/Sociopaths). I think it offers an apt model for why we just can’t seem to get through to our “conservative” Uncle Charlie. He’s not conservative.³ He’s a fascist, and any claims otherwise is full of shit.

From the moment I started expressing myself online around the time we were being deceived into war with Iraq by the “Neocon”⁴ Bush Administration, I found myself in open debate with conservatives. It was a simpler time. I didn’t know anything about “trolling”. Bots weren’t a thing yet. I honestly believed I was involved in meaningful debate with sincere individuals who had a different perspective.

In many cases, I still believe that was true. However, I remember even then that there were inconsistencies in the things conservatives professed to believe, and the actual policies they supported. I thought that this was simply a matter of perspective, or not being aware of the data.

Now I know. They were mostly full of shit. Let’s take some examples of common refrains from conservative rhetoric back in the pre-MAGA (pM) days.

Small Government vs. Big Government

The most common argument against lefties like me⁵ was that we wanted a “Big Government” to take care of us. According to pM conservative rhetoric, I wanted a giant, Soviet style, nanny-state that would provide everything to everybody without anyone having to work for anything. Such a system would, of course, collapse. Any attempt to suggest that maybe some government help with health care might be in order was brushed off as “big government” socialism.

Of course, the “big government” discourse is and always has been a myth. Almost everyone likes big government. We at least want the government to be big enough to do the things we want it to do. My progressive friends and I wanted government to be big enough to provide a bulwark against corporate greed, to steward the commons, and to ensure a fair distribution of public goods. That’s what we believed “the state” should do.

My pM conservative friends claimed that this was the “road to serfdom“. Instead, government should be limited to defending the nation and protecting individual liberties, especially the right to property. Everything else was over-reach.

We would point out that protecting the nation is pretty big government. Massive armies. Militarized police forces. Drones and high-tech surveillance on the border. The War on Drugs. Suggesting that policing uteri is the definition of big government was followed by scolding that this was the stuff the government is supposed to do according to the Founders. Government isn’t supposed to be involved in health care, or poverty relief. Imposing draconian restrictions on women in the defense of the rights of fetuses, on the other hand, is exactly why the Constitution was written.

They were full of shit.

Now, many of these same people voted for the man promising to build a massive police state for the purpose of rounding up “those people” for detention and expulsion. Also, while we are at it, let’s make sure that trans kids can’t pee where they are the most comfortable. And build a big beautiful wall!

A corollary to this small-government ideology was a strict adherence to “states’ rights” and “local control.” Of course, states and municipalities only have rights to the extent that the right-wing movement claims they have rights. It is perfectly acceptable for the President to decide that local communities must be punished if they decide to provide sanctuary to immigrants targeted by the state. States and municipalities must be forced to strip away anything smacking of WOKE or be punished by the federal government.

Constitutional Purism

Much of this small government rhetoric was premised on a notion of Constitutional Purism. Some of the friends and family I debated with even went so far as to refer to the Constitution as a “sacred document” to be taken exactly as written and as intended by the founding fathers. Shills like Antonin Scalia achieved icon status espousing the philosophically dubious concept of “Originalism”, the idea that the Constitution must only be interpreted as rich white men in the 18th century intended. 1792. Period!

Every progressive idea was countered by a formulaic, “where in the Constitution does it say…” As in, where in the Constitution does it say the government should provide health care? Debates about the extent of the “General Welfare Clause” were batted down as illegitimate liberal fancy. Claims that the construction of a massive surveillance apparatus is also not specified by the Constitution were also dismissed as pandering. Of course, the government had a right to spy on traitors and criminals.

They were full of shit!

Where are they now that the President has usurped Congressional spending authority? Where is DOGE and Rule through Executive Order in the Constitution? An unelected billionaire is put in charge of an unapproved and unsolicited government agency to shut down congressionally approved operations with no oversight, and now accountability. The so-called Constitutional purists are giddy about it! The President can erase a Constitutionally protected status like birthright citizenship through executive order. Hey! That only applies to “those people” so they are fine with it. They defend it. The President can renege on its treaty and international obligations without a peep from the movement.

Free Speech

Of all the professed values expressed by conservatives of old, their distorted concepts of free speech purism were the most confounding. Liberalism holds a fairly simple understanding of free speech. The state should be able to tell you what you can or cannot say unless you are saying something that intentionally and maliciously causes physical harm to someone else.⁶ Liberal and leftist free speech purists, like myself, have a more expansive understanding of this right to include trespasses not just by the state but by any powerful individual or institution.

Conservative concepts of free speech, however, are much more complicated. By all accounts, conservatives believe that people have a right to say whatever hateful and spiteful thing they want to say about marginalized people. However, should someone stand up and point out that what was said was spiteful and hateful, that person was the PC Police censoring legitimate debate. Suggesting that we should no longer listen to, or do business with people who say or do hateful things…that’s cancel culture. Standing up for the disempowered, Social Justice Warriors!

This is one of those areas where we always knew the right was full of shit. If you believe that someone has the right to say racist stuff (and I do), but one does not have a right to point out that that stuff is racist, then you do not believe in free speech. You believe in privileged bigotry. This is and has always been the conservative line.

Of the greatest rhetorical achievements of the right is their strategy of “working the refs.” This is, in essence, the right-wing strategy of watering down or drowning out legitimate discourse by demanding that their blather be given equal weight with valid and reasoned discourse. When it didn’t, because it shouldn’t, the right stamped their little feet and shouted, “not fair! not fair!” They accused the press of bias. The press, fearing that being perceived as biased would cost them market share, relented and gave equal time to nonsense…only to lose market share anyway, as well as legitimacy.

We saw this play out most dramatically in the so-called “Global Warming Debate.” The science supporting the theory of global warming resulting from the greenhouse effect has been conclusive since the early ’90s. At that point, the debate should have focused on how best to deal with a universally recognized problem. Instead, we spent thirty more years debating with head-in-the-sand conservatives insisting that that their shrinking minority of “experts” should be given “equal time” with the hundreds of scientific experts in the field to report on the debate. They were wrong. Clearly wrong. But they were able to work the refs. Now, the fucking world is on fire.⁷

The rise of the Orange Don has loosed even the strongest bonds of propriety. Free Speech means MAGA can say whatever it wants. If you think you can exercise your free speech by speaking against MAGA…you better get yourself into witness protection buddy because they are coming for you. Nobody can say anything that is not MAGA approved. Suggesting that slaughtering innocent people in Gaza is genocidal is antisemitic. Threatening to rape a woman reporting on sexual abuse? Get over yourself, Snowflake!

The list of incursions against free speech are numerous. Attacks against the free press, including lawsuits and removal of access to news organizations that will not kowtow to the Cult of Personality are now the status quo. Many of those press organizations, having been effectively intimidated, are bowing. This is to the detriment of their legitimacy–The Washington Post, MSNBC. The MAGA government is threatening to pull funding from universities. Schools in MAGA states are re-writing curriculum to whitewash history, silencing teachers, banning books. Vital information is being deleted and important programs are being shut down because a “Control F” search of the documentation reveals words like “diverse” or “equal” or “include.”

Most atrocious, an activist protesting the genocide in Gaza has been arrested without charges and detained thousands of miles from his home, threatened with deportation. The Reich, um…ahem…Administration has announced that more such arrests will come.

None of this comes as a surprise to liberals or leftists with a long history of engagement in this debate. We saw a glimmer of this after 9/11, but were largely able to combat the most egregious affronts to free speech. We saw this when the Occupy Movement was shut down, and Black Lives Matter was met with massive police retribution.⁸ The publication of Project 2025, however, showed us the authoritarian blueprint that is currently being followed.

MAGA loved it…and voted accordingly. They denied it…but they were full of shit!

Fiscal Responsibility

Even more laughable than conservative “dedication” to free speech was their claim of “fiscal responsibility.” Conservative rhetoric on this was clear. Liberals just wanted to tax and spend, tax and spend, driving the country further and further into debt. The gravy on this particular meat included the claim that liberals wanted to tax “us” and spend the money on “them.” You can fill in the blanks on who “us” is, and who “them” is. You know the answer.

Conservatives, on the other hand, were willing to make the tough decisions for the sake of getting the nation’s fiscal house in order. They would do this by reigning in “wasteful government spending.” This was such a ubiquitous talking point since the Reagan Administration that it has since become a taken for granted mantra among even many liberals.

Of course, by making the tough decisions, what conservatives always meant was cutting taxes for the wealthy, while increasing spending on the military, and cutting benefits to working people. Even a cursory analysis reveals the truth about conservative concepts of “fiscal responsibility.” Yet even Democrats often adopted this frame. Only Democrats actually followed through with it, while Republicans did nothing more than give it lip service.

Now the premise of fiscal responsibility is completely out the window. Having usurped Congressional spending authority, with a tip of the hat from Congressional Republicans, the Administration is doing the equivalent of balancing the checkbook by burning down the bank. DOGE has been empowered to shut down agencies. The best predictor of which agencies will be shut down has nothing to do with “government waste,” and more to do with “agencies President Musk has a problem with.”

The Republican budget will, yet again, explode the deficit, increase funding for the military, screw working people, and offer massive tax-cuts to President Musk and his peers. All of which means nothing, because Republicans have no plan to keep the DOGE Bull from running roughshod in the fiscal China Shop. How will markets respond to the Wreck-it Ralph approach to fiscal policy exemplified by President Musk? According to his Coifed Co-conspirator, there might be some painful readjustment…but everything’s going to be just fine!

Character Matters

Of course, the biggest steaming pile of rhetorical bullshit smeared by my erstwhile conservative interlocutors was the importance of character. This discourse was the illegitimate birthchild of the Republican response to Bill Clinton’s sex scandals of the 1990s. It’s not that liberal or conservative Democrats believed that Clinton was blemish free. We just didn’t care. We believed that his dalliances were a private matter between him and his wife. Conservative Republicans, however, insisted that character in a President matters.⁹

Lapses in character then took a back seat during George W. Bush’s campaign. Bush, with a history of alcoholism and drug abuse, questionable National Guard service…not to mention the whole lying the United States into an unnecessary and costly war…was given a pass by conservatives. After all, he was “born again” and thereby hunky-dory in the eyes of God…again, that’s why we don’t mention the whole lying the United States into an unnecessary and costly war thing.

Character then came back into fashion when Obama…um…when he…well he…there was that time…um…Benghazi! Benghazi! There was Benghazi! When did we forget about Benghazi!

Yeah.

This essay is long enough without outlining all of the character failings of the Spray Tan Messiah. At this point, it is impossible for any conservative to argue that character matters without invoking the story of King David and the Divine Will of God…which Obama, the Kenyan Muslim that he was, clearly didn’t have.

All of the above was bullshit.¹⁰ It was nothing more than discursive slight-of-hand designed to distract from the larger agenda. This agenda was to re-establish the one-sided vassalage capitalism that prevailed before the New Deal and the Great Society. It was largely successful. The result was Neoliberalism, and the concomitant collapse of social legitimacy resulting from putting a “for sale” sign on all of our major institutions.

Now we face the rise of a fascist movement with its own self-reinforcing propaganda superstructure, including merchandising and licensing, that has taken over all four branches of government. MAGA will applaud as hundreds of thousands of children starve to death because USAID was shut down, protesters are imprisoned, hard-working immigrants are perp-walked and deported back to the gang-infested squalor from which they were trying to escape. They will use any rhetorical frame they can to convince you that this is just a political debate, and “the left” is getting all riled up about nothing.

They’re full of shit!

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Footnotes

1. I mean, overall. The truth is, you can find stupid people in any large enough endeavor, but they rarely constitute a majority or even substantial driving force of the movement…especially a movement as successful as MAGA ↩︎
2. Original Typology: Bigots, Idiots, and Assholes. I then changed Assholes to “Sociopaths.” ↩︎
3. Conservatism is, by definition, an ideology dedicated to preserving stability by defending the status quo, including dominant institutions and power arrangement. MAGA is not so dedicated. They are actively trying to burn down the current system and power arrangements in an attempt to “restore” some mythical moment of past greatness–in other words, they are fascists. ↩︎
4. The role of the “Neocon” movement in fertilizing the ground for fascism is a post for another day. Though there were some fascist elements to Neoconservative rhetoric, this was not a specifically fascist movement. I always contested the many claims on the left that Bush was a fascist. ↩︎
5. At the time I considered myself a progressive liberal. I was sympathetic to left-wing analysis, but still held out some hope that a capitalism could be humanized. The Great Recession disabused me of this notion. ↩︎
6. The so-called “Clear and Present Danger” doctrine. Shouting “fire” in a crowded theater is not protected speech. ↩︎
7. Commentators scoffed at this. Press reports about the “global warming debate continues” was spoofed as “Shape of the Earth…Opinions Vary.” We shouldn’t have scoffed. The consequences of wasting our time on this debate have now killed large numbers of people, disrupted entire societies, and costs hundreds of billions of dollars. That we are running out of time is now the optimistic position. ↩︎
8. It’s important to note that some of this was perpetuated by liberal politicians as well. ↩︎
9. To be fair, what were considered “dalliances” were in some cases significantly more serious, including multiple accusations of sexual harassment and even a credible allegation of rape. ↩︎
10. Okay. I’m being unfair. There are plenty of conservatives who really believe all of the above and live accordingly. Unfortunately, there’s not enough of them voting against those who are full of shit to swing an election. ↩︎