We Can’t Keep Pandering to Liars

@madsociologist

Goodbye MAGA Alter Ego See more at my Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/madsociologist/p/i-say-goodbye-to-my-maga-alter-ego?r=d8c86&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true #MAGA #magasucks

♬ original sound – Mad Sociologist – Mad Sociologist

All political operatives lie.

That being said, there is something both qualitatively let alone quantitatively different about the lies of MAGA and their Saggy Caesar. They’re not lying to cover-up mistakes, or to reframe awkward policy. Theirs is not the same CYA policy we’ve come to expect from our politicians.

For MAGA, lying is their go-to tactic for achieving their ends. If there were any pockets of the rational world that were holding out the prospect that MAGA had something to say, that maybe we should pay attention to their petty resentments and align our politics at least in part accordingly, that delusion must now be broken. After the clear murders of Rene Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, caught on video, in the context of MAGA’s insistence that we should not believe what we saw with our own “lying liberal” eyes, it is impossible to support a thesis that MAGA rhetoric is anything less than a blatant attempt to steer our nation away from multicultural democracy into a male dominated ethno-national apartheid police state.

There is precedent for this strategy. Ironically, the most notorious advocate for strategic dishonesty and manipulation V. I. Lenin. That a right-wing movement might borrow from a leftist playbook should not be surprising. After all, Lenin’s revolution was successful even if the overall movement was doomed to tyranny and collapse. Success breeds imitation and innovation, such as Mussolini’s Ministry of Popular Culture, and Goebels’ “Big Lie”.

Now we have Turning Points USA, and the right-wing FoxNoise Machine working tirelessly to ensure that any contradiction of the Saggy Caesar’s claims are shoved down the memory hole. I remember back in the Saggy Caesar’s first Reich how I was baffled by the fact that any network would invite Kellyanne Conway to offer commentary. It was obvious that she was not an honest broker. Tangerine Torquemada’s second Reich makes the first look like a Professional Ethicist Family Picnic.

Everything that they’ve said about their positions has proven to be false. They don’t care about small government. They don’t care about the second amendment. They don’t care about legal immigration. They don’t care about the Constitution.

Everything that they say about their opposition has always been blatant lies.

And yet many political analysts, and scholars have expended a great deal of time an energy trying understand the MAGA mindset, to uncover their motivations. Surely they must be premised in reason even if they are not reasonable. There’s got to be some core of legitimacy. If only we can see the world as it looks to MAGA, maybe we can bring them into our political fold. After all, we are trying to create a more economically just society. That would benefit most of the people who vote MAGA. We just have to find a way to show them what we are trying to do.¹

No. It won’t work.

We are trying to create a multi-cultural democratic society in which everyone can expect to enjoy of life in which their needs are met and they are treated with basic human dignity as a baseline expectation.

That is exactly the opposite of what MAGA wants.

MAGA wants a world that privileges a narrow conception of white men, and places everyone else in a subordinate position. Anyone who disagrees is not just an ideological challenge that must be debate. No. They are enemies intent on destroying everything that MAGA values, namely a narrow conception of white manhood. Therefore, “those people” must be destroyed by any means necessary to achieve that goal. Openly lying is just another tactic in their multi-prong arsenal.

I think it’s important to recognize that and respond accordingly. In my mind, the best way to accomplish that is to say, “No! You’re lying!” You don’t have to spend more time and energy than that. At this point, the entire world knows that lying is the MAGA Default.

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Footnotes

1. I’ve noted this before, but there are no Arlie Hochschilds of the right. Nobody on the right is trying to understand the liberal or leftist mindset. Nobody on the right is trying to find ways to build bridges between and beyond our ideologies so we can all find a way to get along in a multipolar world. No. They are dedicated to the destruction of everything they disdain. Liberals and leftists, conservatives, and moderates don’t need to embrace this disgusting mentality, but we better be aware of this feral beast, and stop trying to domesticate it. ↩︎