Much of MAGA is anesthetized intellectually. The world is changing too fast -- digital economy, cutural diversity, economic inequality, environmental collapse, labyrinthine for-profit health care system, climate catastrophes. and on and on -- for MAGA to process.
To be fair, working MAGA families tend to perceive that they have been "left behind." The "left" has focused on cultural issues rather than working class, labor organizing. When Obama let working class mortgages go into foreclosure while bailing out big banks, the blue collar world was left in a vacuum that Trump swooped in to fill. He became their only hope for opportunity, college, and the life of "rich and white."
Yes, there is much more going on, but that is some of the context for MAGA hanging its hopes on Trumpism. You can hear it in interviews, where MAGA says Trump "got everything right," or "tells it like it is." He offers up easy answers that are the old nationalist anti-immigrant, racist, anti LGBTQ, and the old trickle
MAGA wants a friendly, white, patriarchal, black and white morality; in short, familiarity. The future can't offer that, so they dig their holes in the sand and put their heads in with the hope that this chaos will all blow over.
Trump, however does not create order or restore a nostalgic society. He is gangster capitalism writ large and cruel. He is short term gain at the cost of destroying whatever he touches.
Rather than wake up to this harsh reality, the "desert of the real," to borrow from The Matrix they voluntarily blind themselves and cling to world that no longer exists, and, in fact, never did.
It's an abusive relationship that MAGA can't, or won't break off. The old, white, capitalist patriarchy will likely just have to die off so that a space for change can open up. The changes will include gender equity, racial diversity, new cultural norms about sexuality, community work, not for profit healthcare, and a last ditch stand curb global warming.
So friends, do not despair, but keep working on the visions of a wider net of opportunity and helpfulness. Time to find allies and to learn to work together to make a better world.
In short, the future is about work, learning, adapting, and tolerant community.
MAGA seems unwilling or unable to enter that future.
