“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
The annual July 4th summer holiday is a time when family, friends, and neighbors tend to get together in casual groups often sharing “noodle salad recipes”, grill-marked sausages, cooler chilled beverages, and friendly conversations. Our quiet-sleeved patriotic sat on lawn and patio chairs a couple of times for American BBQs as well as watched civic-sponsored fireworks from our sidewalk eye-balling the airborne explosions illuminating the sky above the tree line. In and amongst such gatherings are random gatherings of MAGA supporters and “non-crazies”. As a known magnet for openly opposing Trump in 2016 often when relaxed someone broaches or invites the subject.
What I have come to determine is that MAGAs really don’t see the world as it is, but as what they imagine it to be. When challenged they fall back to the discounting wave of the hand defense force field: Well that is your opinion”. From there they attempt to disengage. But continuing I have come to confirm what was not openly mentioned but seemed to be polite rejection by MAGA supporters towards “non-crazies” in these social situations. The reason is in these social circumstances, MAGAs view themselves to be good, normal Americans. It reminded me how my racially bigoted grandparents would be polite in the company of African-American people in public but privately rail about their perceived deep racial prejudice. My mother more advanced would instruct us as growing into adolescence to ignore the bigotry, even challenging her father or elders saying this is not to be expressed around children.
Then I read this NY Times opinion piece over the weekend and it was so enlightening and validating my observations: The Rage and Joy of MAGA America. David French:
Why do none of your arguments against Trump penetrate this mind-set? The Trumpists have an easy answer: You’re horrible, and no one should listen to horrible people. Why were Trumpists so vulnerable to insane stolen-election theories? Because they know that you’re horrible and that horrible people are capable of anything, including stealing an election.
At the same time, their own joy and camaraderie insulate them against external critiques that focus on their anger and cruelty. Such charges ring hollow to Trump supporters, who can see firsthand the internal friendliness and good cheer that they experience when they get together with one another. They don’t feel angry — at least not most of the time. They are good, likable people who’ve just been provoked by a distant and alien “left” that many of them have never meaningfully encountered firsthand.
So I tested it out as my neighbor who was moving away this weekend from our Colorado Springs historic neighborhood to the “safe woodlands of Maine and his ancestral homestead”. He was a pleasant neighbor even though since the 2020 election he sported Trump flags alongside the “Stars and Bars”.
I asked him if he thought I was inherently a “bad or horrible person”. He smiled and said, “You were a good neighbor but your politics are horrible?”
We stood there smiling at each other as I helped him put his gas grill into the trailer being towed by his pickup truck. He then continued: “The LEFT is trying to destroy this country, the American way of life and will come for your family someday".
I continued to smile and inquire; "Do you really believe that?"
His response was; "Yes, you really don't understand it so I can't explain it to you---that is my opinion and you can’t change it.”
I put out my hand and wished him a safe trip towing his final belongings across the country. I then said, “I have never tried to change your opinion only understand it.”
He then asked if I had displayed my flags in response to his “Let’s Go Brandon”?
Yes, it's my reminding everyone we live under a Constitution of laws and not men where all men and women are created equal, and that our freedom exists because of the Constitution. He then said, “It is funny that you put up the ‘We the People Flag’ as it is one of our flags.”
Really? I thought it was for “all the people”, as the founders were actually progressive revolutionaries and also not entirely Christian, but those are the established facts in reality. He then shook my hand as I put another box into his trailer and said let’s not end this with your opinions. He then said goodbye.
I had to think deeply about this in the context of both individual relationships with some of my “conservative” or open MAGA family members and friends or acquaintances. They discount all “non-MAGAs” as horrendous-bad people. It is why cliches and defamations of some past eras like Communists or Fascists are used by Trump and his mouthpieces, they just don’t have a modern label to discount those who are not part of their community.
George Mosse, the esteemed historian who studied fascism in Germany which he escaped in 1933 when Hitler came to power writes in his book; “The Fascist Revolution,; Towards a general theory of Fascism”
Fascism took over the ideals of tolerance and freedom, changing both to fit its model. Tolerance, was the antithesis to their supposed intolerant enemies, while freedom was placed within the community. To be tolerant meant not tolerating those who opposed fascism: individual liberty was only possible within the community. Here once more, concepts that had become part and parcel of established patterns of thought were not rejected, but instead co-opted---fascism would bring about ideals with which people were comfortable, but only within its own terms.”
The question then is what to do for the “non-Crazies”? Creating a cognitive dissonance scenario will most likely not work when begin to cause uncomfortable circumstances you immediately become a “horrendous bad person” so your efforts will be discounted. So now I think when I am confronted with a MAGA personal situation I will respectfully “mock” it and go for the most uncomfortable moment. They think I am horrible well, now they have a reason, no one likes to be laughed at. It is my reciprocity, you think I am horrible well I think the same but find you also laughable.