Trump, MAGA, and the Breaking of the American Mind
A Majority of Republicans Say They are A-OK With Trump Suspending the Constitution
Have you ever had a random conversation with someone that just sort of stays with you over time?
I had one such conversation back in 2019 or so participating in an event.
The conversation was with a graduate student assistant from Rwanda who was working the event. That evening a few of us gathered under the Virginia summer sky to night gaze and hang out.
Always eager to talk with people from other cultures, and especially from places with a political history like Rwanda’s, I was eager to ask about Rwanda’s recovery from the genocide that ripped the country apart in a 100 day blood bath during the Rwandan civil war in 1994.
The victims of the Rwandan genocide were the Tutsi ethnic group, murdered in a wave of violence unleashed by the assassination of the Rwandan president by Hutu extremists, another Rwandan ethnic group. The genocide left somewhere between 500,000 and a million people, mostly Tutsis but also including moderate Hutus, dead.
Now you might be thinking: Rachel, are you really going to ruin this beautiful evening under the southern stars to ask this poor woman about a painful genocide?
The answer to that is yes, of course I am.
But in this case I didn’t have to because the conversation took a natural turn there.
Now you’re probably thinking: how does a summer conversation with strangers under the stars naturally turn to genocide?
And I am going to tell: because of Donald Trump.
This being the middle of the Trump administration the conversation did naturally turn to Trump, who at that point was stomping through our Constitution and institutions like a bull in a China shop.
Suddenly she cut in: "Its so crazy to me that you guys can talk about your president like this.”
She goes on to explain that post the genocide, it is illegal to insult the Rwandan president.
Obviously this admission immediately triggered my American free speech smugness. Like, big time.
So committed to free speech absolutism was I back then that when I taught my course on American civil rights and civil liberties I always made a point of showing my students how throughout history brave Americans have fought for free speech for groups they despise (and who despise them).
Of course, that was only my internal response.
I gently asked for her to explain.
She talked about growing up in post-Genocide Rwandan in a country that made it illegal to criticize political leaders or really engage in much critical political speech at all (you can imagine our aghast American responses).
She explained how lies and misinformation by Hutu extremists radicalized them to point where thousands of them hunted down and brutally murdered thousands of their neighbors. Largely by hand.
After the genocide, the post-genocide Rwandan constitution was modified to say:
“Article 38 of the Constitution of Rwanda 2003 guarantees "the freedom of expression and freedom of access to information where it does not prejudice public order, good morals, the protection of the youth and children, the right of every citizen to honour [sic]and dignity and protection of personal and family privacy"“ which to any American sounds horrifying.
My mind has come back to that stary night several times over the ensuing years, most particularly as I watched a mob of crazy extremists radicalized by Trump’s intentional lie about election fraud try to hunt down Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence in the U.S. capitol on January 6th.
It was also on mind throughout the 2024 election cycle as I watched the world’s richest man take over one of the world’s most important communication tools no sane democracy would have ever allowed him to buy, purge it of all oversight, and turn it into his personal thiefdom.
Musk was able to complete the sale of twitter just two weeks away from the 2022 midterms. Since then he has used the power of X and his own massive account to gas light Americans about everything from the realities of Donald Trump’s criminal conduct, to FEMA relief in western North Carolina, to lies about the “deep state.”
No person in history has had a megaphone the size and scope of Elon Musk’s. Each post and RT hits 212 million people, and that is just the start of its reach.
As you know I am on #TeamVeryFuckingConcerned about where America is headed under Trump 2.0 which may not come with an expiration date.
When Trump is sworn in on January 20th he’s not just bringing different policies with him, he’s bringing an entirely different reality.
For millions of our fellow Americans, Trump, and only Trump, is the source of all truth. Spend any time engaging with MAGA and you’ll find that every source of data or fact check is fake.
The NY Times, CBS News, or WAPO? Fake
Data from the BBC? Fake
Data from NIH or the CDC: All fake
Wikipedia: Also fake
Fact checks are useless because 40 million Republicans were told that the only truth is Trump and Elon. All sources of information that are not from The Party are fake. All data is fake. Welcome to the new world.
In the new world, MAGA has stretched the Overton Window so far it now includes robust support among Republicans for suspending the Constitution and that is before MAGA deploys propaganda to justify their upcoming power grab.
In MAGA world, the sky is yellow and the sun is blue.
Deeply held beliefs of Elon/MAGA include believing in Steve Bannon’s “deep state” conspiracy where Donald Trump is an innocent man who has never done anything wrong yet was targeted, investigated, and indicted by a “weaponized” Department of Justice and FBI by his political opponents (despite the fact that most witnesses to his crimes are fellow Republicans).
In the MAGA mind, Joe Biden is a master criminal and runs the “Biden crime family (when he’s not suffering from dementia).
In MAGAtopia, Dr. Anthony Fauci is not an American hero for finding a cure for Aids and freeing us from the pandemic, he is an evil Big Pharma monster who murdered thousands with a what MAGA calls the Death Vaxx so he could get rich. COVID itself was a hoax. Those who never “got the jab” call themselves “pure blooded.”
Yes, really.
In the MAGA mind virus, Democrats run pedophilia rings in Hollywood, import illegal immigrants to get them to vote for Democrats, and mutilate the genitalia of children at the alter of gender ideology.
In MAGA world Democrats burned down LA by draining the reservoirs on purpose, refused to do any wildfire management because of endangered species, and hired Lesbian fire chiefs who are, of course, DEI hires who are incompetent despite their extensive resumes.
And of course, don’t forget their Biggest Lie: Democrats fixed the election in 2020 and as such, we are all traitors who must be “dealt with.”
In short we are terrible, no good, very bad, people who must be stopped at any cost.
These lies, these Very Big Lies, may sound completely outrageous to you, but for millions of Trump voters, the above is reality. This is why I called my first post after the election, Welcome to the Upside down.
On Earth 2, Republicans are victims of a vast government and media-wide conspiracy and are the only true patriots that can stop evil Democrats from enacting communism and getting away with all the criming they do.
Just like the Nazi’s did with the Jews and the communists, Trump and MAGA have inverted reality, they have created the conditions where their own aggressive actions against us become defensive in nature and thus, morally justified.
They are the victims, we are the perpetrators.
In the digital age, the right to free speech has been perverted into the right to lie on purpose for power and profit and there’s not a damn thing to be done about it.
How it all ends is anyone’s guess.
What I seem to be noticing on here is that both Rachel and several of you that comment on here seem to be blaming the Democrats to why Trump won the election. Do you realize though that when you blame the Dems, you are saying that they are the ones responsible for the end of our democracy. I find that to be messed up because the Dems are not the ones that want to do away with our democracy, it's obviously Trump and his allies. Therefore, saying the Dems are the reason to why our democracy is dead is considered to be victim blaming.
What baffles me even more is that there is sufficient evidence so crystal clear that proves that the right wing justices on the Supreme Court deserve more blame than the Democrats to why we're at this point. I mean, there were several polls from late 2023/early 2024 that showed even Biden (who would've done even worse than Harris in the 2024 election had he stayed in) ahead of Trump if, and only if, Trump were tried and convicted for his crimes on J6. This proves that Trump being held accountable for J6 would've badly damaged his campaign no matter what the Democrats did. The Dems were not the reason to why we didn't get the J6 trial, it was because the right wing justices on SCOTUS did everything to prevent it from happening.
I mean, it's one thing to victim blame the Democrats to why our democracy died, but to turn a blind eye to all the evidence that proves that the right wing justices on SCOTUS deserve more blame to why we're at this point makes this more baffling.
Everyone that cares about our democracy and the future of our country needs to get into this fight on whatever level you are able. What has happened is that people's brains are being hijacked by people who want to take control of them to believe what they want them to believe and ignore everything else. This is psychological warfare to take control of your mind! Where to start? Join groups that are in the fight, support media that is focused on making things better, truth telling, and not more of the same, educate yourself about what is happening, think for yourself - do not let others control you and blinding follow them.... A great short book to get started "On Disinformation: How to Fight for Truth and Protect Democracy" by Lee Mcintyre.