Dissident Politics: One commentator about the joy of being MAGA; Miscellaneous

NYT columnist David French opines (not paywalled) on how he currently sees the enormous appeal of DJT to the MAGA rank and file. French lives in rural Tennessee, surrounded by MAGA people, so he has a metric buttload (50 butt-tons) of relevant personal experience. He writes:

To understand MAGA, we have to understand the joy and sense of belonging that the movement bestows upon its adherents. .... The lie that Haitian immigrants are eating pets — appeal to his followers’ “sense of gleeful transgression.”

If you’re on the outside, your experience with MAGA is all of the anger projected outward. So you see MAGA as almost entirely an angry movement.

MAGA likes inflicting pain on its political enemies. It likes and enjoys creating these ridiculous and absurd memes. It loves to provoke people who are on the outside. It’s part of the joy of this MAGA movement that can include this extreme aggression online.

The people who are in on the joke [Haitians eating dogs and cats in Springfield Ohio], the core MAGA people who are pushing the memes out, look, if it’s true, great. If it’s not true, who cares? They’re having a good time.

Clip of TikTok: I don’t know about you, but I’m Voting Donald Trump, baby.

Clip of Donald Trump Jr.: “You know, honestly, I’m waiting for Merrick Garland to indict my father for being part of an assassination. You know, that’s what’s next.”

Jesse Watters: “It’s a conspiracy.”

They’re trashing our body politic. They’re wrecking, in many ways, the G.O.P., but they are having a good time and hey, the people they’re making mad, they don’t like them anyway.

And you might think for a minute that, well, wait, this can’t go on forever. Surely, surely the majority of Republicans, when they know they’ve been had, when they know these are lies, will stop paying attention to these memes. They’ll reject this method.

And the really sad answer is that the Republican response to Jan. 6 and the Big Lie showed us the tolerance that Republicans have for dishonesty and for lying if it is directed against their hated Democratic enemies. (emphasis added)

The opinion touches on two other joyful MAGA crackpot memes, one of which is exuberant fun with non-existent election fraud now that early voting has started in some places.

So, there we have it from one commentator: MAGA folks are just having fun and don't care about truth. Since they don't like the rest of us anyway, so why should they give a fig about truth or lies? It's all just good clean fun at our expense. C'mon people, lighten up!

French: They’re wrecking, in many ways, the G.O.P.

Response: What?? The GOP has been wrecked in many ways at least since 2016. Wrecked puts it waaay too mildly. Blown to smithereens is closer to the mark.

Once again an uncontrollable compulsion to ask about moral responsibility for adult American citizens bubbles up from the bowels of my unconsciousness.

Q: If what French writes is mostly correct, and most of the MAGA rank and file (i) really is having joyous fun at our expense and at the expense of targeted groups, e.g., falsely accused Haitian immigrants who are allegedly illegal immigrants eating people's dogs and cats, (ii) does not like us, (ii) does not care about truth or lies, and (iv) will vote for the lying, fornicating, pussy-grabbing, kleptocratic dictator-thug and convicted felon DJT, are these MAGA folks just good, honest people and patriots who deserve our respect and good will? Or, it is time to call a spade a spade, and openly speak the actual truth that most of the MAGA rank and file is bigoted, pro-dictator and a dangerous but joyful enemy of American democracy, and people like you and me who oppose DJT and his radical kleptocratic authoritarianism?

Q: Once again, is Germaine off his rocker, over the top, insanely deluded by identity politics, hoodwinked by pragmatic rationalist hyper-partisanship, or otherwise beguiled and missing the mark?

Darned Germaine and his double darned pragmatic rationalism . . . . grumble, grumble . . . . . darn it.

_________________________________________________________________

A peanut from the gallery commenting on the faux horror of dogs and cats being eaten in Ohio: The campaign seems to have stumbled into a strange unintended message: “Let’s go to war with Taylor Swift to stop Haitians from eating dogs.” At least that's less worrisome than their other stated goals. (good point, peanut)

WaPO: Why Big Tobacco is betting on Trump -- As the industry fights a ban on menthol cigarettes, a Reynolds American subsidiary has become the largest corporate donor to the main pro-Trump super PAC (good 'ole brass knuckles capitalism -- it supports a dictator-kleptocrat as long as its profits are protected and to hell with public health, honest government, democracy, civil liberties, the rule of law, the environment, etc.)

WaPo: Hezbollah leader says device attacks are an ‘act of war,’ as Israeli warplanes fly over Beirut -- In his first remarks since thousands of electronic devices exploded across the country, Hasan Nasrallah said that Hezbollah suffered “a major blow,” but that his forces would not stop attacking Israel as long as the war in Gaza continued -- “The enemy transgressed all boundaries and redlines,” Nasrallah said in a widely anticipated speech Thursday evening local time about the attacks, which killed at least 37 people and injured nearly 3,000 when pagers, walkie-talkies and other devices exploded simultaneously on Tuesday and Wednesday across Lebanon. The attacks were “a major assault on Lebanon, its security and sovereignty, a war crime — an act of war,” he added, and they dealt an “unprecedented blow” to Hezbollah and Lebanon. (Hm, the stench of another new war is in the air . . . . Hezbollah complaining about transgressing all boundaries and redlines? Ha, that's the pot calling the kettle black -- leaders in the Middle East are all stupid, spoiled, corrupt monsters)

WaPo on demagogic dictatorship: Putin wants Russia’s youth to become ultranationalist patriots. Many are all in. -- Young Russians are embracing Kremlin propaganda, reshaping the Ukraine war narrative with ultranationalist views and seeing themselves as patriotic truth defenders. (Hm, the stench of fascism is in the air . . . . Putin is turning Russian children into vicious monsters -- once again, witness the power of dark free speech)

Enthusiastic little Russian patriots training

to genocide (the verb) the Ukrainians to death

The Independent: Trump claims audience ‘went crazy’ for him at his debate with Harris – but there was no audience -- Donald Trump appeared on Fox News show Gutfeld! to talk about his September 10 debate with Kamala Harris -- Trump referred to the nonexistent audience. “And the audience was absolutely– they went crazy,” he said.
(good 'ole Faux News, always a reliable source of bullshit, lies, slanders, crackpottery and more lies and slanders, just like DJT is a good source for the same)

Salon: Georgia's abortion ban killed a young mother. The Christian right now blames the victim -- Anti-choice activists argue that if Amber Nicole Thurman had submitted to forced childbirth, she'd still be alive -- Republicans and Christian right activists don't want to take responsibility for the loss of this healthy young mother of a 6-year-old boy. Instead, they're casting blame on everyone else: the doctors in the Georgia hospital, abortion providers in North Carolina, and, though they will deny doing so, they're blaming Thurman herself. Thurman chose abortion. They're blaming her choice for her death. (I bet that forced birth supporters knew this day was coming and had their response to blame the dead woman planned in advance -- they knew the day would come when they would need to try to get ahead of criticism of their brutal forced birth laws -- good 'ole Christian nationalism, its as cruel and brutal as it is kleptocratic)

LGBQT Nation writes about the authoritarian MAGA wealth and power movement going from He did not say what he said, to Us MAGA politicians did not do what we just did: GOP senator rages at CNN host because she correctly said his party blocked the IVF protection bill -- He claimed that the IVF bill would give fertility treatments to trans women in his bizarre and angry rant x (Good grief! Treating trans women? The horror, the horror . . . . .)