We need to have clear vision when we look at the truth of American politics in 2024, not as we might wish it to be, but what it actually is. Tom Nichols does that in The Atlantic when he tells us the stark truth about the people we call MAGAts, the Republican base that supports the Malignant Loser and his message of grievance and resentment. Here's a long excerpt:
... The Republican base actively embraces Trump’s grievances; it emulates his pettiness; it supports his childlike inability to accept responsibility. These voters are not sighing in resignation and voting for the lesser of two or three or four evils. They are getting what they want—because they, too, are set on revenge.
These voters are not settling a political score. Rather, they want to get even with other Americans, their own neighbors, for a simmering (and likely unexpected) humiliation that many of them seem to have felt ever since swearing loyalty to Trump.
A lot of people, especially in the media, have a hard time accepting this simple truth. Millions of Americans, stung by the electoral rebukes of their fellow citizens, have become so resentful and detached from reality that they have plunged into a moral void, a vortex that disintegrates questions of politics or policies and replaces them with heroic fantasies of redeeming a supposedly fallen nation. [snip]
Strings of losses, including the 2018 Democratic-wave election, Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory, and the “red wave” that never happened in 2022, forced MAGA voters to construct an alternate reality in which the patriotic, hardworking majority has been repeatedly thwarted by schemes so complicated that SPECTRE would have struggled to execute them. Worse, a culture (especially in the media) that for a time was desperate to understand their views now either ignores them or treats them as dangerous curiosities.
The only good thing that came out of Iowa last night is that we are now spared further public performances from Vivek Ramaswamy. And it is a hopeful sign that nearly half of the caucus-goers chose someone besides Trump. But we are fooling ourselves if we think that the coming year will be just another peaceful competition between two political parties. Trump wants payback; so do millions of voters who have no one to blame for their sense of humiliation but themselves. (our emphasis)
These are the majority of Republicans who say they'll vote for the Malignant Loser even if he's convicted of any of the 91 felonies on which he's been charged. Their minds have been twisted and poisoned by decades of vicious lies and propaganda from right- wing media and scurrilous politicians profiting from stirring up hatreds and divisions, all reinforced by charlatan "clergy" and family / tribal tradition and conformity.
This is the aggrieved mindset of every revanchist movement throughout history. For America, it's the "Lost Cause 2.0" Forewarned is forearmed.
(Photo: Don't worry, we won't be talking to you / Reuters)
