Reality Will Hit Them Hard
But will they understand?
I have a 40-year friendship with a Trump voter who lives in Idaho. I think he's a genuinely good person. He is kind and always treated me fairly. I suspect there are many others who would say the same about him. He made a positive difference in a lot of people's lives. There was a time when I was in dire straits and he helped me. When we both knew each other in our early twenties, there was no indication that he would eventually come to support a direct fascist attack on the United States, and the dismantling of our constitutional order. But that's how it turned out.
This demonstrates the insidious nature of the MAGA movement. To find a way back to sanity, we're going to have to figure out how such people came to turn against American values—to such a shocking degree. To the point where they have effectively become enemy combatants. We’re going to need their help to turn this around.
Over the years my friend and I made an effort to stay in touch. Between last summer and now, we had several conversations about the election and have texted each other regularly. After Trump was grazed by a bullet, he made the bloody ear his cover photo, and assured me that the election was now decided in Trump’s favor. After Trump won in November, he made it a point to express sympathy and assure me that everything was going to be okay. He told me I shouldn't worry.
Then we started to see the nature of Trump's cabinet appointments. Again, he said, Trump's “a different sort of guy” and he has a strange way of doing things but it's all going to be okay. “He's got this,” my friend assured me. I told him that frankly I was terrified about what his choices signaled for the future. “Just wait and see, it's all going to work out,” he said.
I explained to him that I've been a lifelong student of political science and that I've been doing research into fascism and totalitarianism during the Trump years—and that all indications are that we're headed for disaster. I sent him a couple of chapters (15 or 20 pages) from my forthcoming book outlining my research. He didn't read them.
After the inauguration, he was riding high and feeling good. All of his MAGA friends in Idaho agreed. America would be great again!
Then came the pardons of January 6th rioters. Then came the purges at the FBI and Justice Department. Then came the Potomac air disaster blamed on “DEI.” Then came the X coup, as Elon Musk took over servers across multiple government departments. Then came the tariffs on our biggest trading partners and closest allies.
I sent my friend my article on The X Coup, telling him, “this is what you voted for.” It details how tariffs led to The Great Depression world War II. Once again, he refused to read it. He said, “I think the last two weeks have been awesome… Trump will make some mistakes but THIS IS WHAT I VOTED FOR.”
After some back and forth, he said he wanted to keep our friendship “light,” and that he had lots of “leftist friends.” He considers they are good people who are “not paying attention, wrong, misled, or just an enemy to my way of life.”
I asked him what the point of a friendship was if we can't discuss substantive issues? He said that it felt like I was giving him homework. I said, “it's always important to ask yourself what would change your mind? If the answer is nothing, then there's something wrong.”
The conversation was going exactly how it always goes with people in the MAGA cult. You get so far, then they shut down. When it comes to questioning their values, they want to talk about barbecue and pets.
He said he was “not interested” in reading my material because he considers it “exhausting.” He told me I was “condescending” and “elitist.” He said again, “call if you ever want to talk about family and light stuff.”
I said, “Everything I'm writing about will have a direct impact on our families, probably for generations. There is no light stuff.” Then I said, “This will all impact you soon enough, call if you ever want to talk about real shit. I will always pick up the phone.”
He said, “Good thing I'm prepped for anything.” To which I replied, “there's always someone with a bigger gun.”
And that's where we are. There are millions of such conversations taking place right now. The events being put in motion by this administration will create absolute havoc. People in red states are the least prepared. They may have guns and dehydrated food, but they're not actually ready for what it would mean to lose government services and be on their own. They’re not remotely prepared for all the other people who’ve bought only guns—and plan on taking their food. All their posturing about “self-sufficiency” has ocurred under a functional government, public utilities, cheap gas, a good economy, plenty of food, and a high degree of law and order.
Despite their bravado, none of them expect a true Civil War or loss of the services they've come to rely on. They’re not prepared to face a hostile US Army shooting at them—should it come to that. No American in living memory has suffered under wartime deprivation or violence except those who have enlisted in our military. In spite of any weekend target practice they might do, most support the “MAGA revolution” from their couches. Nothing approaching a breakdown of society has occurred in the United States since The Great Depression. And very few people alive even remember when hunger and poverty and 25% unemployment last stalked us.
The New Deal is still protecting even the die-hard MAGA voters, many of whom depend on their Social Security and disability checks. They’ve never known what its like to be thrown to the wolves by their government. Hardship makes people lose their minds. The same people who don't understand the danger of MAGA now will also fail to understand the causes of their hardship when it comes. They're so heavily invested in MAGA lies that they'll find a way to blame anyone else, probably Democrats and immigrants and Canada and Mexico and NATO and all the usual MAGA scapegoats. They might actually relish their hardships, knowing the people they hate are suffering even more.
This is why totalitarianism by its very nature has to distort reality. Trump doesn’t lie by accident. The truth can never be faced. To face the truth is to face responsibility. And to take responsibility in the face of great suffering is almost impossible for human beings. It only occurs under once-in-a-century leadership when people trust that their sacrifices will bear the fruit of improved conditions for their children. Right now, MAGA has convinced people to sacrifice their rights, justice, the Constitution, themselves and their families to the world’s billionaires. That’s a fucking hat trick.
Once a group of people has become this heavily invested in an illusion, it normally takes a cataclysm on a national or global scale to change their minds. Sometimes that change only happens over the course of generations.
The laws of physics and economics and governance can’t be broken. Only bent. And then they snap back with a vengeance. The forces of history are inexorable. MAGA is sleepwalking into an absolute catastrophe of its own making. All will suffer, and few will realize their own role in that suffering.
Such is the danger of delusion. And we’re all along for the ride. So the stakes of friendships between those who see what’s coming and those who don’t are nothing less than the entire world as we know it. The day I can convince my friend to question his cult, is the day we might have a chance to save ourselves. Because we can’t do this alone—without recruiting a substantial number of MAGA voters back to reality.
You’ll never find anyone more zealous against alcohol than a recovering alcoholic. You’ll never find someone who hates cigarettes more than a former smoker. The same will be true for ex-MAGA cult members. Once they finally recognize the degree to which they’ve been duped and used, and what they’ve lost, they’ll turn on their former leaders like a pack of wild dogs. We need them in this fight. They are fellow Americans. For all our sakes—it can’t happen soon enough.