Much has been written in this space about the propensity for Trump supporters to demonstrate their allegiance to the president through symbols and trite mottos. MAGA was the first of a slew of rather insipid emblems for the “movement.” The red-hatted MAGAites were the visual coat-of-arms indicating membership in Trump’s small but forceful proletarian base. The status conferred by the hats and the message they represented had very little to do with the words behind the acronym attached. The MAGATS could fawn over their leader from afar, but would not get past the vetting of clothing labels at the Mar-A-Lago door. They could admire the swat of his driver and the delicate tap of his putter while knowing that their only place within his Golf Clubs would be as caddies and bar staff.
The first clue that his promise of “draining the swamp” was a mindless phrase wrought with irony and paradox, was the escalator speech which contained little of “America” and not a whiff of “greatness” in it. The “Carnage in America” inaugural address destroyed any pretense of Trump’s misperception of the previous eight years---and the racist implication that our first black president had somehow despoiled our “greatness.” This is at the center of Trump’s descent into chaos. He makes the case for making America “great again” with a call for a second term that would serve to transition us to some new greatness—as if the previous metamorphosis didn’t quite take. He is hopeful and trusting that our own blindness and inattentiveness will magically help us forget the trials and tribulations we continue to experience because of his mindboggling incompetence and pettiness. Just as we thought white hoods were anathema to the ideals most Americans aspire to, the Trump MAGA acronym has come to represent a dystopian shambolism-- a symbol of the very faults that stand in the way of true greatness. No longer a campaign cap with nondescript letters, the hats have become tokens worn by the few whose values lay elsewhere.
MAGA Madness
What we are now witnessing in the last gasp attempt of his campaign to energize a dwindling base of support, is the pure distillation of the Trump message—the core of its truth. At the moment his people are searching for a new message to spark an interest in his reelection, Trump seems only capable of his one original thought---making America whiter, meaner, and poorer by shattering our principles into tiny little pieces of racism, bigotry, greed, and disaffection. For those who touted his message thinking that Trump was actually interested in furthering our national interests, behold its consequences.
This weekend has been like so many others during Trump’s tenure, the news is both bleak and bewildering:
-
Russia had placed a bounty on the heads of American soldiers in Afghanistan and the Trump Administration knew about it for months and did nothing
-
the president retweeted a racist video that featured a “white power” chant that he was forced to remove because of condemnations from within his own party
-
his vice president was seen wearing a mask at a Texas church gathering during which the congregants and the choir did not distance or mask themselves as the state’s rate of infection climbed alarmingly
Conscious Ignorance—Dereliction of Duty
The new normal for TRUMPbase is to reassert their support for their leader, along with the hats and the waving of flags, in the face of a virulent pandemic that will kill more than 150,000 Americans by the end of summer, Trump followers whistle past the graveyard and disregard medical science and common sense. They are now donning blinders instead of masks. The stable genius with the greatest words and the most perceptive gut falls prey to the proverbial “see no-hear no-say no” evil of conscious ignorance. The president asks his followers to model his behavior. Last week in Tulsa, he invited the MAGA faithful to put their lives on the line for him. Holding an ill-conceived rally indoors, the Trump “feel-good” tour was shocked to learn the base was reduced to those who could fit in a petri dish of viral stupidity.
This weekend brought even more distressing news, both for the president and his groupies. Trump once again asked that Americans believe that he hadn’t heard and hadn’t seen the events that had precipitated national headlines and attention. The first was an unforced error when the SG retweeted a video of an older MAGAT in a golf cart yelling “white power” to a crowd of protestors. The response:
--Joel Mathis, The Week
Even worse the New York Times released a story that was later corroborated by followup reporting from The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and Fox News that the Trump Administration was informed months earlier of a Russian plot to place bounties on the heads of young American soldiers in Afghanistan and did nothing:
--Sunday evening POTUS tweet
To his base of supporters, to believe what he says, or what others report that he says, is to accept these views as your own. Metaphorical blinders, heads in the sand (or placed strategically elsewhere), or acceptance of bits and pieces of the Trump detritus while disavowing others, won’t work anymore. Polling suggests that the hemorrhaging of Trump’s once-vaunted base is evidence of a broader realization that MAGA is toxic. What the Trump camp should consider for the fall is to add MAGA blindfolds, hoods, and earmuffs to their wearable “trumpparel.“
They may also consider waking up and pulling their heads out of their, well, there.