The MAGA movement is often portrayed as a force without principle, mindlessly charging in whatever direction their daily marching orders dictate, even if today’s orders contradict yesterday’s. Given the chaotic and predictably shifting nature of their target-du-jour, it may seem on the surface they have no rhyme or reason. However, there is, in fact, a unifying theme —a method to the madness. It is all about Status.
The White, Wealthy, Native-Born, Heterosexual, Cis-Gendered, “Christian,” Able-Bodied, Male (*0) (*1) has asserted itself as the sole and exclusive center of power for quite some time. As the center of power, they demanded nearly the entirety of decision-making authority as well as all available resources in any environment in which they were present or could influence. As others gained equality, not superiority, which is an essential detail, it is often presented to the white man as a loss of Status.
Let’s visualize this with an analogy:
The white man came into an inhabited land, slaughtered the inhabitants, ruined the environment by hunting keystone species like bison and beaver to near extinction among other short-sighted decisions, brought in slaves, stole the culture of the slaves, indigenous, and other immigrants, and from all that a Dining Room Table was built. The table is the United States of America, so this is the biggest, most spacious table in the history of our species, but the white man only intended one chair to be built at the head of the table.
The white man then looked at the table after it was built and declared that moment as the beginning of history from which the slate was wiped clean and any attack would not be an affront on the indigenous, the environment, the enslaved, or the exploited, but on the white man. According to the white man, the table was theirs, it was always theirs, and any attack on their ownership and construction of it was either to be dismissed outright or to be attacked with full force.
People other than the ‘center of power,’ naturally, have made their best efforts to build chairs so they may take a seat at the table. These chairs have not typically been an effort to replace the chair at the head of the table (*2). However, the white man does not want any other chairs at the table and takes active efforts to remove all other chairs apart from theirs.
MAGA’s priority isn’t to improve their lives; it is to push everyone else further down. The accomplishments of Women, People of Color, the LGBTQ+ community, Immigrants, Indigenous peoples, and other marginalized groups are *far* too numerous and underappreciated for a piece of this nature, but the efforts of MAGA to be the only chair at the table will not go unopposed. If the goal were to improve lives, we would see it. We have more than enough resources to improve healthcare, education, infrastructure, and other areas. Regardless, efforts are being made to cut them so that the already wealthy can have even more.
President LBJ pointed this out decades ago, “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
The cruelty is all about Status. “Equal rights for others does not mean fewer rights for you. It’s not pie” is a line I think about a fair bit. There is no inherent reason why we couldn’t all sit at the table and share meals. We’re all floating on a small orb, revolving around an object that isn’t spectacular in any way, in an arm of an otherwise nondescript galaxy, one of around 2 *trillion* that we’re aware of in the observable universe (*3). What impacts one impacts us all, and all this time and energy wasted fighting one another is the true tragedy.
We’ve demonstrated our capacity for cooperation, but it typically requires an external force to bring it about at scale. In the absence of such a force, people (MAGA especially) forget we all sat at the table and passed around dishes to one another happily. We introduced one another to new dishes, we shared stories, and we welcomed guests. People want to go back to squabbling amongst themselves and repeating past mistakes, continuing the cycle of violence.
In the current compartmentalized world we live in, where we have those who no longer live in objective reality (including some in elected office), I don’t have the answers on how to fix it. Upton Sinclair pointed out, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” The people feeding the MAGA base the idea ‘equality = loss of your status’ are paid to lie. The closest to the truth that idea has is the decline in the Status of the American Worker. One ‘unskilled’ worker used to be able to provide the white picket fence American Dream™ potentially, but 1) that was nowhere near true universally and 2) the death of the American Dream™ was people like Reagan and the Owner Class – the same people responsible for feeding the lie of ‘equality = loss of your status.’
The reality is this: our table is more than big enough for everyone to pull up a chair, and we have the resources for everyone to eat, rest, and be heard. Those telling you otherwise profit by doing so; that’s it, simple as that.
(*0) Some want to add “Mentally Sound” to this list. Nonetheless, I disagree for a couple of reasons: 1) they already resolved this internally with “Christian,” and 2) I would argue the evidence points towards the opposite. To be a high-ranking MAGA leader, you have to be some form of narcissist, psychopath, sociopath, etc. Whether this is someone like Trump who cares only about himself and his perceived wealth, all the way down to people like Alex Jones or Sean Hannity, who know what they are doing is lying repeatedly, but enriching themselves in the process.
(*1) “Christian” is in quotes because their behavior vs. the teachings of Christ are at clear odds with one another.
(*2) There have been movements that go beyond equality, but that hasn’t been the dominant overarching goal of everyone involved.
(*3) Observable is a keyword here. As space continues to expand at an accelerating rate, an ever-increasing amount of the universe is forever out of our grasp. Furthermore, 2 Trillion GALAXIES means a number of stars difficult to comprehend in real terms. Imagine if every leaf on every tree also had a solar system, and any of those systems could be us, and any of those systems could be someone else out there in the universe.