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.\u00a0 Given the chaotic and predictably shifting nature of their target-du-jour, it may seem on the surface they have no rhyme or reason.\u00a0 However, there is, in fact, a unifying theme \u2014a method to the madness.\u00a0 It is all about Status.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 As others gained equality, not superiority, which is an essential detail, it is often presented to the white man as a loss of Status.<\/p>\n
Let’s visualize this with an analogy:<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 These chairs have not typically been an effort to replace the chair at the head of the table (*2).\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
MAGA’s priority isn’t to improve their lives; it is to push everyone else further down.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 If the goal were to improve lives, we would see it.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
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.”<\/p>\n
The cruelty is all about Status.\u00a0 “Equal rights for others does not mean fewer rights for you. It’s not pie” is a line I think about a fair bit.\u00a0 There is no inherent reason why we couldn’t all sit at the table and share meals.\u00a0 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).\u00a0 What impacts one impacts us all, and all this time and energy wasted fighting one another is the true tragedy.<\/p>\n
We’ve demonstrated our capacity for cooperation, but it typically requires an external force to bring it about at scale.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 We introduced one another to new dishes, we shared stories, and we welcomed guests.\u00a0 People want to go back to squabbling amongst themselves and repeating past mistakes, continuing the cycle of violence.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 Upton Sinclair pointed out, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”\u00a0 The people feeding the MAGA base the idea ‘equality = loss of your status’ are paid to lie.\u00a0 The closest to the truth that idea has is the decline in the Status of the American Worker.\u00a0 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 \u2013 the same people responsible for feeding the lie of ‘equality = loss of your status.’<\/p>\n
The reality is this:\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Those telling you otherwise profit by doing so; that\u2019s it, simple as that.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(*0) Some want to add \u201cMentally Sound\u201d to this list. Nonetheless, I disagree for a couple of reasons:\u00a0 1) they already resolved this internally with \u201cChristian,\u201d and 2) I would argue the evidence points towards the opposite.\u00a0 To be a high-ranking MAGA leader, you have to be some form of narcissist, psychopath, sociopath, etc.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
(*1) \u201cChristian\u201d is in quotes because their behavior vs. the teachings of Christ are at clear odds with one another.<\/p>\n
(*2) There have been movements that go beyond equality, but that hasn\u2019t been the dominant overarching goal of everyone involved.<\/p>\n
(*3) Observable is a keyword here.\u00a0 As space continues to expand at an accelerating rate, an ever-increasing amount of the universe is forever out of our grasp.\u00a0 Furthermore, 2 Trillion GALAXIES means a number of stars difficult to comprehend in real terms.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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.\u00a0 Given the chaotic and predictably shifting nature of their target-du-jour, it may seem on the surface they have no rhyme or reason.\u00a0 However, there is, in fact, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[338],"tags":[334],"class_list":["post-29118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-considered-thoughts","tag-334"],"yoast_head":"\n