It's almost a throwaway line in a post by European political scientist Thomas Zimmer, a post mostly calling out the failings of the New York Times. But I think it's critically important for understanding much of the behavior of much of MAGA:
Key to understanding [Office of Budget and Management director Russell] Vought’s worldview is the idea that the constitutional order - and with it the “natural” order itself - has been destroyed: The revolution has already happened, “the Left” won. Therefore, conservatives categorically err when they try to preserve what is no more.Vought is correct, to a substantial extent. Twentieth century America undermined, eroded, and finally largely tore down the unchallenged power of white supremacy and patriarchy (of which homophobia and gender absolutism are features.) Much of MAGA hates the America the majority of us have made. So they call us "the Left." Some of us may identify with some "Left"; but most of us are just ordinary Americans who have moved on from habitual white supremacy and woman hatred. The country is not perfected, but it has moved on from MAGA's cultural grievances.
And Trumpism is wildly unpopular and getting more so with every price increase and raid on Black and brown neighbors.
So, because MAGA lost the culture, its supporters lost hope for the future. To replace an imperfect democracy, they think they've found their king. MAGA attracts losers, whose only unifying idea is to tear it all down.Paul Krugman catches this reality when he digs into the material and consequential stupidity of MAGA's war on science:
... Rather than acknowledging that the US is in danger of being permanently overtaken by China’s technological and economic prowess, the Trump administration is slashing support for scientific research and attacking education. In the name of defeating the bogeymen of “wokeness” and the “deep state”, this administration is actively opposing progress in critical sectors while giving grifters like the crypto industry everything that they want. ... A powerful faction in America has become deeply hostile to science and to expertise in general. ...
... Does this mean that the U.S. is losing the race with China for global leadership? No, I think that race is essentially over.Historian of fascism John Ganz calls out MAGA as embodying the nationalism of losers.
... MAGA’s base of support comes from those parts of the country and those social classes and regions that actually did lose out or never gained from the international system. Its bourgeoisie is mostly from the heartland, not from the coasts.
Its intellectual class, or clerisy, is drawn from those who could not achieve the first rank under the old “meritocratic” system, who couldn’t fully enter the cosmopolitan elite, or decided to defect from its ranks opportunistically to gain pride of place in the new movement. ...
This fear, hatred, and envy of the cosmopolitan elite, this anti-Atlanticist, anti-globalist current, sometimes called “isolationism,” but more correctly called sovereigntism or even just nationalism, is a longstanding constellation of ideas in American politics ...Dorothy Thompson recognized these second-raters in her classic 1941 essay, Who Goes Nazi?
For that matter, so did my mother, who, though a Republican housewife, recognized and participated in warning against European fascism during its rise in the mid-1930s.
This country has always attracted the world's desperate who hoped to become winners. Are we going to let the MAGA losers kill off that hope? NO KINGS!