Why are MAGAs and Trump so cruel, mean and hateful?
What is it that makes them that way?
It’s an honest question. What brings about the direct cruelty that we see in the MAGA movement? Why are they so gleeful to slash heathcare for 17 million Americans? Why does it give them a chuckle to throw people into Alligator Auschwitz? The idea of a detained person — who could very well be citizens and innocent people — being killed and devoured by pythons and crocodiles practically makes them giddy.
What’s going on?
Psychiatrist Dr. Russel Razzaque attempts to explain.
Authoritarianism is clearly a major factor in their personality. It’s literally a personality disorder. Years ago, Former White House Chief of Staff John Dean wrote about the authoritarian mindset in the book “Conservatives without Conscience.”
The irony of that is that he was then writing about the Presidency of George W. Bush which at the time was called “Compassionate Conservatism.”
In Conservatives Without Conscience, John Dean places the conservative movement's inner circle of leaders in the Republican Party under scrutiny. Dean finds their policies and mind- set to be fundamentally authoritarian, and as such, a danger to democracy. By examining the legacies of such old-line conservatives as J. Edgar Hoover, Spiro Agnew, and Phyllis Schlafly and of such current figures as Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, and leaders of the Religious Right, Dean presents an alarming record of abuses of power. His trenchant analysis of how conservatism has lost its bearings serves as a chilling warning and a stirring inspiration to safeguard constitutional principles.
My, how times have changed. Look at where Cheney’s daughter Liz sits now.
Dean examined this issue in detail, likening the syndrome to a personality disorder where they are those who intend to Dominate everything within their reach and those who happily for in line and follow these authoritarians as their Subordinates. Vicious demanding leaders and their followers. The Top and the Bottoms. Alphas and Betas.
It’s an age-old pattern.
I’ve long said that it seems that those in the Conservative movement have a terminal case of “Compassion Deficit Disorder.” They can’t seem to look at people who — through no fault of their own — are living through incredibly challenging circumstances without treating them as somehow beneath contempt. Worthy of nothing but disdain.
A child born in poverty, starving and infected with HIV from their mother’s blood stream.
The people of Gaza under seige by the vengence of Netanyahu.
The people of Ukraine under the threat of invasion and war from Putin.
Black and Brown citizens growing up in neighborhoods that were manufactured and structured by racism, cutoff and sliced up by freeway construction, overrun with industrial pollution with dilapidated and unfunded schools, bereft of supermarkets, banks and jobs, filled with liquor stores and motels, violently over-policed, and devoid of hope, options and oppurtunity.
Migrants who trek on foot for thousands of miles to escape violent drug cartels, devastating natural climate disasters, and vicious totalitarian dictators.
A young girl abused and repeatedly raped by trusted family member, struggling with an unwanted pregnancy
A teenager harrased, bullied and assaulted for their emerging gender and sexual identity.
Children trapped in a classroom threatened by a crazed gunman with hundreds of rounds available from a high-velocity assault weapon.
A family with health challenges — diabetes, heart disease, cancer — now forced to somehow work dozens of hours to “earn” access to medical care.
They can’t seem to manage an ounce of sympathy or understanding for any of them. They simply don’t give a fuck. And they absolutely do not want any of their tax dollars going to help those people at all.
Many of these people claim to be so-called “Christians” but they certainly don’t seem to agree with Jesus Christ was stated...
“That which you do to the least (of humanity), you have done to me.”
That’s not how they behave. That’s not what they do.
They seem to believe that if you were born in unfortunate circumstances, somehow, that’s your fault. Somehow, you deserve it. Somehow, if you wanted to, you could magically transform your situation just by sheer force of will. Just by wanting it badly enough. Reach down grab your boot straps and magically levitate your way to freedom and prosperity.
They’re filled with nothing but hate for those people. Those people are “Communists.” They’re dirty “Muslims.” They’re “Socialists!” They’re gay and trans “groomers” out to infect our children with the “Woke Mind Virus.” They’re lazy slackers. They’re CRIMINALS who will violently attack and assault anyone within their reach.
They seem to forget that the people who founded this nation, the ones they endlessly revere and worship as the “Founders” who crafted this country to be a “more perfect union” where “all men are equal”…
Were a bunch of Religious and Social refugees, “Criminals” and “Slackers” who were chased and harassed out of the Old World for being “too different.” They were the dirty Quackers and Deists, rebels who didn’t fit in with the dictates of the Pope or the Church of England. Hounded, persecuted, tortured and murdered by the Inquistion and the Crusades.
They didn’t want this to be a dogmatic religious nation because they had already seen the horror and devastation that could bring. They made this a nation based on an ideal, not based on a race, a religion, or a gender identity.
The Founders were the “retched refuse” of those other nations.
Maybe the MAGAs should keep that in mind.
Here's another take on it within the discussion of the upcoming Superman movie — why are these angry right-wingers triggered by the idea of “Kindness”? [And the idea that Superman is an immigrant?]
For the record, the person complaining about being “lectured” about immigration by the Superman movie was Kellyanne Conway on Fox News.