“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” William Faulkner
This two-part series explores how MAGA has served as an insurgent force and what history shows us about moving forward better. In the first days after the US saw vote-based repudiation unlike anything since what Nixon experienced, Trump chose to focus on the issues at hand — decorating. He painted his singular focus on his legacy, physical structures that bring to mind phrases like kitsch, schlock, tacky, ugly, and horrible. Once he received no attention for his usual antics, he upped the ante by elevating Stephen Miller, a man who hates Jews and all white people, despite being the descendant of refugees escaping pogroms. We’re watching the last days of Hitler, except it’s being televised to appease Trump’s capacious ego. As we watch the slow dissolution of MAGA, we as a nation need to understand why they came into being, and what we need to do to make sure we completely, and unutterably, destroy the insurgency that is MAGA.
I’ve heard many people say tear it down, raze Mar-a-Lago, destroy it all. Should we employ these monuments to the stupidity of MAGA to teach future generations? Should we just ignore the last decade? What’s the path forward?
Before that, we need to understand what MAGA is and where it came from.
Why MAGA are Terrorists and Insurgents
Stephen Miller believes the Democrats are a terrorist organization. But as it goes, MAGA might, in fact, be textbook terrorists.
There’s an irony in the current government being headed by people who mimic insurgency and terrorism, as defined by the US government. Since 9/11, the US has been very publicly focused on counterterrorism. Many MAGA actions qualify as terrorism, as detailed in documents like Danger Zone: Terrorism Risk – Theory, Practice, and Evolution, a good resource on the state of research in the field.
