Is It Too Late To Deprogram The MAGA Cult?
The answer is more complicated than you might think.
WASHINGTON, DC – During my Summer break, my mind kept drifting back to what I believe is the biggest problem facing democracy in America. Yes, I contemplate scary political things whether I’m on vacation or not. But this particular crisis should be one we’re all contemplating.
It should come as no surprise that countless millions of Americans have been deceived by a gaggle of con-men known as the modern Republican Party, along with its con-man-in-chief, Donald Trump. This is a given. We’re all struggling to come to terms with this tragedy as the baseline for our political debate. However, I believe it’s much worse than a matter of politics. The Republican Party has become a cult and its most loyal voters have been indoctrinated – brainwashed – into a cult. The MAGA cult. The Red Hat cult. Take your pick of names.
While only around 10-20 percent of Americans identify as QAnon adherents, many of the central tenets of this online hoax are supported by an astonishing number of Republicans. According to the Benenson Strategy Group, 53 percent of Republicans believe the government is controlled by a secret cabal – the deep state myth.
Not all Republicans are QAnon, but it doesn’t matter. Republicans also believe in an entire roster of similar myths fed to them by the Red Hat entertainment complex, including the ridiculous notion that Democrats want to murder babies after they’ve been born. They believe Donald Trump won the 2020 election, that windmills cause cancer, that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, that the climate crisis is a hoax, that the Jack Smith investigations are designed to help President Biden win re-election. They believe in white supremacy and the lie that America is being invaded by migrants.
As much as anything else, they suffer from a severely busted bullshit detector. They’re incapable of weeding out the weaponized lies crafted to divorce these suckers from their life savings. It’s a scam as old as religion. At some point in the last 50 years, Republicans landed on a demographic of Americans who are as aggrieved as they are susceptible to tent revivals and traveling faith healers, and if they’re willing to believe all of that, they’re willing to believe that unqualified snake oil salesmen like Trump speak for them and should therefore be president for life. He’s the messiah figure in this relentless and well-funded psyop against reality.
I won’t belabor the aspects and origins of the cult since we’re all abundantly familiar with all of that. The question of the day, however, is how do we continue to function as a democracy when roughly half of the political debate is occupied by con-men and the suckers who believe their every word? What do we do about these people, if anything?
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The political solution, winning more elections, only manages to sandbag against the tide. While it can, in the best case, block the cult leaders from seizing control over the government, it doesn’t manage to address the root of the problem: the scammers and the suckers.
So, do we 1) Ignore the cult, allowing it to metastasize until the destabilization triggers a cataclysm of some sort? 2) Or do we engage in a personal effort to deprogram them one-by-one before the cult-induced destruction occurs? By the way, the problem with the cataclysm route is it’ll take down untold numbers of Normals as well. What’ll happen when the next pandemic lands in our laps, for example? Now that the MAGA cult believes vaccines and masking are both useless and unconstitutional, it’s quite possible that the death toll will be far more catastrophic than COVID. I’m not just talking about the MAGA cult alone – Normals will also be infected and killed due to the gullible irresponsibility of the anti-vaxers and anti-maskers.
That’s the tip of the iceberg.
Even the relatively “normal” Republican concept of deregulation impacts all of us, and not just the idiot voters who think it’s a great idea to elect political leaders who are okay with dumping carcinogens into our drinking water, just to own the libs. In other words, this option of allowing them to continue running around blindfolded with flamethrowers is an untenable solution. If they’re allowed to destabilize the nation, that means we’re all screwed.
The second option is for each of us to act on a personal level. If one of your relatives were tricked into joining a traditional cult, would you make an attempt to deprogram them? Should you? There have been anecdotal success stories such as documentary filmmaker Jen Senko’s successful deprogramming of her father, as seen in The Brainwashing Of My Dad. There are also plenty of systems and examples of deprogramming cult members. But how do we even start when it comes to millions of these people? Are they too far gone? I believe many are.
I suppose the only solution is to pursue all three options: continue to fortify the political route and hope there aren’t any hiccups allowing cult leaders to expand their power, while also deprogramming gettable people using established methods – all while hoping the worst of the zealots don’t blow anything up in the process.
One thing’s for certain: we can’t simply treat the cult members like normal political opponents. They’re beyond that now, and we either let them run amok until the whole place collapses, or we assert ourselves to a degree commensurate with the serious threat the cult poses.
Now out for free:
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The Democratic Primaries Are Not Going Well (For People Not Named Joe Biden)
The Democratic Primaries Are Not Going Well (For People Not Named Joe Biden)
by Justin Rosario
The Democratic primaries are in full swing! Candidates are waging a brutal war to decide who will be the 2024 nominee and it’s getting ugly! Insults are being flung! Shade is being cast! Corn dogs are being eaten at county fairs! Everyone is pounding the pavement to prove they are the most in tune with the average American voter in *looks at map* Iowa and New Hampshire.
Oh wait, those are the Republican primaries. Really ugly stuff going on over there as everyone is looking to dethrone Donald Trump. But what about the Democratic primaries? Weren’t they supposed to be a contentious slog with multiple challengers to the allegedly super unpopular President Joe Biden?
Well…the Democratic primaries are going poorly. For people not named Joe Biden…
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“While only around 10-20 percent of Americans identify as QAnon adherents...”
The scariest thing about that sentence is the casualness with which “only” is used.
We’re getting (have been) normalized to the idea that a huge portion of Americans are flat out violently insane.
Personal responsibility. I'm going to haul out that age-old conservative mantra. One chooses to be ignorant. People who fall for cults are equally susceptible to any type of con. Here's the thing - along with the cult aspect, the other identifying feature for most all MAGA folk is faith. Even mainstream religion teaches that events are out of our control, that everything is in "God's hands." It is not.
They believe everything happens for a purpose, and that Trump has a divine purpose. Some worship the Republican party. If a person truly gives up all agency and autonomy on the premise that everything is out of human control, they have given up on the principles upon which the country was founded.
It is time to start calling these people traitors. They have made their decision.