MAGA folks are not stupid

MAGA folks are not stupid. MAGA folks know full well what they are doing and why. Like everyone else, including liberals, MAGA folks are looking for their perceived wellbeing. MAGA folks will follow Trump, a chimp, or anyone else who they believe can get them what they want, which above all is to stop liberalism. Just like liberals, but in the opposite direction, MAGA folks seek conservatism believing that it will bring them a better (less painful and more pleasurable) life. 

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Emotional creatures

Humans are emotional creatures. Emotions come first. Reasons follow. There are two basic emotions controlling humans: fear and greed. Fear relates to pain (physical or mental). Greed relates to pleasure (physical or mental). 

All animals survive avoiding pain, and seeking pleasure. Humans are not an exception. All our ancestors survives that way, and the pain / pleasure mechanism survived in all of us. However, we humans are advanced primates that can learn to associate physical pain with mental pleasure, and vice versa. Humans can develop"reasons" or rationalizations to explain or justify our actions. Regardless of rationalizations, pain and pleasure carry the day for us. Everything else is frosting. 

American liberals struggle understanding MAGA Americans, and vice versa. The mistake is that each side looks into the reasons and arguments raised by the other side. They argue back and forth, getting lost on their respective rationalizations. Both sides ignore the simple emotions (fear and greed) and the pain / pleasure mental associations controlling each side. 

Pain and Pleasures

Both conservatives and liberals are equally controlled by pain (fear) and pleasure (greed). However, they are culturally programmed to respond to different triggers. Conservatives fear liberalism, and desire to make America white again under the framework of religion and tradition. Liberals fear conservatism, and desire to move forward to make America diverse again (MADA) under the framework of science and technology.  

The current political battle in America is between those wanting to make America white again; and those wanting to make America diverse again. America was brown before European colonization turned it into a white ruled country. Gradually, America is becoming brown again, which is creating a great deal of fear (pain) in the MAGA community. Tribalism is part of human nature. We are programmed to see the world in a binary fashion (right vs wrong; us vs them).  It's all part of human nature.

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MAGA contradictions are easy to understand

MAGA folks are supposed to be the ones for law and order. However, they seem to want to enforce the law only against liberals, minorities, and immigrants. Trump's insurrection is a good example. Had Obama done anything similar, MAGA folks would want to hang Obama. 

Another contradiction is that Trump is supposed to be a smart winner. However, smart winners do not lose to "losers", and do not let "losers" steal from them. Any way you look at Trump's situation, would make you conclude reasonably that Trump is a sore loser. However, following Trump is not about reason or rationality. Supporting Trump is about fear and greed. 

MAGA folks fear liberalism. MAGA folks wish that Trump could destroy liberalism or at least delay its spread in America. MAGA folks know that Trump is lying. MAGA folks do not care provided that the lies can stop the enemy, which is liberalism. 

Trump's pain and pleasure

Losing the elections brought tremendous mental pain to Trump. As we know, Trump is very sensitive to the pain of losing. Trump is also emotionally attached to the mental pleasure of seeing himself as a winner. 

Upon realizing that he lost the election, Trump had two options: accept defeat; or deny defeat. Completely controlled by the pain / pleasure mechanism of life, Trump chose to deny defeat. Accepting defeat would have being too painful. Denying defeat gave him pleasurable ways to escape the painful reality. 

The Art of Denial

When Trump realized that he lost to a "loser", he saw himself as an even bigger loser. The Trump brand depends on the curated image of Trump as a winner. Trump did not want to accept the reality that he lost to Biden, and for the sake of his commercial and political brand could not accept defeat.     

Denying that he lost the elections gave Trump less painful and more pleasurable options than admitting defeat. Denial gave him the option of still marketing himself as a winner wronged by the swamp; a victim of the establishment. Denying the loss gave Trump the pleasure of having an audience to keep spreading fake news and alternative reality to stop liberalism. 

MAGA folks are not stupid. 

Liberals think that MAGA folks are stupid because MAGA folks support Trump. Liberals think that MAGA folks are being fooled by Trump. That is not the case. MAGA folks are in charge, and push Trump to do and say what they want even if that means the death of the Trump brand. 

Everyone knows that Trump is lying. Trump is not fooling anyone. MAGA folks do not care if Trump is becoming a dumb old man like Rudy. All MAGA folks care is that Trump deliver on the promise of attacking liberals and making America conservative again. 

MAGA folks know that Trump is a yankee fool that hates rural people as much as he hates blacks. MAGA folks employ Trump as a mercenary against the liberal establishment. MAGA folks know that if Obama had done a quarter of what Trump did, they would have rioted to hang Obama by January 7th. 

MAGA is a whiteness illiberal movement. 

The MAGA movement seeks to go back to the United States of the 50s or before when white men were in charge of everything, and could not be questioned by anybody other than other white men. Women could do their thing, but hiding behind their men, not unlike Ginny Thomas hides behind her odd black Justice. 

MAGA folks know that Trump knew that he lost the elections, and that he incited an insurrection, and did not do anything to stop it in the hope of clinging to power. MAGA folks are okay with that because the alternative is to concede victory to the liberals that in MAGA's view are destroying America.

The end justifies the means.

It is very easy to understand MAGA after all. All we have to do is mute the arguments and focus on the emotions involved. MAGA folks believe that liberalism is the enemy of America. They are willing to support Trump, Putin, Hitler, or the devil himself, provided that they can stop the "greater evil" of liberalism. In their view, MAGA folks are fighting for the "greater good". 

Most MAGA folks believe in a conservative male god sitting in heaven. Most MAGA folks believe that liberal science and technology influences are running against the traditional master plan of the man upstairs. MAGA folks are happy to do any number of seemingly unreasonable things, or raise any number of mind boggling conspiracy theories, and contradictory arguments to fight what they perceive as a greater evil, liberalism.

Food for thought. What do you think?

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