What it's like debating MAGA

That quote so much reminds me of double. being stuck needing to use words responsibly, against an opponent who finds shelter not feeling obligated to do the same

I think of an another old quote by George Carlin; “never argue with stupid people, they’ll bring you down to their level and beat you with their experience”.

I’ve always disagreed though, why let them have that advantage?

The point of arguing with MAGA can never be to change their mind or even to engage in good faith conversation. It’s an exercise of dealing with pure stupidity, nothing else.

It makes me think about something else also. I was recently listening to some good commentary on how MAGA politics is essentially all Kayfabe - the unspoken agreement in wrestling that even though we know it’s all fake we’re going to pretend its real and never waiver from that. To Trump supporters they don’t care about anything he says or does because to them it’s all a performance. In their minds, this is all one big game where Trump says and does whatever he can to piss off the libs while delivering for them. And they know this cause they know how to read him, cause he’s one of them.

But now that he has no more elections to win, no more MAGA votes to court, what he’s showing them is that all this time, the joke was on them. He was never one of them, he always was and still is a Manhattanite billionaire who cares more about being welcomed into the elite club than anyone in rural America. For many, their eyes are finally starting to open. We obviously still have a long way to go.

I ran your response through ai and in a nutshell this is what it said "If anything, the more psychologically grounded version is closer to cognitive dissonance + motivated reasoning + identity alignment, not a shared understanding that “it’s all a show.”

Thoughts?

I stand by my characterization. Important to note that there are millions of Trump supporters so of course no one explanation will apply to all, but when we look at the ways in which they repeatedly dismiss everything he says, the legitimacy of the kayfabe characterization is really not deniable.

What is it that they always say… “he’s a negotiator”, “he’s trolling the libs”, “he’s a master of distraction”… the through line anytime Trump supporters are forced to defend his indefensible behavior the underlying assertion is that he’s not being serious. That directly implies he’s doing it for show, i.e. it’s not real, i.e. kayfabe.

And once we recognize that angle, the rest makes perfect sense. Trump shows himself everyday to be a complete moron, MAGA thinks he’s a genius. He shows himself to be totally unhinged, MAGA trusts his judgement. He shows us how much he cares about stupid things like his ballroom and the reflecting pool, MAGA thinks he’s is all about the little guy. You can’t look at what he does and conclude it tells you the opposite about him without believing it’s for show.

I don’t disagree at all with the three traits your AI listed, but I would say those are psychological underpinnings, kayfabe is the resulting mechanism by which MAGA attempts to resolve them.

Hard to debate a MAGA. Who doesn’t want to Make America Great Again.