When you associate yourself with anything, like supporting a football team, you reflect that thing’s qualities. Two all-important concepts here are reflected glory and reflected failure. The team you support wins the league? Your status rises – you partake in the success. Your team suffers a humiliating defeat? Your status falls – the failure reflects on you.
The same can be said for a country, or for that matter, a political party.
Why is Donald Trump so addictive to his followers? Why can they not get enough? Because Trump is expert at exaggerating glory and downplaying failure. When Trump takes credit for something, his followers are able to enjoy the reflected glory. When he dismisses blame, his followers can evade the reflected failure.
This is a key part of his appeal. He provides a feeling of invulnerability to his supporters. No matter what happens, everything’s going great.
So many people support Trump because they enjoy a vicarious sense of security and power – while of course doing nothing of worth themselves. It’s all very convenient. To feel like you’re winning without having to do anything at all – that’s surely the apex of 21st century convenience culture. MAGA cult members feel like they’re winning all the time.
What the MAGA cultists believe to be strength is actually WEAKNESS. It is not a positive philosophy. It is not based on the will to TRIUMPH. It is based on the avoidance of pain. It is the opposite of the heroic virtues. The heroic virtue of courage is the antithesis of MAGA weakness. Courage is the readiness to embrace reality and suffer the consequences, good and bad.
Trump rejects the pain of failure and denies the reality of defeat, thus his followers are able to follow a policy of avoidance. MAGA is the politics of fear. Trumpism is a pathology.
Strong people want to triumph in reality, not in their own heads. They’re driven to take real action and accept the real result.
Trumpism is not about taking action. It’s about sitting on your ass and fantasizing. It’s about sitting on Twitter and posting self-congratulatory bullshit. MAGA is an escape from reality. It’s a denial of pain. But by giving up reality, you give up power and succumb to weakness. The weak can only feel powerful through association. They don’t want the glory to belong to them. They can only bask in the reflected glory of others.
Trumpism is all about reflection. The primary weakling, Trump, feeds all the secondary weaklings the illusion of glory. That’s his skill. He is an illusionist, a conjurer, a con man.
DELENDA TRUMPISMUS EST!!!!! | DESTROY TRUMPISM!!!!!
These morons simply cannot think for themselves. It’s impossible. Whatever Trump tells them is what they believe, 100 percent of the time. They’re mirrors reflecting their Dear Leader’s – well, not radiance …
MAGA has all the makings of a cult. It’s based on a policy of total deference to a despotic leader, it’s highly alternative and extremist, and it promotes the idea that the world outside the cult is evil. That’s essentially all you need to build a cult.
MAGA, where’s your SPINE? Leave the Cult and stand with freedom. You know you’re all being conned. Trump will deliver the same United States back to you as you gave to him, but with a few cosmetic alterations. You know this. Take the brave option and step away from the propaganda. If you don’t, things won’t end well for you. They never do for cult members.
Alternate Titles
“Trumpism Is a Pathology”
“What is MAGA? The Myth of Strength”
“MAGA’s False Glory”
“MAGA: Political Escapism”