OK, MAGA: checking in with the MAGA Fluid

They're not doing great. But don't give them any affirming care if they're not willing to choose a decent civic gender.

Billy, you love to argue with me but I don’t think I’m the person you think I am. Trump is not “my leader” he’s just a guy whose policies I prefer. I know there are lots of people who worship the guy, i’m not one of them and I don’t waste my time defending his rhetoric. — The most perfect distillation of MAGA Fluidity I have ever come across, from a recent FB messenger conversation I had with a classically “respectable” MAGA Fluid. When asked to actually name a policy he preferred, this “respectable” MAGA Fluid went silent.

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What is “MAGA Fluid?” It’s a term I coined in a recent essay. Key passage here:

These folks are longing for a civic identity — a civic gender, you might say — that is something other than MAGA or non-MAGA. Call them the MAGA Fluid. They seem think their non-binary longing entitles them to some affirming care by non-MAGAs. It does not.

Most of the MAGA Fluids in November, without any ambiguity, will freely choose MAGA as their civic gender. Most MAGA Fluids will freely choose to end the basic, flawed, aspirational, pretty successful 250-year American experiment in self-government. Most MAGA Fluids will choose to turn the nuclear codes and Department of Justice over to a fake revenge-obsessed, deteriorating 78-year-old Capitol lynch mob inciting felon sex abuser and his horde of MAGA Freaks.

The MAGA Fluid cannot even articulate why they are freely choosing to toss out 250 years of American efforts at self-government as casually as a Trump wife. But their half-muttered excuse will be some racist lie about non-MAGAs that Susie Wiles feeds them.

The MAGA Fluid don’t want the MAGA Freaks, including Trump and DeSantis, to win, exactly. But they don’t want openly non-MAGA normal people to win more. That would mean admitting we’re right and they’re wrong — morally, intellectually, civically, economically. And we have been all along. See forced birth as an example. That would mean all of this has been a terrible waste, which it has.

Here’s the entire article.

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The "MAGA Fluid" can't avoid choosing a binary civic gender

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A chat with a MAGA Fluid

I like to test my theories and observations in real life and real people. So in the wake of the Trump favorite Mark Robinson “Black Nazi” porn scandal, I sent a note to a MAGA Fluid I know — to sort of get a vibe check. It proved a spectacular study in MAGA Fluid pathology. I want to share it. This is 100 percent real. I’m just not using his name.

Note the part when he retreats to Trump is not “my leader” he’s just a guy whose policies I prefer and then never says another word when asked to name a policy, any policy. He offers paragraphs about “Harvey Weinstein” — but silence about policies he supposedly prefers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I’ve bolded some particularly useful sentences.

Billy: MAGA!! Your leader called this “black Nazi” porn dude better than Martin Luther King. :)

MAGA Fluid: My leader? I think you overestimate my appreciation for the orange man. Also, it’s funny to me how the assumption is that Trump was aware of all that when he praised him. Dems get a pass for kissing Harvey Weinstein’s ass [ed note — Harvery Weinstein? LOL ¯\_(ツ)_/¯] for decades, so long as he kept bundling donations, even though his behavior was an “open secret.” Yet when Trump praises a guy who, upon further inspection is a wacko, it’s tantamount to an endorsement of said wacko’s behavior. The hypocrisy is dripping. But I will concede that the Trump campaign does a horrible job of vetting these folks before Trump lauds them. perhaps both sides could improve in that regard. Happy Friday Billy

Billy: Ok Maga.

Billy (from a couple days later): Ok MAGA, what’s the difference between Mark Robinson and your orange leader? Why is he a freak and Trump the dictator you’re gonna vote for. You just hate libs that much?

MAGA Fluid: Billy, you love to argue with me but I don’t think I’m the person you think I am. Trump is not “my leader” he’s just a guy whose policies I prefer. I know there are lots of people who worship the guy, i’m not one of them and I don’t waste my time defending his rhetoric.

Billy: That says a lot about your character. His policy is to be the MAGA dictator. And sick mobs on people. Don’t try to play respectable. Just own what you give power to. I’m not arguing with you at all. Just clarifying. You’re either MAGA or not MAGA. There is no MAGA Fluid, as I said. So be proud and loud, MAGA.

MAGA Fluid: Just like he was a dictator the last time? why is it that in every election both sides argue that the other is going to destroy the world? Just a tad hyperbolic, don’t you think. [Ed note— this is the last thing he would say]

Billy: January 6th was certainly a day of hyperbole. I said that MAGA dictatorship is his only policy. We’ll see if he can pull it off. Maybe he’s too old and frail. But the way people like you roll over for him and pretend you’re not part of the effort makes it easier for him. So I’m not holding him accountable; I’m holding you accountable. Because you are what you do. I don’t argue anything. I just quote the guy you’re going to vote for who you don’t like. Supposedly.

Billy: Can you name a Trump policy? A single Trump policy — not a chant line or a vibe. An actual policy? I mean the only sorta policies I’m aware of are using military and local sheriffs to round up immigrants (legal immigrants like in Springfield too) and put them in concentration camps. You support that, I guess? And big tariffs, which he says he will impose without Congress. Both of those slot into MAGA dictatorship but I guess you could call them policies. You “prefer” those two policies?

Billy (a day later): Can’t name a single actual policy you prefer? Put forth by this guy you don’t like? I think the word you’re looking for is “vibes” — and you like them, notwithstanding your protests to the contrary. Just be you.

Billy (about week later): Not a single policy you prefer? I named two. Rounding up immigrants (including legal immigrants like in Springfield) with the military and putting them in concentration camps and big haphazard tariffs. Can you clarify that these are some policies you prefer? Can you name another? I’m beginning to think you might not be telling me the truth. About the policy thing

Billy (a little bit later): Seems to want “the purge” as a policy now. I prolly don’t prefer that. Yes I know, godless lib etc. LOL.

Civic war, not politics

I publish this conversation because this period of American history (of which this election is only a tiny subset) has nothing at all to do with politics. It’s entirely about civics and the MAGA and MAGA Fluid addiction to a paralyzing (mostly) abstract civil war they launched against their neighbors and communities in 2015. (One could argue it dates to 2008 and the election of Barack Obama, who offered peace, but received war.)

That one-sided, aggressive civil war exists entirely because of the fellow in my conversation — because of the MAGA Fluid civic archetype he represents (which is mostly, but not entirely, men).

There are simply not enough “people who worship the guy” to sustain this incredibly stupid and wasteful civil war without the MAGA Fluids who lie to themselves and the libs that they just “prefer” a set of policies. Whatever their real reason for sustaining the war, it ain’t that. And trust me, this dude had a lot of fun with MAGA in 2016 and 2020. It’s less fun now.

As you can see from this conversation, there is nothing we libs can do to convince someone in the throes of this pathology to publicly liberate themselves (and us) from it. Like the weak, irresponsible men who are MAGA’s base, most MAGA Fluid can’t take any moral L openly. They will never admit they’re wrong. It would kill them, emotionally.

But we can hold them publicly to account for it. We can render them silent. We can liberate ourselves from any responsibility for the stupid, pointless war they can’t give up. We can tell them, accurately: it’s your stupid civil war, not ours. And you can’t even say why you want it. We can change the personal power dynamic between us. They crumble and hide, as you can see, when faced with calm, mocking rejection of their bullshit.

That affects their energy. It works on their conscience, privately. It weakens them as forces for civic ill. If Trump and Vance win, it weakens them in the wars to come. The MAGA Fluids want our destruction and our approval — at the same time. Don’t give them either.

Give them, OK, MAGA.

Shorter MAGA Fluid: please end my war for me

I also wrote this in my original MAGA Fluid piece:

I promise everyone this: the MAGA Fluid are tired of the stupid, grinding Groundhog Day experience of the MAGA civil war they launched against America a decade ago. They’re just as tired as the vermin and the dirty libs and the non-MAGAs — more tired, I suspect, because they’re responsible for it.

Indeed, I think most MAGA Fluids are both planning to choose the MAGA dictatorship and hoping the non-MAGAs bail them out by defeating it.

It’s the same dynamic as the forced birthers who are seemingly silently rooting for the Florida abortion amendment to pass and let them off the moral hook for driving up abortions and harm for women with their cowardly, systemically shambolic cruelty. See Jennifer Canady.

I find that the second, counterintuitive paragraph above is hard for even libs to wrap their heads around when I try to explain it to them.

But does my MAGA Fluid guy sound like somebody who actually wants to win the election or his civil war against his neighbors?

Or does he sound like a guy who wants to be relieved of all personal moral responsibility for what he’s already done? I quote; you decide.

I think my MAGA Fluid wants peace; but he wants me to provide it. I can’t. I can only fight or submit until the MAGA Fluids break their war — because it’s not my war.

A standing offer for any MAGA Fluid

I also said this in my original MAGA Fluid article:

If any [leader] wants to publicly join me in choosing a clear anti-MAGA civic identity, I will publicly platform them with great joy.

That offer goes for any MAGA Fluid wants to publicly renounce the MAGA civil war. Don’t tell me in private. Tell your friends and family and congregations in public. Join me in the open — not on the downlow where you have no influence and face no risk from MAGA Freaks.

That offer stands — and will stand in perpetuity. (This election isn’t the end of the war — unless it’s the end of the war.) Anyone who does this with me will have peace instantly.

I would argue, to her great credit, that Hannah Peterson, formerly of the CCDF CDF is the only one-time MAGA or MAGA Fluid I know who has shown the moral courage to do this in public. She is an example worth following. I respect her; and I welcome peace with her. She’s a model for what’s possible with a little moral strength. She’s much stronger than my MAGA Fluid interlocutor — as women tend to be.

Accordingly, I said this to him just before our longer chat.

If you ever want to publicly renouce MAGA, I'll help you. You won't, of course, because you are MAGA. But I'm here for you if summon the courage to not be.

That goes for any MAGA Fluid. Until then, your name is MAGA. Own it.

And trust me: you are exactly the person I think you are.