MAGA’s “COVID” Moment?

It’s said “COVID” was an IQ test and that’s true. It was also an ideological test, in that people picked sides. Many were on the wrong side. A similar sort of test is under way right now and this time, it is people on the other side who are being tested. That is to say, people who – loosely speaking – voted for Trump because they thought he was at least the lesser of two evils.

He is proving to be much worse – and not merely because he has betrayed numerous important promises people thought he’d made, most especially that he would keep America out of these stupid, evil wars in the Middle East. The most evil thing about Trump is that he is personally wrecking the standing of anything that is tainted by association with him. Specifically, the MAGA movement. It is becoming something worse than a laughingstock. It is becoming a rallying cry for the same people who brought us “COVID” – and who you’d better believe will bring it (and worse) back, with a vengeance, when they re-acquire power.

If this demolition operation is not – somehow – arrested, by the time we get to fall (and the midterms) anything associated with “MAGA” will be political strychnine. It will not matter – to the hystericized mob – that Trump is not MAGA. What will be consequential is that they regard MAGA as Trump and Trump as MAGA – and anything and anyone who expresses the least MAGA-ish position on anything will be regarded as being – effectively – Trump.

The historical antecedent is Herbert Hoover – who wasn’t a terrible person but a very unlucky one. When the stock market crashed in 1929, it wasn’t just Hoover that got blamed. It was the Republican Party. It became almost obscene for a person to admit to being a Republican. Getting elected as one was even more so, even if the “Republican” tried mightily to convince the voters he was actually a Democrat (viz, Wendell Wilkie).

The interesting parallel is that before the Stock Market crash, Hoover was very popular. He was elected, in 1928, in a resounding victory. William Randolph Hearst – the great publisher – said of him: “The present situation demands conservatism, and Hoover’s conservatism is of the constructive and not the reactionary type.” People had tired of Prohibition – the 1920s analog of “COVID” – and pined for good (rather than bad) times. Hoover’s election, it was said, would “drive so forcefully at the tasks now before the nation that the end of his eight years as president will find us looking back on an era of prodigious achievement.”

Then the Stock Market crashed – and with it, the good times for most Americans. “Hoover” became a kind of cuss word. Just as “Trump” is becoming one, too. It will not be just him who gets the blame for $5 (maybe $7) gas by summer. It will be everyone who is perceived to be a supporter of Trump.

At a certain point – we are already there – this is fair. To continue supporting Trump is to continue to support Trump’s stupid, evil war – as well as his suppression of the Epstein Business via this stupid, evil war. Joe Kent has done a service to MAGA by divesting himself of association with Trump, leading (hopefully) the way for others to do the same. Marjorie Taylor Greene deserves credit for her parting of the ways as well.

They have both passed the IQ test.

We shall soon see how many flunk it.

The crucible moment has arrived, just as it did back in the summer of 2020. By that time, intelligent (rather than ideological) people understood that “COVID” was an evil, stupid operation and they bucked being part of it. They ignored the lockdowns and they showed their faces; later on, they refused to roll up their sleeves – even if it cost them a job. Their health – and their self-respect – was worth more to them than that. In the end, they had the additional satisfaction of not only having been proved right – they passed the IQ test – but also the great feeling that arose from not having been tainted by association with the evil and stupid Sickness Cult.

MAGA is right there, right now. If it wishes to preserve its credibility – and its viability – it must divest itself of Trump because Trump has divested himself of MAGA. He has no rightful claim to lead a movement he has betrayed. Put another way, why should the betrayed feel obliged to not “betray” (as he regards disloyalty) Trump?

Is it a movement – or is it cult?

If the latter, it’s time for people with sense to leave the cult – because no good ever comes of drinking the Kool Aid.

. . .

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