#65 - This Is Going To Be Controversial:  MAGAs And Everybody Else

By KC Johnson

  MAGA supporters are in love with the image of a strong leader.                  Image by Mark Peterson on Redux

MAGA Is Not New

In our current political climate there is perhaps nothing more controversial than the supporters of Trump and the non-supporters.  As with any cult follower there is a self-sworn allegiance to one person regardless of facts or any behavior that could dissuade their committed support.  Within these ranks of supporters are the soft followers and the dedicated diehard followers.  Soft followers give fringe support and can be re-educated to change their minds in the face of hearing truths about their ‘leader’ and witnessing their leader’s behaviors that conflict with their own beliefs and values. 

But there are also the diehard followers who are will to commit illegal and violent acts for their candidate.  These followers use tactics that may not be legal or ethical, but they consider themselves in a war with the non-believer world.  They will use any means to manipulate others for their candidates benefit, and yet, are easily manipulated into believing any statement their leader makes.  Both categories of followers come from similar backgrounds and that background is what I am exploring in this article.

I have struggled to understand what emotional benefit so many followers are gaining from being a part of this nonsensical adherence to the MAGA, cult-like movement.  Even back in the 1980s President Reagan used the term Make America Great Again implying there was a time when our country was a better place.  Once Trump adopted the term and it became his identifier, the party began evolving away from the usual conservative politics and began the conversion to cultish behaviors. 

This was not a whimsical conversion to the next ‘great’ idea.  I remember watching the Tea Party evolve and capture the mind of my cousin.  There was little leeway for compatible discussions, but he was not as rabid and incoherent about his beliefs as so many Fox News followers have become.  These followers of the Tea Party were conservative patriots expressing concerns about their deeply-held moral values and the political and fiscal direction of the country.  Even though the Tea Party was the core of the MAGA movement, something changed in the minds of Trump followers turning away from true conservatism.  So how did this movement of fifteen years ago become the basis for the very radical MAGA movement today?

The MAGA mind has been with us for centuries.  I remember back in the 1960s marveling at the KKK, the John Birch Society, and the extreme far-right leaders who were willing to use any means to control others.  The social movement they wanted to maintain was keeping America white and male controlled.  I joined VISTA in 1968 as a way to help with the Poverty Program and was sent to rural Alabama just 35 miles from where the KKK was first organized in 1865 as a response to Reconstruction that was giving more rights to black people.  A hundred years later for many people, the Civil War is still alive and well in the rural South.  These people whose allegiances are built on white male privilege and racism are not unlike how the MAGA cult looks at Trumpism.  They see their leader and their beliefs being emasculated through laws and citizen actions by the non-believers.

All of these people have been affected by the information silo they listen to, especially referring to FOX News broadcasts, but also to the right-wing corporate-owned radio stations who continually pump false and misleading information into non-discriminating listeners by controlling up to 90% of AM Talk Radio.  Trump and his corporate promoters are masters of incessantly dispensing misleading propaganda.  This effective brainwashing has few moral standards when it comes to attempting to achieve control for their own benefit.  It is a game they have been manipulating for over fifty years with relentless precision all to gain power for the wealthiest, most emotionally damaged, and most easily manipulated among us.

I remember in the mid-1970s one of our Oregon Senators was Republican Robert Packwood.  He started the down-ballot revolution as the chairman of the National Republican Senate Committee by using an entrepreneurial approach to funding down-ballot campaigns.  I believed this became the downfall of the complacent Democratic Party opening the door to conservative state-level control of many state officials.   This template became the opening that fringier candidates needed to control national elections.  The MAGA movement focused on these state elections to use State Electors as a way to overrule popular vote majorities in federal elections and play political hardball with the Democrats by using sensational and untrue tactics that the Democrats were unwilling to reciprocate using.

Even the Republicans did not realize the level of grievances among its electorate as the down-ballot efforts attracted a less-than-objective voter base willing to buy into the increasingly outlandish talking points.  The once staunch moral conservative supporters began sacrificing their convictions.  Even a sordid history of 15 sex abuser Republican leaders, including Packwood, were discounted by voters.  I knew one of Packwood’s office woman staffers and heard the ugly truth from her.  Does that sound familiar?  Power corrupts and these sexcapades added to the voter cynicism that the major parties were corrupt and moral standards were less important than winning at any cost. 

The conservative power-brokers deftly bought up media outlets, funded local election officials and presidential-hopefuls, and lobbied the courts to remove honest debate and hide their illegal political behaviors.  By promoting through misinformation, these power-brokers convinced voters that the benefits of the wealthy and big business needed would trickle down benefiting the average voter.  The deft slight-of-hand campaign worked up until the present.   These disillusioned voters were fertile recruiting grounds for building a movement.

As a result of these misinformation strategies there are now multi-generational followers who have tuned out any views other than the MAGA propaganda line.  Common sense arguments are swept aside.  Even the conservative Republicans of the recent past are no longer welcome in the MAGA insanity silo-sphere.  For those who have grown up needing a dominant, manipulative, father-figure, strong man, fascist leadership, the propaganda has been particularly effective.  At some point these true-believers have become so entrenched in the ‘rightness’ of their beliefs, they are prepared to go to war against anyone standing in their way.  This culling process that demands greater allegiance to the cause winnows out the less committed believers resulting in an army of surrogates willing to literally go to war.  The civil war mindset is still alive and growing.

How Does The MAGA Mindset Develop?

This article will try to explain in part how this dedication to fascism over democracy is possible.  As do all of these blog writings try to present, MAGA followers very likely have a common experience during early childhood that shapes their view of their world and reveals the emotional needs they missed receiving from their parents.  The propaganda machine perpetuated by parents capitalizes on the emotional needs of vulnerable young minds molding them into becoming dedicated followers and committed actors.  These young minds willingly support at all costs the dark manipulators who have little concern for these followers except as a means to their political and power-controlling ends.

Perhaps, if we can understand how these people became unquestioning followers, we can diffuse the influence the dark manipulators have had over such a significant portion of our population.  It’s not rocket science to understand, but it does take personal courage to explore since the solutions touch on our most closely held vulnerabilities.  Every one of us likely came out of childhood harboring some degree of deeply held self-doubts, inadequacies, and conflicted sense of self that we would prefer to leave hidden from exposure.  But it is within our deepest fears where we are most vulnerable to being manipulated.

Understanding the effects specific nurturing deficiencies have on the types of later behaviors is like rocket science in that very subtle experiences can have lasting and profound effects on a person’s sense of self and resulting thoughts and behaviors.  Which specific experiences are responsible for wanting a strong leader, or what attitudes presented by parents turns a person into a manipulator?  These are where core MAGA behaviors began developing.  None of us develops our unique mind during childhood without input from parental participation.  A MAGA young adult has been indoctrinated by many other people for many years.

But preventing the types of follower and fascist-leaning behaviors from developing requires the parents use fulsome nurturing techniques with their child.  It is in the absence of using these beneficial techniques that the deep dysfunctional thoughts and behaviors develop in a child and young adult.  The challenge to identify how specific parental actions trigger the unwanted childhood and adulthood behavioral needs and resultant personality actions is difficult to decipher.

At present, there seems to be little understanding of which parental actions in childhood cause specific types of adulthood behaviors.  This article will take a look at this perplexing question with respect to the MAGA mind as I understand it.  To do this it is necessary to consider what childhood experiences cause a person to become depressed, aggressive, manipulative, compliant, introspective, fearful, and feeling unsafe.  There are other personality characteristics worthy of consideration, but these mentioned seem to have a link to the range of MAGA behaviors often displayed.

Making Soft And Diehard Followers

There are ‘soft followers’ who blindly adhere to the MAGA pronouncements generated by Trump and the party leaders.  Likely, they came out of childhood not feeling safe, were compliant, did not develop a strong sense of self, and gravitated toward strong leaders who fulfilled their deepest need for a protector.   These followers have been conditioned to let others make decisions for them with respect to politics, world views, and within their own community.  And these leaders need to be white, male, and defiant.

Not feeling safe may have come from inconsistent and unreliable emotional support by parents who provided inadequate nurturing and did not give soothing touch, hugs, nor acceptance for the child’s efforts for self-expression or independent thinking.  My experience of living in rural Alabama for eight years in the late 1960s-mid 1970s gave me a glimpse of this insistence on making a man out of the boys and compliant woman out of the girls.  The belief was that nurturing touch would make the boys emotionally weak, violating a constantly enforced ethos that men couldn’t show anything but macho behaviors.  And girls were continually exposed to sexual innuendos and second-class status being expected to tolerate, and even seek out, the advances of aggressive males.

The compliant behavior may have come from parents who prevented their child from exercising initiative, independence, and speaking one’s mind.  It was ‘respect your elders’ and ‘do what you are told’.  As a young man from Oregon not as experienced with this dominating conservative culture it was very difficult watching how this ethos was applied, often with swift punishment and a sharp tongue lashing.  As a result the child learned to bury their independent mind and accept the rules and inconsistent behaviors by parents and authority as a required ‘normal.’  Authority figures became the ‘protectors’ of that norm while the child’s sense of self was being strongly inhibited from developing independent thought.

Trust in a strong leader may come from a strong parent providing protection from difficult situations such as one parent being aggressive or inflexible and the other being the buffer.  It is interesting that most MAGA followers come from states that have families struggling financially, that don’t prioritize education, and that tend to be more paternally dominant in the family hierarchy.  Pew Research has an interesting breakdown of the authoritarian parent showing this aggressive control.  It is about ‘tough love’ and obedience to the controlling parent.  Perhaps a key reason these followers became soft supporters is the protector parent allows the child to be more in touch with thoughts and ideas that is contrary to a dominant parent.

The MAGA diehard followers have some of the same characteristic childhood experiences, but there may be a stronger desire for manipulating others through force.  The fascist mind wants to support an extreme control type of leader that avoids any democratic processes.  It is quite likely that most MAGA households are male dominated.  The greater the authoritarian parent’s demands are within the family, the more likely  all family members will be exposed to inconsistent and even the bizarre beliefs of the dominant parent.  The emotional insecurity felt by the parents becomes the insecurity the child learns.  There may be a desire for gun-related control against others they disagree with and feel threatened by.  Inner strengths happen when proper nurturing supports a child’s sense of self.  The authoritarian is afraid of strong personalities they cannot control or people that don’t agree with them, so using guns is an easy way to assert control over non-believers. 

If the MAGA follower was raised in an aggressive, emotionally manipulative environment, then that may be the behavior that is followed in adulthood.  For followers who whole-heartedly accept wild, unsubstantiated conspiracies and inconsistent ideas, there must have been little parental support for problem-solving and rational thinking.  Likely, the household engaged in wild ideas and nonsensical discussions often, and the young child mind simply adopted the thinking processes they were hearing from the parents.

Certainly, these assessments of how a MAGA follower becomes committed to the causes are mainly conjecture since there has been little research into the consequences of the various child raising techniques by parents on the formation of various personality characteristics.  For the most part, these parents just use the ‘wing it’ approach giving little consideration for the affect their personal behaviors have on their child.  Without having this self-awareness of the consequences their own emotional challenges will have on their child, there is little chance their child will develop the self-awareness tools for healthy emotional and intellectually inquisitive growth.

Certainly times have changed from fifty years ago, but it takes many generations to soften old ethos standards.  The soft followers of MAGA provide the fertile feeding ground of the leadership who promote themselves as their authority.  These followers need to feel supported, and need the followers to validate the leader so he will feel accepted.  As a result, just about anything these leaders espouse becomes the talking points within these poorly nurtured communities. 

The diehard followers just have more deeply held fears due to great deficient nurturing than the soft followers may have had resulting in deeper fears and a more committed mind-set to the strong man persona of the controlling autocrat or dictator.  The lack of proper nurturing for diehards is more pronounced than for the soft follower, but both followers have experienced significant inadequate nurturing, including appropriate touch, hugging, and support by the parents.  The authoritarian parent likely never received this kind of healthy parental support so they are just playing it forward with their own child because that is what they have been trained to believe.  It is a cycle that will keep repeating itself until fulsome nurturing is used with all children.

And we have poorly nurtured communities throughout our country, and the world.  The MAGA mindset exists in every country, and is vulnerable to authoritarian leaders who understand how to control people that haven’t developed a strong sense of self.  To disrupt this authoritarian cycle there has to be well accepted information freely available to all parents about how they can stop passing on fear-inducing child-raising practices and grow healthy, loving, happy, and fearless children. - kc