> You have to remember that the MAGA movement is a cult of personality with a bunch of weirdos ginning up stupid and naive people.
I think it's more pernicious than that. The whole MAGA movement has a rather obvious accelerationist agenda, which leads to self-destructive policies like dismantling basic social safety nets and eliminating basic state institutions. Their policies don't make sense to anyone outside of their cult because we presume the goal is to build upon the state institutions and improve upon what's already there, whereas the MAGA crowd applauds destroying everything down to fundamental rights such as the right to a fair trial. They want to see te world burn hoping they'll be able to rebuild it to their liking. The only members of the MAGA that so far voiced regrets are those who faced the fact that they themselves were being left behind.
Yea, that's fatal mistake that the (D) side keeps making: They assume that both sides have good intentions and are trying to make the world better, and that we simply disagree about what "better" means, and about methods, priorities and principles.
MAGA reminds me of That One Guy we all knew in High School who just wanted to cause trouble, start fights, insult people, light fires in the bathroom, destroy things, and basically grief anyone who encountered him. There's no good intentions here--no aim to make things better for everyone. It was just ABCD with that guy: anger, belligerence, cruelty, and defiance. Fast forward to today, and we've got 70M+ of these guys voting.
Thats it. The attack is the strategy. Burn some stuff down and move on.