Shun All The MAGA Cult Members

Best advice for the new year - shun the MAGAs.  Tom Nichols writing in The Atlantic argues that beyond Trump's base of traditional Republicans, who voted for lowering the own taxes or because the trice married, pussy grabber said he was anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ, there is a contingent of Trumpists with whom no reasonable or logic based conversation is possible.  His advice is not waste our precious time trying to engage them.

...I am talking about the people who are giving Trump their full-throated support to the very end, even as he mulls a military coup; the people who buy weird paintings of Trump crossing the Delaware, or who believe that Trump is an agent of Jesus Christ, or who think that Trump is fighting a blood-drinking ring of pedophiles. These supporters have gone far beyond political loyalty and have succumbed to a kind of mass delusion. It is not possible to engage them. Indeed, to argue with them is to legitimize their beliefs, which itself is unhealthy for our democracy.

I don’t want to treat our fellow citizens with open contempt, or to confront and berate them. Rather, I am arguing for silence. The Trump loyalists who still cling to conspiracy theories and who remain part of a cult of personality should be deprived of the attention they seek, shunned for their antidemocratic lunacy, and then outvoted at the ballot box.

If we’ve learned one thing about “Trumpism,” it is that there is no such thing as “Trumpism.” No content anchors it; no program or policy comes from it. No motivating ideology stands behind it, unless we think of general grievance and a hatred of cultural and intellectual elites as an “idea.” And when views are incoherent and beliefs are rooted in fantasies, compromise is impossible. Further engagement is not only unwarranted, but it can also become counterproductive.

It is likely that someday the scales will fall from the eyes of some of the MAGAs.  Others will be deprogrammed as their loved one become concerned for their mental health.  And, their is still time for some of them to be Covid-19ed out as they continue to believe that the whole pandemic is a hoax.  But, for now just walk away and refuse to engage.