About MAGA Month

DESCRIPTION:

MAGA Month originated with a company marketing MAGA paraphernalia and is promoted by far-right acolytes in Congress and the media. MAGA disciples are encouraged to purchase and wear these products while flying American flags throughout the month.

WHAT IS MAGA?

Being conservative or a Republican does not make a person MAGA; however, nearly all MAGA people self-identify as conservative and Republican.

MAGA, or "Make America Great Again," is the acronym mantra of the far-right authoritarian movement in the United States loyal to the 45th President, who was twice impeached and defeated in the 2020 presidential election. In November 2022, their leader announced he was again running for President, despite being impeached twice and indicted on an ever-growing list of criminal charges in the United States.

MAGA purists promote a version of the United States based on extreme white Christian nationalism, misogyny, xenophobia, and conspiracy theories. Their vision seeks to eliminate or curtail environmental protections and civil rights while reorganizing support for the arts and education. The movement is hostile to the media, scientific, and historical facts, and Puritanical in its strict definitions of who and what is American, an attitude best displayed in its zealotry in banning information and selective historical revisionism.

MAGA devotees believe they are victims and support democracy, yet their actions work against it. They are staunchly pro-gun, pro-forced birthing, and vocal in their disgust of government-funded social programs supporting families, individuals, and marginalized communities. Ironically, the states with the highest concentration of MAGA supporters are the states that benefit the most from government-funded social programs, illustrating an overt cognitive dissonance within the movement.

FROM MOVEMENT TO CULT

Supporters of MAGA, a movement created during the 2016 American presidential election, embrace all ten symptoms of a cult.

1) Their leader is their ultimate authority: lies are truth, and the truth is lies.
2) Skepticism is squashed.
3) Delegitimization, public ridicule, and shaming are used on all persons who speak against the group.
4) Paranoia, conspiracies, and a belief in victimization are prevalent.
5) MAGA followers reject anything that doesn't fit their narrative, shaming or threatening violence to hold the line.
6) They believe their beloved leader, the 45th president, is above the law.
7) Thought and opinion reinforcement occurs through a media ecosystem supporting their views; communication includes a unique language and symbols like "Let's go, Brandon" and "RINO." Anything not approved by the cult is labeled fake news, conspiracy, or lying.
8) There is little or no financial transparency. Money is sent to support specific actions, like a legal fund, and diverted to other uses.
9) MAGA devotees believe they're the only true Americans, pure patriots, and above all others.
10) Rallies, rituals, and rites are part of the social construct necessary to support group-think and inclusion. You're either in or out, loyal or not.

PHILOSOPHY AUGMENTATION

Disciples of MAGA treat the US Constitution the same way they treat parables in The Bible, using the lens of literalism. Rather than take the words in the context of the times and according to their historical writing styles, MAGA's interpretation is absolutist and politically informed by groups created in response to the rise of the mid-late twentieth-century civil rights movement. These groups include the John Birch Society (1958), the Cato Institute (1977), the Heritage Foundation (1973), and the Federalist Society (1982).

Unlike its name, the Federalist Society has very little in common with the Federalist Papers it purports to represent. The others advocated for "freedom" and "liberty," nubilous descriptions of Orwellian euphemisms. Propagandists love the ambiguity of words like freedom and liberty because they're easy to rally behind, and each person has their definition.

DISTORTION OF FAITH

The MAGA version of Christianity relies on an absence of tolerance, an idea in direct contrast to the teachings of Jesus Christ. MAGA culture nurtures a belief of an impending armageddon, in which only they are "saved" via an idea invented in 1832 called "the rapture." This belief of impending doom plays a significant role in a MAGA disciple's positions on various issues, including the environment, vaccines, foreign affairs, immigration, education, etiquette, and societal support. It comes from an offshoot of Christianity that began in the 19th century called dispensationalism, which became the primary belief system of evangelicals upon publishing the Scofield Reference Bible in 1908.

For dispensationalists and MAGA enthusiasts, the faster the world ends, the sooner they will be saved. Why work to make the world better? These are the End Times, they believe.

A WELL-WORN PATH

The rise of MAGA and its cult following falls in line with authoritarian movements of the early-mid 20th century.
1) Xenophobic attitudes create a threat via the "other" to rally support behind a common cause.
2) Extreme nationalism.
3) Promotion of violence.
4) Distrust of media, academia, and the sciences.
5) Loyalty to a person over the state.
6) Isolation and attacking minority groups.
7) Black-and-white thinking.
These delegitimizing tactics leveled at a democratic government are well-documented steps to authoritarianism. Whether MAGA devotees realize it (most do not), they are a cult, and the path they seek to pave destroys democracy. MAGA Month exists to market to this cult and assists in its objectives.

For more information on cults, see:

https://medium.com/@zelphontheshelf/10-signs-youre-probably-in-a-cult-1921eb5a3857

https://freedomofmind.com