The Cognitive Tom Fuckery behind the Death Drive of MAGA

El Gran Jefe Estupido’s director of the EPA pulled off another first for the administration by making an address to the Heartland Institute’s annual conference of climate wishful thinking. The group is infamous for believing that the carbon produced by the human being is actually good for plants because, like any fifth grader knows, plants use carbon dioxide to make energy and release oxygen as a byproduct. How could it be bad to flood the atmosphere with carbon? Ding dang dumb libels! They don’t even know their fifth grade science!

In his remarks Zeldin essentially endorsed the group’s baffling idea that contrary to popular belief increasing greenhouse gases would benefit the climate, not harm it. James Taylor — not THAT James Taylor — the president of the organization managed to wrap their climate disinformation up in misogyny by stating that their opponents — actual scientists, mind you — prefer using poll-tested appeals to “suburban women” rather than real fifth grade science like they do.

This is against the backdrop of a new study published in Nature Communications found that the heat waves occurring between 2003 and 2023 had caused thousands of deaths. Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, the study’s lead author, remarked, “If it’s already happening now, then what does a future that is two or three degrees warmer hold?”

Once again, the Republican Party, MAGA, and a large swath of the conservative world is proving itself to be a death cult, preferring at every turn to take the most direct policy path to increasing mortality and misery. They don’t pass no go, they definitely don’t collect no two hundred dollars, but we all definitely get to punch our ticket to an early grave.

What gives? Why are so many people in America in love with death, destruction, and devastation? Well, as usual, white identity politics is the root of all stupid. The deeper those roots go, the stupider it all gets. We live in a toxic stew consisting of political polarization, a psychological preference for in-group identity above all else, lobbying by special interests “irrational” voter behavior,.

Political Polarization and Identity

There have been tons of studies supporting the idea that politics isn’t rational and that the more polarized the politics of a country gets, the more irrational it becomes. Why would this possibly be?

We have a very real human tendency to stare Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics-like at only the information that supports whatever view or opinion we hold. We’re information flounders. Worse, we make decisions emotionally relegating our reasoning abilities to rationalize our choices. Those emotions fire off like a steal trap, and when they off, they can hurt people. It is a snap yes-no, like-dislike judgment that we make as soon as we encounter something. Kinda like most of y’all are thinking, this is just a steaming pile of horse manure and can come up with half-dozen reasons for it.

For example, people who think that torture, read that waterboarding — Oh, sibling that was so W! — is acceptable correlates highly with those who think it is effective. And, the opposite is true. Those who think it is wrong, believe it is ineffective (#FactCheckTrue).

The wholesale rejection of science and expertise by our conservative siblings tends to push a variety of policies and beliefs together. Currently, anti-vaccine, anti-woke, transphobia, pro-gun, pro-forced birth and climate disbelief as well as other beliefs that are ultimately self-destructive.

But, it still doesn’t make much sense. Surely, the excess million deaths and the higher number of #COVID19 deaths in red states would convince people, right? I mean, it literally was a matter of life and death. Obviously, your polarized politics is blinding you to the evidence. Evidence to the contrary is ignored even when it means you could die because human beings prioritize group identity over everything else.

The Psychological Preference for In-Group Identity

Human beings evolved to be team players. We are far far better off in a tribal cooperative group than we are as individuals. Maintaining our group membership became one of our top survival mechanism because group ostracization and banishment meant certain death. We maintain our standing in our groups by conforming to the beliefs of the group, at least outwardly.

If everyone in your group thought that eating steamed silkworm larvae was a treat, then you probably would, too, especially if you had been raised in the group from infancy. Most of us are pretty grossed out at the prospect, but most South Koreans, especially Boomers and Gen X’ers, think they’re great.

If everyone in your group thought that using AI was a sign of an inability to think critically or independently, you probably would, too, because we tend to adopt as true the beliefs that the people around have. When you don’t encounter dissenting beliefs, you begin to think that everyone accepts whatever it is you’re believing.

If you belong to a group that values dissent and disagreement, it isn’t so bad, but if you belong to a group that values conformity and obedience, then you’re likely to edit your public statements and actions pretty heavily so that you’re always conforming. As harrowing as Hester Prynne’s life was among the Puritans, even after being branded with the scarlet A, it was still preferable to being banished to the wilderness a la Roger Williams or Anne Hutchinson. And, after witnessing her public shaming ostracization, you’re make damn sure to wear baggy clothes should you ever become pregnant out of wedlock.

Beliefs become symbols of group membership. It’s why the Orange Maroon makes everyone say that they think the 2020 election was stolen. It’s why Republicans all twist themselves into Gordian knots rather than say that Joe Biden was elected president. It’s why Republicans all express vaccine hesitancy while keeping up with their vaccines.. It’s why they are adamant supporters of the Second Amendment and are willing to sacrifice untold hundreds of school age children to their violent fantasies of grievance.

Group identity far outweighs any other belief because we evolved to fear being removed from the group. We’ll literally do anything rather than risk being expelled from the group. Add to that pressure to comply and obey, and you’ve got MAGA, willing to vote against their own best interests in order to maintain their membership in good standing.

But, a group that is willing to expose themselves to epidemics of preventable disease, gun violence, the ravages of climate change, economic mismanagement, and environmental pollution won’t last long. It still doesn’t make sense.

Lobbying by Special Interest Groups

Way back in the halcyon days of yore when all of our political fights were over school boards banning books and kitty litter boxes in classrooms — seems quaint now, doesn’t it? — we had a Republican operative expose his sausage to us make us watch as he stuffed that thing full of toxic associations. Chris Rufo whipped out his lil tweeter and spewed his thoughts all over us.

Thus the culture war on CRT and DEI was launched and won before liberals or MAGA even knew what hit them. It was their own little Pearl Harbor, and it goes along way to explaining how MAGA continues to vote against their own best interest.

When a dramatic mass shooting occurs we are immediately hit with a litany of statements from the right: it’s too soon to politicize the event, hearts and prayers, harden our schools, arm the teachers, and an armed society is a polite society and whatever other tom fuckery they’ve thought up in the meantime.

As Rufo stated, when something crazy appears in the newspaper, MAGA immediately thinks CRI. By defining CRI for MAGA, they were able to not only control the narrative, but to manipulate it. By creating a strong association between crazy liberal Marxist idea and CRI, they took advantage of illusion of explanatory depth. It is mansplanning on steroids. We believe we know more about the world than we actually do.

When MAGA sees a serious news item flash past their social media feed about furries demanding kitty litter boxes in their classrooms in stead of toilets, they think, “Oh yeah, it’s that CRI. Ding dang dumb libels!” Then, they stop thinking about it. They don’t need to examine it any further than that. They think they know how the world works.

It is the triumph of doublespeak and gaslighting. You’ve got a willing audience who wants to believe whatever you tell them. They already are feeling out of control in this fascinating modern age we find ourselves living in. It is complex and large and there are too many parts of it that we don’t understand and cannot learn about. It is overwhelming. But, the simple explanations for complex social, economic, and scientific phenomena seem to set the world right again.

“Oh the American Airlines flight hit the Black Hawk because of DEI!” It checks all the right boxes: it is easy to understand, it conforms to their worldview (Black people just aren’t as good as white people and have everything handed to them by those ding dang dumb libels), everyone in their media bubble believes it, and it solidifies their membership in their social group.

“Irrational” Voting Behavior

Put shit in, get shit out, amirite? So, people really will live with such an inaccurate understanding of the world that they will die of #COVID19 telling their nurses that it doesn’t exist. They’ll live in Cancer Alley dying young of horrible painful diseases. They’ll drink Flint Water giving themselves and their children lead poisoning. They’ll use Texas utilities and literally freeze to death in harsh climate driven winter weather. They’ll get Florida educations that won’t embarrass their children by teaching them that there were once white slaveholders in the US.

They’d rather die young and watch as millions die every year when the earth is no longer able to support eight billion people than change their beliefs? Yep.

We know that fear causes people to vote conservative, so in the run up to every election we’ve seen the fear mongering start: caravans of Ebola carrying Muslim terrorists are heading for the border to rape our fathers, steal our dogs, and behead our cats. The gays are grooming our children for pedophiles! Men are dressing as women and sneaking into women’s bathrooms to smell their shit and look at the stall doors and wash their hands next to them.

When people think that the world they live in is a dangerous place, they prefer authoritarianism. They want their leaders to promise safety and simplistic solutions to complex problems.

Economic hardship, especially prolonged hardship, motivates us to act from fear, anger, and a desire to punish someone — scapegoat anyone? When folks are acting out of such negative emotions, they are willing to abandon norms and embrace destructive politics.

But, where does the desire to inflict harm on others come from? Where does the willingness to endure real harm come from? It’s the deer in the headlights. Deer freeze when they feel threatened, but should the threat continue too long, they break and run sometimes right into the danger. When living too long under stress and hopelessness like MAGA has lived for a generation now or more now, they are ready to break and run even if it means sure death and destruction.

It’s like living in all of that hurt and misery, assaults your self-esteem and begins to convince you that you deserve what is happening to you and worse. It is like some irrational rationalization for why bad things happen to us. It becomes the norm and learned helplessness takes over until someone introduces a permission structure of grievance, violence, and retribution. Then, every horror ever visited on a human being by another becomes possible, including the horrors we reserve for ourselves.

The worst aspect of all of this is that folks like Chris Rufo and Rick Wilson and Greg Abbott and Ron De Santos are willing to knowingly and ruthlessly exploit these tendencies for their own personal corrupt gain. Trump introduced open season on their MAGA pigeons and grifting gains.

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