MAGA is the Enemy, Not Just Trump

He's always going to wriggle out of it, but making him wriggle is the point

Author

mister mix
July 19, 2025

Had a house full of guests overnight so I didn’t get my scheduled post written. I woke up this morning to Steve M thinking that the Epstein moment is over, as MAGA unites behind a “we hate the media” narrative:

This is all MAGA wants. Trump's voters think they care about child abise, but what they really care about is putting all their political enemies in jail. If they now believe, naively, that this is a more likely route to that end, they're perfectly willing to forget about the Epstein story. Besides, how can the Epstein story give them the satisfaction they want when liberals are expressing disgust at what he and his friends did? MAGA can't side with us -- ever!

He might be right: MAGA true fans are consciously or unconsciously addicted to the ups and downs of the whole MAGA universe, like abused children. Sometimes Daddy disappoints them, but he’ll always be Daddy to them.

But the true fans aren’t who we’re trying to dissuade from loving Trump. That’s a fool’s errand. MAGA is going to MAGA. The political goal is to discredit MAGA as a movement, not to just get Trump. I like the way Charlie Angus, former Canadian Member of Parliament, did it today in his substack, where he calls out MAGA, not Trump, for the measles outbreak in Alberta (Canada’s Texas):

Strong public health vaccination programs wiped out measles in Canada in the 1990s. That was a huge victory for medical science and Canadian society. MAGA and the wellness extremists have invited measles back into our children's lives because of their self-centred demand to place "personal choice" over science.

The right has exploited and whipped up fear about vaccinations to a staggering level. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre introduced legislation in the House of Commons to prohibit the government from imposing vaccine mandates for work and travel.

Poilievre’s caucus has regularly railed about vaccine conspiracies.

But now with the measles disaster unfolding in Alberta, MAGA Conservatives are attempting to cover their tracks. They have sent out a champion gas lighter, Calgary MP Michelle Garner Rempel, to blame Justin Trudeau for the crisis.

A similar graphic could have been made showing Texas versus the US. The tactic is chip, chip, chip. The goal is discrediting MAGA, making MAGA Republicans run away from the brand the way that some Democrats run away from “liberal”. Focusing on “getting Trump” and then being disappointed when he wriggles out of it is ignoring the fact that making him wriggle is the point.

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