“But he’s Always Nice to ME” — The Problem with MAGA and America
When complacency, selfishness, and apathy come together, you have the death of empathy. A lack of empathy is how mass atrocities are allowed to happen.
The past few weeks have been a nightmare for many people in the U.S., not to mention those of us who live in the countries immediately bordering it. Naturally, at times like this, I worry about my family, friends, and colleagues who live in the U.S. and are forced to live through another Trump administration and the dumpster fire that follows him. They are horrified by what’s happening right now and asking how it could have possibly happened again.
Why indeed. It puts me in mind of something that was said about Germans during the rise of Nazism in Germany and World War II. In the miniseries Nuremberg, Dr. Gustav Gilbert (played by Matt Craven) speaks to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson (Alec Baldwin) about how the Holocaust could have happened in Germany, the most advanced nation in the world prior to the war. He says there were two clear factors at work, which included the authoritarian nature of German culture, and propaganda that taught Germans that Jews were the enemy.
But in the end, he said, the one thing that really explained it all was “a lack of empathy.” It was the one thing, he said, that all the Nazi leaders they had in custody shared. Naturally, I think of these words whenever examining America’s descent into far-right politics. And when speaking to the people who allowed it (or helped it) to happen, there were a handful of statements that truly rang in my ears.
“It Can’t Happen!”
When Trump won the election back in November 2016, there was a surge in references to Sinclair Lewis’ book It Can’t Happen Here. This dystopian novel, released in 1935, parodies the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany while addressing a trend Lewis and others saw in the U.S. It tells the story of a young, ambitious Senator named Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip who runs for president on a populist platform.
Despite being ineloquent, boorish, crude, and the kind of person who makes ridiculous promises, he manages to mobilize support from the American people — who are still suffering through the Great Depression — with the “common man” persona he’s crafted. Combined with appeals to nationalism and religion, Windrip manages to win the 1936 election and quickly moves to turn the country into a dictatorship.
With the help of his “Minutemen” — a paramilitary force meant to represent Hitler’s Brownshirts and Mussolini’s Blackshirts — dissidents, opposition figures, and minorities are rounded up and placed in concentration camps. While some in the story see Windrip for what he is early on, complacency and notions of “American Exceptionalism” cause many to brush such warnings off. In short, the notion that “It can’t happen here” allows for fascism to prevail.
The moral of Sinclair Lewis’ famous novel is best summarized by a famous quote that is often attributed to Lewis himself (though its precise origins have never been proven):
“When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
Throughout the 2016 and 2020 campaigns, I heard many different versions of this from Trump supporters. Every time the news cycle turned Trump’s latest statement into news, usually because he had suggested something stupid and dangerous, the replies would be, “Oh, he doesn’t mean that. And he couldn’t if he wanted to.”
Before and after the election, a person I knew from a discussion group (let’s call him J) kept arguing the point that Trump couldn’t turn America into a fascist state because of all the rules and regulations in place. At one point, this proud MAGA supporter belted out the words, “IT CAN’T HAPPEN!” In short, he believed the system was such that a would-be dictator couldn’t slide the country into despotism.
Many people expressed this sentiment, but only he had the audacity to say the words verbatim! I was dumbfounded by both the irony and weakness of his statement. Not only was this person completely dismissing a very real danger. He was tacitly admitting that the man he voted for wanted to become a dictator!
All these years later, and I just know that he and those like him haven’t learned a damn thing. Because of Trump, more than 1 million Americans died of COVID-19 (to date), more jobs were lost than at any time since the Great Depression, multiple impeachable acts were made (but went unpunished), and an act of treason was committed!
Thanks to Trump, America came very close to having a sitting president overthrow the government by declaring the election illegitimate, using military forces to seize control of voting machines, and declaring himself the “one true President” (he even did that on election night!). When that failed, he incited an insurrection that led to the deaths of 5 police officers (and multiple supporters), very nearly led to opposition figures being murdered, and a mob occupying the White House.
And here we are yet again in 2024 with MAGA crowds waving their flags, proudly declaring they would follow Trump as a dictator, cheering him on when he says he will use his administration to go after his enemies, pardoning the Jan. 6th rioters, using the military to conduct mass deportations, and purging the heads of top government agencies and replacing them with Trump loyalists.
Not only can it happen. It did happen, and MAGAts are thrilled to death about it.
“But he’s always nice to me”
This is another statement that I’ve heard far too many times and always uttered by people who are most likely to be the victims of institutionalized discrimination and the hatred and indifference Trump is legendary for. The most compelling example for me was the words of Bobby Henline, a U.S. Army veteran who was severely burned by an IED in Iraq.
When the news broke that Trump refused to visit the cemetery honoring the American Marines who died at Belleau Wood in France, going so far as to call the fallen “suckers” and “losers,” Trump critics (including veterans’ groups) began circulating a meme that showed his picture with the caption: “Trump says he’s a loser. I say he’s a hero. What do you say?”
In response, Henline posted a video protesting the use of his image for what he described as “propaganda.” In the process, he said something that echoes what others have said about Trump-like figures:
“I’m here to tell you it’s not true. You hear it on the news all the time about people lying. Fake news. I don’t know what Trump said, but I’m sure he didn’t call me a loser. I didn’t hear him call me a loser. So this has got to stop. Stop using my image.”
He made an excellent point and was absolutely within his rights to say what he said. But some of his words raised a red flag for me since they echoed what I’ve heard a few people say about Trump, white supremacists, and hardline politicians that they (for reasons that are incomprehensible to many) support. For starters, he said Trump’s tagline “fake news,” which he uses to refer to any news story that doesn’t pitch him in a flattering light. Second, there was the way he basically said, “He didn’t say that to me.”
It reminded me of people like Robert Traynham, an openly gay former staffer who worked for Senator Rick Santorum. Despite the fact that Santorum compared homosexuality to bestiality and polygamy and was a very vocal opponent of gay marriage, Traynham worked for Santorum and defended him on many occasions.
During a notorious interview with Chris Matthews in 2012, Traynham was asked about Santorum’s homophobic stances. In response, Traynham that he “never ever, heard him say anything [against gay sex],” and that he would “never work for him [if he did].” Was he admitting he was selectively deaf or a hypocrite or that Santorum was a fraud?
I can also remember a Mexican-American kid I knew from a discussion group who regularly posted hateful stuff about Muslims, women, feminism, and other groups. As you can imagine, he also liked to praise Trump. In 2016, I posted to a thread saying that many people in America who I knew personally and cared about were afraid for their lives. In response, he posted a meme of one of the Olson kids rolling their eyes with the caption: “Oh, please!”
I expressed to him that Trump was endorsed by white supremacists, campaigned on anti-Mexican rhetoric, and how his refusal to denounce them demonstrated where he stood. As a Mexican-American, I thought for sure he would see the obvious. His reply left me flabbergasted, to say the least. He claimed that there were whiter supremacists in his neighborhood and that “They’re always nice to me.”
He even later claimed that as a Latino person, he knew what he was talking about when he said he wasn’t afraid. Somehow, he didn’t see how he was acknowledging my point. How can a person who is targeted by a politician based on their ethnicity or background support such a person? How can they then pretend that they know better based on that ethnicity?
Regardless, the point was always clear to me. Why does it have to be a personal attack for some people to acknowledge that a politician is a bigot and hateful person?
“But They’re Illegals!”
I can remember the responses that came from revelations that Mexican families who were detained at the border were being separated and put in cages and that children had died due to neglect. Like any thinking, empathetic person, I was horrified! And when it came to the excuses Trump supporters were offering in response, I was infuriated!
As usual, there were the classic deflections: “Those cages were built by the Obama administration.” Yes, as temporary detainment facilities. They were filled by the Trump administration, and multiple children died, something that had not happened once in the previous eight years under Obama. “I’m glad those kids are not being exploited by the major corporations, at least,” was another. So dying in childhood is better than child labor?
I had known the person saying this for years, and while we never agreed on politics, I did kind of like him. But his embrace of the MAGA movement and his defense of Trump, in this case, was beyond intolerable. As I said to him, “Dead children! There’s no f — ing excuse for that!” But he made those feeble excuses, prompting me to call him a “f — ing coward!” Yeah, things got a bit profane on my end, but that’s how I tend to react when people treat human lives (and children, to boot!) like they don’t matter.
But of course, the line that took the cake was, “They’re ILLEGALS!” Not only was this bullshit, many of the people were asylum seekers who were crammed into cages alongside people trying to cross the border to find a better life. Calling them “illegals” in no way justified treating them like animals and letting their children die on cold cement floors! The level of stupidity and inhumanity was so gross I refused to engage ever again.
But that is how many Americans, especially the MAGA crowd, feel about Mexicans and other Latino people who attempt to cross the border — legally or otherwise. They think they’re “drug dealers, criminals, rapists,” but of course, “and some, I assume, are nice people.” They thought this long before Trump showed up, but they loved him because he was normalizing their brutal stupidity and bigotry.
“I Don’t Care”
This line is so common that it’s become a punchline. Time and again, Trump loyalists find themselves confronted by common-sense arguments regarding their views. They are asked why they hate Democrats, liberals, and the “establishment,” usually responding with talk of abuses of power, corruption, lying, sexual assault, nepotism, cronyism, using political power to go after opponents and line their pockets, and promising two-tiered justice.
A few questions later, they realize that they are describing everything Trump is doing and that they support it. Eventually, they come to the conclusion that Trump and the MAGA movement are all about projection. Their response is usually to say, “I don’t care.” Some will even admit that they are okay with Trump committing the crimes he (and they) accuse others of, so long as he is the one committing them.
In the end, they admit that they don’t care about transparency, facts, ethics, hypocrisy, corruption, abuse, tolerance, free speech, or civilized discourse. For them, it’s all about clinging to an extremely narrow worldview that appeals to their bigotry. When that’s challenged, they plug their ears and say, “Fake news!”
They also don’t care about sexual assault, misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, children dying in cages, people being shot at the border, cops killing Black and Brown people, people dying due to lack of proper medical care, and poor people starving to death. As long as it’s not them, they are okay with violence and hate.
They also don’t care about freedom of speech unless it’s their own, which is usually hateful, packed to the gills with lies, and promotes violence. They don’t care about politicians being dictators unless Trump is the dictator. They don’t care about violence against candidates as long as only Democrats and their families are attacked. They don’t care about the justice system being used to persecute political opponents so long as Trump is the one doing it.
They don’t care about bodily autonomy so long as it only affects women and puts pregnant mothers’ lives in danger — but they’ll fight tooth and nail for it when it comes to their right to not get vaccinated and put everyone around them in danger. They don’t care about gun control until Black people and other minorities are armed. They don’t care about people being shot and killed so long as it's not them. They don’t care about police being killed so long as they are the ones’ doing it.
And remember those cheap t-shirts with the famous MAGA slogan, “Trump 2016. F*ck your feelings!” Yet somehow, people insulting them and calling them racists and bigots is bad and shouldn’t be allowed. The same holds true for Trump. He can say anything he wants, no matter how vile, hateful, hurtful, disrespectful, and harmful it is. But people insulting him amounts to him being the “most persecuted person in history!”
Like most people, seeing others stay silent in the face of violence, persecution, and hatred — or worse, condone it! — reminds me of the immortal words of the famed German pastor Martin Niemöller when describing the Nazis rise to power and the Holocaust that resulted:
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.”
In much the same way, the waves of hate and accepted bigotry that Trump has unleashed since he first announced his candidacy have followed a similar pattern. And his supporters have stood by and watched it happen, saying nothing, or actively voicing their support for it. Some even went so far as to commit violence in the name of it. This summer, the world will be celebrating the Eightieth Anniversary of the end of World War II and it appals me to think how easily people have forgotten the lessons of it.
For the current age of chaos, fear, and constant crisis, I decided to write the following in honor of what Niemöller said and in the hopes that love, reason, and reality overcome the forces of hatred, fear, and vile bigotry:
First they came for the migrants and illegal immigrants.
Then they came for the Muslims.
Then they came for the protesters and counter-protesters.
Then they came for the gays and transgendered folks.
Then they came for the teachers who taught the history of racism in America.
Then they came for the secular schools who don’t teach religion in class.
Then they came for the climate scientists and environmentalists.
Then they came for Women’s rights.
Then they came for the DEI programs and advocates.
Then they came for the government employees, judges, and lawmakers.
Then they came for your Social Security, pensions, and financial aid.
Then they came for the 11 million undocumented workers.
Then they came for the protesters, activists, and liberals who resisted.
Now there’s no one left but fundamentalists, fascists, and white nationalists.
The world laughed at America and Trump, until they realized there nothing to laugh about anymore.
