Hi Jim,

Actually, I would love to have a grown up discussion with you about this MAGA, hive-mind entity. Since you have internet access, polished writing skills and probably haven’t spent the past 5 years on a deserted island with nothing but a basketball for company, I suspect you’re not, in fact ignorant about MAGA.

I wrote the inarticulate nonsense late the other night, when I was still in fight-or-flight mode (actually, mostly just fight mode), violating my own rule of never responding to social media posts right before turning in for the night.

Briefly, my beef with my fellow MAGA-identifying Americans is that every online interaction I’ve either personally had with one or lurk-scrolled through usually begins with a random sucker punch, sand-kick-in-the-face, straight-up bully comment and ends with the bullying troll’s shrill cry, “cancel culture!” In between, there’s a flurry of links to youtube videos and conspiracy theory or right wing media websites sent as proof that the comments are valid and justified. And we’re just a bunch of brainwashed sheeple because we’re not taking that enlightened information seriously as the gospel truth.

Here’s one example of the baloney in the middle of the bullshit sandwich:

MAGA: “Don’t believe everything you hear from the Left! The Left is lying!”

Person A: “What is the Left? Is it a publication? Television news network? Is it a program on NPR? Can you point me to a specific story or broadcast that is spreading lies and disinformation?”

MAGA sends link to right wing blog that refers to the New York Times as a toilet paper factory and another that takes you to a social media post showing a screenshot of a woman claiming that President Joe Biden issued an executive action rolling back Trump’s executive order that prevented the price of insulin from going up.

Person B sends links to dozens of stories dating back at least 3 years about the soaring price of insulin. Incidentally, the price of insulin has been steadfastly rising since the mid-1990’s.

Person C sends link to ABC.COM with a breakdown of every executive action issued by Biden since the inauguration that mostly focus on the pandemic, immigration, climate change, and expanding the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. There is no proven correlation between the high cost of insulin and any action issued by President Joe Biden.

Have you ever seen the The Jerk? Directed by Carl Reiner, the 1979 comedy stars Steve Martin as Navin Johnson, a hapless white boy raised by a family of Black sharecroppers. In one scene, Navin, having landed a job as a gas station attendant is pumping gas when suddenly, the cans of motor oil in the display case begin sprouting holes. A clearly visible sniper, played by the character actor M. Emmett Walsh is shooting at him from the hill across the road. Walsh continues firing shots and because this is a 1979 comedy, the shots keep missing while Martin comically dodges leaking cans of oil.

“There’s something wrong with these cans!” he yells. “These cans are defective!”

And that’s the gag — Martin is so laser-focused on the cans, he misses the obvious root cause, insisting the cans are defective. That’s the type of infuriating false deductive logic we’ve had to endure.

Don’t even get me started on the perpetual state of cognitive dissonance.