So...I like to do opposition research once in a while Ya know, keep tabs on the political opposition. I've been out of the GOP and that sphere of politics for a while now, and honestly, I generally don't get it. Like, for me, my conservatism stopped with the likes of Mike Pence, and that entire wing of the party is gone now. I was driven out by the tea party being too insane for me, and the GOP has only gotten even crazier since, to the point I cant relate to this modern republican party outside of knowing that christian nationalists are fricking nuts.
So I surfed patriots.win for a few days just to get a feel for them. For reference, that website is basically "the_donald" from reddit after it got banned. They made their own reddit with blackjack and hookers, and that is their hive of scum and villainry. As such, I'd like to share my findings.
1) These guys are VERY racist/sexist/homophobia/transphobic/islamophobic. Basically, they're a bunch of I'm imagining straight white males who hate everyone else. Slurs are common. Dehumanization of the other is common. They are obsessed with migrant crime, crime by minorities. They see islam as a threat to society, they think we're undergoing an epidemic of transgenderism. Like, that seems to be their big focus.
2) They think that we are experiencing some unprecedented "invasion" of illegal immigrants and a crime wave. Like, these guys are REALLY obsessed with people with brown skin committing crimes. They'll talk about anecdotes and be like "gee how did i know what race they were?" They think we're in the midst of some national emergency and think Trump is doing what needs to be done to control that stuff.
3) They aren't always on board with Trump. Despite it being a trump centric forum, some level of dissent seems tolerated. There was a thread on how they'd rate Trump's presidency so far. The responses were all over the place. Some criticized his cabinet picks like Pete Hegseth. Some thought he wasn't extreme enough and that he's selling out. Some were like "why hasn't he released the epstein files?", not seemingly understanding that that would likely implicate Trump.
4) Some of these guys are conspiratorial and populist. They think that the elites are out to get them and screw society. They think trump is on their side and fighting for them. Seems wild to me given he's basically serving the ultra wealthy, but yeah. They think that.
5) Many are authoritarian. They seem to think Trump is the guy who needs to come in and hold people accountable and right this country. They see rule of law, checks and balances, etc. as obstacles to achieving that which they want to achieve and are very heavy handed in advocating for their goals.
6) They see the democrats as corrupt. As far as they're concerned, democrats are corrupt as all hell. They want to let all the brown people into the country to vote for democrats and that's why they're opposed to deportations. While I personally don't deny that democrats cynically use minority voters to push their agenda, they definitely dont just let illegals vote, that's dumb.
7) They justify their own extreme stances by pointing out that the democrats are willing to violate civil liberties and rule of law when given a chance, pointing out Obama's alleged overreach, or Biden's pardons, or some situation that was far more muted and justified but still technically a violation of a strict rule of law. They tend to be like "well it's okay when they do it, right?" when criticized for their own violations.
8) They dont talk about the tariffs much. Seriously, for all the mainstream coverage they're avoiding the topic like the plague. When it does come up they mention that Biden tariffed things and it was fine, acting like the two things were anything the same. They also cherrypick information where they talk about other countries backing down and how they're "winning" as a result.
And yeah. There's obviously more to it, but just quick observations, yeah, that's basically where MAGA seems to be at right now. For as much as I focus on the economic and how i see maga as driven by angst over factory jobs, the big thing that seems to really stand out for them is they hate anyone who isn't them. They think that we're being invaded by brown people who are committing crimes and that we need a strong authoritarian figure to fix it. In a word, they truly are irredeemable in a lot of ways. Now, obviously, again, I am painting with a broad brush here. There's more complexity to the situation than that, but that's basically the gist of it. Again, this is kind of the short, TLDR version of my findings. Obviously surfing a forum is going to be more complex in terms of discussion than just the above points, but the above seems to sum up the vibes. While there is some genuine economic populism in the movement, the majority of it really does seem driven by pure racism. Hate to say it, but that's what sums them up.
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