{"id":26748,"date":"2026-01-09T17:42:05","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T01:42:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=26748"},"modified":"2026-01-20T16:09:36","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T00:09:36","slug":"the-paradox-of-maga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2026\/01\/09\/the-paradox-of-maga\/","title":{"rendered":"The Paradox of MAGA"},"content":{"rendered":"

My fascination with this ICE killing in Minnesota is, again, that it’s a perfect example of the paradox of MAGA, if not of conservatives in general. They claim to be Christians, and to revere the Constitution and the US Founders, yet behave in ways that utterly contradict those philosophies. Rather, they act like xenophobic tribalists to whom everyone else on the planet is evil or subhuman. I conclude that the Bible and the Constitution are to them merely totems that mark tribal solidarity; they don’t actually understand, or follow, them.<\/p>\n

Sampling today’s posts.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Slate, Molly Olmstead, 9 Jan 2026<\/strong>: They Didn\u2019t Even Need a Deepfake<\/a>, subtitled “A.I. was going to be what broke our shared reality. It turns out, it wasn\u2019t needed.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Cf. the Jessie Bering quote yesterday. Covered here: partisan loyalties. The rewrite of January 6th.<\/p>\n

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There was another video of the event released today.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Slate, Christina Cauterucci, 9 Jan 2026<\/strong>: In the Horrifying New Video Filmed by Renee Good\u2019s Killer, Her Real \u201cCrime\u201d Is Clear<\/a>, subtitled “New footage of her killing at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement isn\u2019t exculpatory\u2014but it sure serves a purpose for MAGA.”<\/p>\n

She was cheerful, before she drove away, despite the order to “get out of the fucking car.”<\/p>\n

There is no rule of proportionality in the MAGA universe: Any left-leaning protest activity or civil disobedience is grounds for assassination<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\\<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Atlantic, Adam Serwer, 8 Jan 2026<\/strong>: First the Shooting. Then the Lies.<\/a> subtitled “The Trump administration has perfected the smear campaign.”<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot we don\u2019t know about the shooting of Renee Nicole Good, who was killed yesterday by federal immigration agents deployed to Minnesota. But in the chaotic aftermath of the shooting, one thing became immediately clear: The Trump administration was lying about what happened.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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<\/p>\n

Media Matters, 8 Jan 2026<\/strong>: A look at how Fox used its coverage of the Minneapolis ICE shooting to push the administration’s propaganda<\/a><\/p>\n

With a timeline about how Fox News kept changing their story as evidence came in. They jumped to conclusions, obviously.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

Boing Boing, Jason Weisberger, 8 Jan 2026<\/strong>: “We executed one of you”: MAGA cheers ICE killing of a mother of three<\/a><\/p>\n

The simplistic, savage, MAGA mindset.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

Slate, Molly Olmstead, 7 Jan 2026<\/strong>: Trump Isn\u2019t Just Defending ICE for Killing a Woman. He\u2019s Taking It a Chilling Step Further.<\/a>, subtitled “The president is blaming his political rivals\u2014and possibly opening the door to more repression.”<\/p>\n

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One somewhat longer piece.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Slate, Christina Cauterucci, 9 Jan 2026<\/strong>: ICE\u2019s Killing of Renee Good Is Part of a Bigger Project<\/a>, subtitled “The right is waging, and winning, a war on empathy. The country is poorer, and more dangerous, for it.”<\/p>\n

Among their base, today\u2019s GOP is trying to drum out any natural impulses toward compassion, such that there is no imperative to feel\u2014let alone express\u2014any dismay at the killing of an ideological adversary. If Good wasn\u2019t on Trump\u2019s side, the party line goes, she got what was coming to her. The rush to defend Ross is more than a political move to justify Trump\u2019s personal militia run amok. It\u2019s another round in the right wing\u2019s mounting war on empathy.<\/p>\n

For the past few years, influential Christian conservatives have been loudly proclaiming that empathy is toxic<\/a>, a sin<\/a>, and a tool of the devil<\/a>. In their view, progressives use the human inclination sas already caused the deaths of 500,000 children<\/a> worldwide. The innate desire among well-adjusted people to wish their neighbors happy, healthy lives is a political liability for the party of Medicaid cuts, SNAP freezes, ICE raids, refugee bans, and forced childbirth. Elon Musk has called empathy<\/a> \u201cthe fundamental weakness of Western civilization.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is that what Jesus said?<\/p>\n

\\<\/p>\n

Last item on this subject for now.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

NY Times, guest essay by Jacob Frey, 8 Jan 2026<\/strong>: I\u2019m the Mayor of Minneapolis. Trump Is Lying to You.<\/a><\/p>\n

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My eternal question is, why don’t the MAGA folk realize that Trump is lying to them all the time? Because they’re paranoid and think the mainstream media is out to get them? Or simply because they’re dumb?<\/p>\n

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Let’s try to get this bad MAGA taste away. And find a couple positive stories.<\/p>\n

First, getting back to the ancient argument about whether people are basically good or basically bad — Christianity assumes the latter, unless they’re “saved” — and despite the presumption in Hollywood films and TV then when society fails, everyone will turn savage (because that’s more dramatic) — real-world evidence suggests the former. (Again, I’ve read that book by Rutger Bregman, HUMANKIND, that I haven’t written up here yet.) Obviously attitudes are situational. But, despite the conservatives who assume the worst in other people, civilization has in fact advanced through cooperation among larger and larger groups. That’s why we have a de fact world culture.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Vox, Bryan Walsh, 27 Dec 2025<\/strong>: The 2025 stories that prove people still run toward danger<\/a>, subtitled “Five strangers who risked everything to save someone else.”<\/p>\n

Sure these are anecdotes.<\/p>\n

The daily news cycle, with its bias toward negativity<\/a>, seems to have its own implicit question: How bad can people be? It\u2019s an easy story to tell, because outrage quickly spreads across the social media landscape. But, if you pay attention \u2014 really<\/em> pay attention \u2014 another story keeps surfacing, stubbornly, in the margins: the stories of people who run toward danger. They don\u2019t workshop it. They don\u2019t calculate odds. They don\u2019t ask if they\u2019re the \u201cright person\u201d to do something. They just move, on instinct, because someone else\u2019s life is suddenly in front of them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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And despite the conservative that everything worth knowing was known centuries ago and captured in the Bible, human culture does, in fact, keep discovering new things, and making society and life better every year.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Atlantic, Science Desk, 27 Dec 2025<\/strong>: 55 Facts That Blew Our Minds in 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

A list, with links. “In a year defined by slop<\/a>, we hope these nuggets of reality inspire some genuine awe.”<\/p>\n

Items about how women’s hands are more sensitive to warmth than men’s, sterile flies, a new color called “olo”, how potatoes are descended from an ancient tomato plant, how AI is 92% of American’s GDP growth, how insects make up more than half of all animals species yet most of them have never been documented, how tennis players live longer than swimmers, cyclists, and joggers.. and much more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My fascination with this ICE killing in Minnesota is, again, that it’s a perfect example of the paradox of MAGA, if not of conservatives in general. They claim to be Christians, and to revere the Constitution and the US Founders, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,90,54,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservative-resistance","category-conservatives","category-politics","category-psychology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26748"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26826,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26748\/revisions\/26826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}