{"id":27079,"date":"2026-02-26T17:32:54","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T01:32:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=27079"},"modified":"2026-03-05T16:40:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T00:40:43","slug":"the-maha-veil-cruelty-and-what-trump-supporters-are-teaching-their-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2026\/02\/26\/the-maha-veil-cruelty-and-what-trump-supporters-are-teaching-their-children\/","title":{"rendered":"The MAHA Veil, Cruelty, and What Trump Supporters are Teaching their Children"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>MAHA isn&#8217;t about health, it&#8217;s about making money off quack cures;<\/li>\n<li>Matthew Rozsa thinks Trump will lose in November because of one word: cruelty;<\/li>\n<li>John Pavlovitz spells out what Trump supporters are teaching their children, about diversity, compassion, women, and much else;<\/li>\n<li>Timothy Snyder fantasizes a Cabinet meeting in which members say honestly what they&#8217;re trying to do: destroy education, wreck the civil service, and so on;<\/li>\n<li>How Trump&#8217;s problem is that voters don&#8217;t believe a word he says;<\/li>\n<li>Short items about blaming Biden for closing rural hospitals, educating the Pope, and headphones;<\/li>\n<li>About Fermi problems and Trump&#8217;s misconceptions about math;<\/li>\n<li>Speculation about how American democracy repairs itself every 60 years or so;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/div>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!TZwL!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb0285566-5d9c-48bf-a16f-ce9a8e4a9f25_1456x972.webp\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Bulwark, Jonathan V. Last, 26 Feb 2026<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebulwark.com\/p\/behind-the-maha-veil\">Behind the MAHA Veil<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;It&#8217;s not about transparency or choice. It&#8217;s not even about &#8216;natural health&#8217; It&#8217;s about making everyone else take their quack cures.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The other day I mentioned in passing that anyone who puts \u201canti-woke\u201d at the center of their ideology is trying to camouflage their real beliefs.<\/p>\n<p>I think that\u2019s become pretty obvious in recent years with the journey of Bari Weiss, Elon Musk, and most of the famous anti-woke, \u201cfree-speech absolutists\u201d who, it turns out, were just shy MAGAs who preferred not to cop to their real allegiances.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Then he mentions this item, which has been in the news and on Fb today.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>By the same token, one of the reasons I\u2019ve been out of step with mainstream Americans on trans stuff is that I don\u2019t believe that the anti-trans movement is actually about women\u2019s sports. Lo and behold: Yesterday the Kansas legislature <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kansascity.com\/news\/politics-government\/article314746716.html\" rel=\"\">passed a law<\/a> invalidating the driver\u2019s licenses of transgender citizens, <em><strong>beginning today.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m sorry but there is no way\u2014absolutely none\u2014to explain this action as anything but punitive. Enacting this law with no grace period gives the game away. The entire idea is to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kansascity.com\/news\/politics-government\/article314844596.html\" rel=\"\">turn trans people into a criminal class.<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cPlease note that the Legislature did not include a grace period for updating credentials. That means that once the law is officially enacted, your current credentials will be invalid immediately, and you may be subject to additional penalties if you are operating a vehicle without a valid credential,\u201d read letters mailed by the Kansas Department of Revenue\u2019s vehicles division and dated Monday.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This isn\u2019t about \u201cwomen\u2019s sports.\u201d It never was. That was just camouflage to hide the real agenda.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Again, that statement from Adam Serwer: The cruelty is the point.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Cue:<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alternet.org\/media-library\/trump-shutterstock.jpg?id=23476564&amp;width=1245&amp;height=700&amp;quality=50&amp;coordinates=17%2C0%2C18%2C0\" width=\"200\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>AlterNet, Matthew Rozsa, 26 Feb 2026<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alternet.org\/ex-gop-congressman-says-trump-will-lose-for-this-one-surprising-reason\/\">Ex-GOP congressman says one word explains why Trump&#8217;s GOP will lose in November<\/a><\/p>\n<p>President Donald Trump is doomed in the upcoming midterm elections, says an ex-Republican congressman \u2014 and the reason may surprise you.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is the biggest reason why Trump and Republicans in November are gonna get their a\u2014- handed to them\u201d in the midterms, former Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois said on his Substack on Thursday. \u201cI&#8217;ve been saying this for a year now. One word: cruelty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Spelling out what Trump supporters believe.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!dQoB!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbeb64640-bf03-4187-912f-e99fde8bd646_1080x755.jpeg\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>John Pavlovitz, 25 Feb 2026<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/johnpavlovitz.substack.com\/p\/lessons-trump-supporters-are-teaching\">Lessons Trump Supporters Are Teaching Their Children (Whether They Know It or Not)<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One thing you learn as you raise children is that they\u2019re always watching, always listening, always learning; that you are forever teaching them something even when you\u2019re unaware: about what you value, about the way to treat people, about how to be a human being.<\/p>\n<p>I wonder if people supporting Donald Trump and this Administration realize what they\u2019re teaching their children; what boosting his words and applauding his tantrums and celebrating his assaults on vulnerable people is telling them.<\/p>\n<p>Whether they realize it or not, they\u2019re teaching them&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Then a list of things, with a paragraph for each item. I&#8217;ll just list the items.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Diversity is dangerous.<br \/>\nCompassion is a flaw.<br \/>\nWomen are less-than.<br \/>\nPeople don&#8217;t matter.<br \/>\nWhiteness is better.<br \/>\nReligion is a prop.<br \/>\nAmerica is the world.<br \/>\nNever apologize.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s all about you.<br \/>\nCheat to win.<br \/>\nConvictions are for sale.<br \/>\nLaws don&#8217;t apply to you.<br \/>\nWhen in doubt, lie.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Then he invites Trump supporters to dispute these assertion, because the President&#8217;s own words and actions support them.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Spelling out what the Trump administration is trying to do.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.unsplash.com\/photo-1626973877031-99b9114ae0cf?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwxOXx8Y29sb3IlMjBhcG9jYWx5cHNlfGVufDB8fHx8MTc3MjExODczMXww&amp;ixlib=rb-4.1.0&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080\" width=\"200\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Timothy Snyder, 26 Feb 2026<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/snyder.substack.com\/p\/cabinet-apocalypse\">Cabinet Apocalypse<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;A News Review in an Imagined Conversation&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Satire. But it rings true. As I&#8217;ve been saying.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Donald Trump, president of the United States<\/em>. \u201cCalling this meeting to order. That was a long speech that I just gave. State of the Union. Long speech. Not going to stand up and do that again next year. So let\u2019s hear it. Plans to make sure I don\u2019t have to. Plans to end the United States by a year from now. Around the table. Go. Start us off, Linda.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Linda McMahon, Education.<\/em> \u201cThank you, sir. Nothing is more important for the country than public schools. So we are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/trump-administration-linda-mcmahon-public-education\" rel=\"\">destroying<\/a> them by directing tax money away from public school parents and towards private education scams.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Russ Vought, Management and Budget.<\/em> \u201cThe republic depends on its institutions. As you know, sir, we are wrecking our civil service by firing those who are qualified and replacing them with political hacks. I don\u2019t want to overstate my case, sir, but these are not just normal hacks. They are hackety-hacks, sir. They will use what remains of the government to hasten the process of its destruction. Hackety-hack, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Trump.<\/em> \u201cGood. Hack. Good. But maybe something faster.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Scott Bessent, Treasury.<\/em> \u201cA government works on the basis of tax revenue. From the beginning of your administration, sir, we have been overseeing a shift whereby people who actually have the money won\u2019t pay any taxes. Indeed, our oligarchs will be the happy recipients of whatever tax money we can scrape up from the middle and working classes. This wealth shift from the population at large to the wealthy few is inconsistent with the survival of a republic. This will help speed along the change Russ is talking about.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It goes on: Lutnick, Bondi, RFK Jr., Burgum, Zeldin, Rubio, Gabbard, Noem, Hegseth.<\/p>\n<p>Snyder concludes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The conversation is fictional, of course. In essence, though, this is little more than a review of the news of the last few days and weeks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Yet there&#8217;s an increasing problem.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alternet.org\/media-library\/u-s-president-donald-trump-in-clive-iowa-u-s-january-27-2026-reuters-kevin-lamarque.jpg?id=65002175&amp;width=1245&amp;height=700&amp;quality=50&amp;coordinates=0%2C106%2C0%2C106\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>AlterNet, Thomas Kika, 26 Feb 2026<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alternet.org\/no-one-trusts-trump\/\">Trump&#8217;s problem isn&#8217;t his agenda \u2014it&#8217;s that voters don&#8217;t believe a word he says: analysis<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Despite some signs of improvement for Americans under Donald Trump&#8217;s second term, his approval ratings continue to plummet, and according to a new <a class=\"rm-stats-tracked\" href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/opinion\/white-house\/5753138-inflation-border-crime-leadership\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">analysis from The Hill<\/a>, it all comes down to voters not trusting him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Well, plenty of us have not trusted him, or believed anything he says, for years. The mystery is why so many people do trust and believe him. I perceive this as an unfortunate atavism of human nature. Perhaps, after all these years, some of those people are coming to their senses.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Short items about their mindset from JMG.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/vandos-660x330.png\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>(From <strong>Milwaukee Journal Sentinel<\/strong>) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2026\/02\/vance-blames-rural-hospital-closures-on-biden-video\/\">Vance Blames Rural Hospital Closures On Biden<\/a>. No, it was cuts by Trump.<\/li>\n<li>(From <strong>Daily Beast<\/strong>) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2026\/02\/homan-offers-to-educate-pope-on-catholic-doctrine\/\">Homan Offers To \u201cEducate\u201d Pope On Catholic Doctrine<\/a>. Conservatives always know better.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2026\/02\/newsmax-host-headphones-are-making-the-kids-gay\/\"><strong>Newsmax<\/strong> Host: \u201cHeadphones Are Making The Kids Gay\u201d<\/a>. Revealing in so many ways.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>A familiar issue, the ante upped.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/nyttrumpmath26feb26.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/nyttrumpmath26feb26-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>NY Times, Aubrey Clayton, 26 Feb 2026<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/26\/opinion\/trump-math-state-of-the-union.html\">America, We Have a Math Problem<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Candidates for quantitative jobs \u2014 like those on Wall Street or in Silicon Valley \u2014 are sometimes asked offbeat questions such as: How many Ping-Pong balls fit in a 747? Called Fermi problems, these questions are not meant to elicit a precisely correct answer but rather to test an interviewee\u2019s reasoning ability. The candidates must use mathematical relationships of scale and dimension to arrive at a reasonable guess: If the volume of a Ping-Pong ball is roughly X and that of the airplane roughly Y, then the sought-after quantity is Y divided by X. The problems enforce the basic discipline of combining what is known and observable with rigid mathematics to make sensible statements about the unknown or the unobservable.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The example of a Fermi problem that I first heard about is to estimate how many piano tuners there are in the city of Chicago. You have to estimate the total population, the percentage who own pianos, and frequency those pianos would need to be tuned, and so on. I think Fermi gave students credit if they were within an order of magnitude of a plausible answer.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In the past year, President Trump and members of his administration have shown that they would fail miserably in such interviews. Many administrations boast about their successes and perhaps exaggerate. But Mr. Trump and others have made quantitative claims that stretch not only the bounds of factual truth but of mathematical possibility.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And it goes on with how Trump keeps claiming he&#8217;s reduced prices by hundreds of percent, and how Howard Lutnick tried to rationalize that. and Pam Bondi&#8217;s claim of lives saved through seizures of fentanyl.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>These claims mark an escalation in the use of statistics as rhetorical decoration rather than as support for arguments constrained by shared rules. From the perspective of a math educator, this is not a minor abuse of statistics but a failure of epistemic responsibility, one that undermines the possibility of public reasoning itself.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Trump\u2019s claims do not invite debate; they short-circuit it. &#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Whereas, the writer goes on, in the real world of mathematics (and science, I&#8217;d add), people really do change their minds based on persuasive arguments.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Those habits of thinking \u2014 humility before evidence, respect for shared definitions and a willingness to revise \u2014 are what can make disagreement productive rather than insurmountable. When leaders abandon them, numbers lose their power to clarify and instead become cudgels to use against opponents, leaving the public without a common basis to judge competing claims.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Are Americans, like Trump, dumb, or just uneducated?<\/p>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a substantial piece that seems to rely on a dubious take on history. That is, it&#8217;s been floated before and discredited; it amounts to superstition.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.vox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/BenJones_Vox_LeeDrutman.jpeg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&amp;w=1200\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Vox, Lee Drutman, 26 Feb 2026<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/politics\/480280\/how-to-fix-us-democracy-lee-drutman\">US democracy has repaired itself before. Here\u2019s how we can do it again.<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;America has remade itself every few decades. Are we due?&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Donald Trump is not forever.<\/p>\n<p>There will be an after. It\u2019s hard to see from the present, where everything feels frozen in place. But from history\u2019s vantage, change is the only constant. American democracy has been remade several times \u2014 dramatically, unexpectedly, and often in ways that looked impossible until they arrived.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1agbrixi lg8ac51 lg8ac50 xkp0cg1\">The question is not whether reform is coming. It\u2019s what kind of reform.<\/p>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1agbrixi lg8ac51 lg8ac50 xkp0cg1\">Underneath the paralysis, pressure is rising: institutional distrust at historic lows, economic dislocation spreading, <a href=\"\/politics\/478794\/ai-economy-claude-code-jobs-openai-anthropic\">AI transforming work<\/a>, and a generation increasingly locked out of housing, economic security, and political influence. The parties can\u2019t process any of this. They\u2019re locked in battle with each other, fighting the last war.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1agbrixi lg8ac51 lg8ac50 xkp0cg1\">Gridlock may look like stability; it is actually brittleness. Eventually, it will crack. In some places, it already has. A new generation will pick up the pieces and build something new. In some places, they already are.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1agbrixi lg8ac51 lg8ac50 xkp0cg1\">That\u2019s the history of American democracy. And it is about to continue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>A long piece, divided up into: How reform happens; Why the Progressive Era [the 1890s] is the most like our own; The 1960s: The pattern repeats; Our Current Moment; and finally What kind of reform?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll quote the Key takeaways sidebox.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>American democracy has been dramatically remade roughly every 60 years: the 1770s, the 1830s, the 1900s, the 1960s. Each time, reform came when ambitious insiders recognized the old order was dying and switched sides before it collapsed on them.<\/li>\n<li class=\"_739u101\"><span class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup\">Today\u2019s dysfunction matches the historical preconditions almost exactly: institutional trust near historic lows, and both parties fighting the last war while new pressures accumulate with no political home.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"_739u101\"><span class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup\">The question is not <em>whether<\/em> reform is coming but <em>what kind<\/em>. Previous eras tried to work around parties and got hollow institutions captured by whoever was already organized. The next reform needs to change how parties themselves work.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Things change, and it&#8217;s not always because of simple progressive vs conservative forces. More often it&#8217;s about changes in the world and how we deal with them. More thoughts later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MAHA isn&#8217;t about health, it&#8217;s about making money off quack cures; Matthew Rozsa thinks Trump will lose in November because of one word: cruelty; John Pavlovitz spells out what Trump supporters are teaching their children, about diversity, compassion, women, and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2026\/02\/26\/the-maha-veil-cruelty-and-what-trump-supporters-are-teaching-their-children\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/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":[90,86,96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatives","category-history","category-human-nature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27079","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=27079"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27155,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27079\/revisions\/27155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}