Transcript: Trump White House Rages at Pop Star Who Nailed MAGA “Evil”
Because there are certainly enough people who do think that way—who have been taught to feel that the people who oppose them, whether it’s their political opponents or people they don’t think should be in the country, are subhuman. And that too is a big part of Trump’s rhetoric. He’s always describing immigrants as vermin. It’s the kind of language that’s been used preceding every genocide in human history, but Trump uses that kind of dehumanizing language to say that it’s OK. You don’t have to feel bad. You don’t feel bad when you put out a mousetrap and catch a mouse and it snaps his neck, right? So you don’t have to feel bad when we’re just blowing up like five guys on a boat that, you know, maybe they’re actually bringing drugs or maybe they’re not, but whatever, Pete Hegseth decided he’s going to kill them and then he’s going to put out a cartoon about it because it’s all so funny and cool. And they want you not to feel bad about that, but I think that it’s important for us to understand why we should feel bad about some things. And it’s not actually fun. And that’s what they don’t want us to think about.
Sargent: I think maybe the through line here is what you might call the joy of dehumanization. For MAGA, that’s a great, joyous occasion. Anytime that they can dehumanize whoever is sort of the subject of the two-minute hate of the moment, it’s time for a party. You had this piece at Public Notice, a Substack as well, where you drew a through line from the goons kidnapping people off the streets, the edgelords crafting the social media strategy, the disgusting lies about immigrants, and then you tied that all to what we’ve been hearing lately about all these mid-level Republican staffer types giggling in their Nazi group chats, as you put it. They’re all kind of participants in this broader MAGA project.
Where do you think this is going, Paul? Trump is not going to be on the scene forever, obviously. And there are already signs that the MAGA movement is breaking up. You’ve got JD Vance, who’s positioning himself to inherit it all. And you can kind of see all these strands in what JD Vance is doing. He’s trying to be that same type of hateful, thuggish figure that Trump is being, but he’s just not going to be able to corral all the fury and bloodlust the same way Trump does. Only Trump can really corral it, right? Is there anyone else who can?
