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Techdirt
@techdirt.com

Who Goes MAGA? With apologies to Dorothy Thompson, whose 1941 essay in Harper’s, “Who Goes Nazi?” remains a worthwhile read on the cultural archetypes of who is drawn to fascism, and who would never go down such a path. It felt like it could use a modern updating, however. Update: Just after I…

techdirt.comWho Goes MAGA?With apologies to Dorothy Thompson, whose 1941 essay in Harper’s, “Who Goes Nazi?” remains a worthwhile read on the cultural archetypes of who is drawn to fascism, and who would never go down such a path. It felt like it could use a modern updating, however. Update: Just after I finished writing this, it occurred to me that there was no chance I was the first to think of doing this, so I did a search and sure enough, the writer Talia Lavin had the same idea months ago.

58 reposts115 likes

Happy-go-Loki.
@twainspatriot.bsky.social

“It appeals to a certain type of mind.” Interesting aside: Social scientists spent decades following WWII trying to identify traits of Authoritarian-leaning personalities, first developing the F-Scale test (for Fascism) & finally settling on tests for Social Dominance Orientation (SDO)…

Andrew Burton
@burtonad.bsky.social

It’s a fun read. Something like 20% of the population were MAGA from the get go, and between 10-12% have voted for Trump in national elections even if they weren’t. And a bunch of people who didn’t vote are MAGA. To me, a lot depends on your ability to say “this is wrong,” and act on it.

Andrew Burton
@burtonad.bsky.social

I know many Republicans felt viscerally that abortion was evil over decades, and voted against Democrats without buying the full MAGA package. Normalizing corruption, violence in politics, mass deportations and the rest of it - that’s wrong, and I’ll never go MAGA, even after the second cock crow.

Jesse Rosen
@crrrack.bsky.social

This is excellent, and I unfortunately recognize several of these types in my extended social sphere. The one additional type that I'd add to the susceptible list is Cubans and Venezuelans, mostly in Miami, who equate anything to the left of Pinochet with communism.