MAGA Voters Are America’s Worst Generation

To paraphrase Chris Rock, in America there’s two kinds of Americans: there’s Americans and there’s MAGA. I like Americans, but I hate MAGA.  It is time for non-MAGA Americans to face the truth about where we are in this country.  We are being run by the worst man, empowered by the worst coalition of people in our country’s history.  Of course this is on a relative historic scale.  But does anyone doubt that a 19th century Donald Trump would have owned slaves, separated slave families (to be crueler than some of the woke masters) and defended the Confederacy, when 21st Century Donald Trump… defends the Confederacy and claims that we talk too much about how bad slavery was?!  Does anyone believe that Trump voters, who looked beyond rape allegations, racist pronouncements and treason in the 2024 election would somehow look to their better angels decades or centuries ago?  The time of confronting the truth in America has been at hand for years now: we are in a Cold Civil War.  One side has power. The other has numerical and moral advantages, but an even great self-defeating and cynical outlook that negates those advantages.  We have allowed the worst coalition to empower the cruelest and most cowardly politicians to drive our democracy to its last rites.

For most of the last 10 years I have heard voices like Bill Maher say “You can hate Trump, but you can’t hate his voters” as if their minority rule was somehow an inevitability. And I never heard anyone Left, Right or Center (except maybe for some pontificating platitude from Cornel West) say “the Right can hate Hillary, but you cannot hate all Democrats.” Because all the Right has done is institutionalize, normalize and fetishize the demonic, America-hating dark delusion of the Left that they all imbibe.

Social Security, the GI Bill, Medicare, Medicaid, Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, Affordable Care Act, Build Back Better, etc. – almost every major positive, popular act by our government in the last 100 years has been the work of Democrats – Democratic presidents with large Democratic majorities. Even after the overt racists fled to Nixon and Republicans, Clinton created more jobs, Obama extended health care and Biden created jobs and the biggest climate change fighting package ever.  In my lifetime national Republicans have given us the empty rhetoric and cruel deregulation of Reagan, the Iraq War of George W. Bush and the ending of modern democracy in America of Donald Trump.  And even the positives of Reagan (“Tear down this wall”) and W (fighting AIDS in Africa) have become ugly stepchildren to the pro Putin-pro AIDS in Africa MAGA movement. And it is very telling the George HW Bush, the smartest and most statesmanlike GOP President (and a victorious war president) of the last 45 years is the only one NOT to get re-elected.

So now we live in a country where Donald Trump, a man morally, intellectually and experientially unfit for the power and office he holds, far surpassing the second worst presidents in those categories, is our “leader.”  And 77 million Americans were morally and intellectually too weak to see that.  Selfishness and a pervasive, bipartisan epidemic of citizen malpractice (non-reading, non engaging, non voting) in our country, where claiming “both sides” affords you some unearned intellectual credit amongst similarly disengaged citizens, has led us to this point. So I am going to say something that should be said in kinder words by far more powerful people than me, but captured perfectly by Robert DeNiro: fuck ’em.  And as DeNiro’s Ace said in Casino, regarding an either stupid or corrupt casino worker, (paraphrasing) “Either you’re in on it or you’re too stupid.  Either way I cannot have you.”

Whether it is Bill Maher chasing clicks, Joe Rogan trying to keep his fans satisfied or Gavin Newsom beta testing every media strategy under the Sun, reaching out to, appeasing or finding common ground with a coalition of Americans who gleefully and/or ignorantly cheer its demise and its people’s pain is simply delaying what feels inevitable if we don’t change tactics. The solution is simple – the majority of the country that did not vote for Trump needs to find a common purpose and vested interests within that common purpose to render the MAGA movement a dark, but finite stain in American History.  It is a common refrain that “you can’t negotiate with terrorists.”  Well the MAGA movement is the political equivalent of terrorism.  And the time to negotiate with them, whether it be on CNN or in Joe Rogan’s studio is long gone.

The entire approach of politics for the next 4 to 40 years is as simple as it is daunting for non-MAGA:

A) Educate people on what government does and how what Trump is doing is destroying it. Like heart disease, you may not know it while it’s happening, but when the damage comes to fruition, it may very well be too late.

B) Motivate people to vote by letting them know the stakes and their power through collective action through effective and qualified communicators. Easier said than done, but we have a content glut and a knowledge deficit. We have a distraction excess and a famine of focus.  Educating, engaging and (occasionally) entertaining are the three responsibilities that Democrats must unfairly, but necessarily bear to save this country.

C) Find leaders and causes that can bridge the disparate parts of the Left and Independent voters together.  Too much political discourse in this country is dictated by treating the MAGA movement as a normal alternative of government in America.  The vast majority of the center and left, still believe in progress and helping people.  Finding a middle ground in that 51-55% is the key and then getting behind that consensus is the movement (not counting the huge, sad number of non-voters).  A movement and progress comprised of a range from John Fetterman, AKA Manchin’s Monster, to AOC can do good and great things for America. But asking that broad coalition fighting for their own vision of progress to find common ground with a Cancer on democracy where the only goal is accumulation and abuse of power is just a recipe for a milder form of Cancer.

D) Vote and vote and vote until you leave this Earth.  The MAGA movement is ignorant, selfish, shortsighted and cruel.  But it has one thing that the Left needs – a relentless pursuit of its goals.  Democracy in America is not a game, or even a season.  It is a lifelong commitment and we have superior numbers and a far superior track record of using government for the betterment of people, but we have inferior commitment and passion.

Now I am just a comedian (to many of you), but I remember being scolded for some of the tone of my videos 4 and 5 years ago. And Trump supporters would warn me that I would hurt my career by alienating half of the country. I have been cheered by MAGA audience members who could then not crack a smile when I mentioned I was a Democrat.  This movement is a cult of personality. Perhaps if it were Jesus leading it we’d have a cult dedicated to love and community, but instead it is a man with the most rotten moral core remaking the country in his image while a collection of greedy, insecure, ignorant hateful people cheer it on like the men at the bar in The Accused.  I hope those people continue to enjoy their free speech and all the other rights they are afforded in a Constitution many of them profess to love while knowing little of it and respecting it even less.  But I have been clear-eyed about Trump and his movement from very early on. Perhaps it was having a Haitian father, who had a keen eye for dictators, even clownish ones like Trump.  But we keep catching on too late as a country and a non-MAGA electorate.  We now cheer Gavin Newsom’s meme game when Trump has already won.  We applaud Marc Maron for taking it to Trump enablers and sycophants when they already have a stranglehold on the media that we seek to penetrate.  My point is, abandoning MAGA as a lost cause may seem harsh to some, but in 5 years it will seem prescient.  Anyone and everyone repulsed, scared, offended or just annoyed with MAGA needs to find a way to unite, engage and participate.  They hate you, they hate America and they will destroy it to show their disdain for you.  Humping a flag and shooting Bud Light is not what loving America is.  America is a set of ideals. Some people only believe in ideals when they look like them and talk like them. Others love ideals because any person can be a vessel for those ideals and have an opportunity to live those values.  I am not saying they hate you and America from some paranoid inference.  This is how they talk. They may understand their hate as love, but anyone with a common understanding of civics, American History and the English language knows that it is a deep resentment wrapped in the language, but not actions, of love. Does Donald Trump ever show happiness or joy beyond that of a bully or narcissist? Schadenfreude is not love of country; it’s love of seeing others suffer. That is the brand of patriotism that Trump has been selling to a large and accepting audience since 2015.  Hillary called half of them deplorable and her word choice and math were not nearly enough.

To illustrate my point through personal anecdote, 5 years ago I was on the WTF podcast with Marc Maron. It represented a career highlight for me and a validation of some success I had been having.  For about 15-20 minutes, the majority of my time speaking with Maron, I did my Trump impression (Maron laughed a lot) and almost undoubtedly had been saying some racist and sexist things.  When the episode was finally ready to go live many weeks later, it was in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. Maron complimented the impression in his intro, but then declined to air it because he felt it set the wrong tone for where the country was at the time.  I completely respected his decision and still do.  But it is illustrative. I sometimes joke on my podcast Rain on Your Parade that I feel like Quint from Jaws when it comes to Trump parody and commentary. I cut the bullshit. I get to the core of the man and do both commentary and comedy about him that is on point because I don’t do it for polite company, for corporate gigs or for “both sides.”  He is our worst.  And his enablers are our worst generation.

After this, if you need some levity please check out my special TRUMP VS CANADA on YouTube.