You summarize it perfectly. I am so disheartened by my fellow countrymen. So put off that I left the country and have no intention of ever returning there to live. When I see someone like Klepper interview maga, it is always driven home just how absolutely stupid and ignorant maga are. It’s really no wonder he got elected again. trump is indeed the symptom not the disease. I think the Leopards Ate My Face communities do a grave injustice because I see such communities giving people the false impresssion that maga is “realizing” something. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Many of my progressive friends are stuck in the “surely they’re all waking up”, “surely he wouldn’t try to do that”, “surely he wouldn’t get elected again” cycle.
I believe there is a third reason in addition to ignorance and hate: tribalism. whether it’s their religious tribe, or racial tribe, or sexuality tribe, conservatives tend to embrace tribalism more than anyone else. To them there are in groups and out groups. In groups that the law protects but does not bind, and out groups that the law binds but does not protect.
Ignorance, tribalism, hate, xenophobia, intolerance have always been able to take root in the minds of the weak. But when the oligarchs realized that the ignoranti could be a powerful tool, they became a product. Those millions of maga people you mention have been and are groomed continually to be tools for enabling the transfer of wealth. They are groomed with fear, misinformation, manipulation, appeals to tribalism, and appeals to uncertainty. They are groomed so effectively that they groom themselves and their own children.
The spiraling deficit will just be something they ultimately blame the democrats for. The rubes will lap it up and vote them in again.