Here are 10 things MAGA has taught me:
1. How ridiculous, obviously fake "Christian" con-artist televangelists such as Kenneth Copeland (who's on his third marriage, by the way) were able to amass great wealth for themselves by duping mostly poor and middle-class people out of their money.
2. Growing up, I always used to wonder how Hitler rose to power. Now I get it: millions of people saying, "He's not that bad" — until, of course, he was. These types of monsters never start out as monstrous as they ultimately become. They rise to power because people make excuses for them every step of the way.
3. The only real "principle" Republicans have is "owning the libs." That's it. A joke I came across said MAGA would eat a crap sandwich just to make a liberal smell their breath — which is, sadly, pretty much the truth.
4. Cults are insanely powerful. When millions of people are literally defending Trump's cover-up of the Epstein files when it's obvious he's trying to protect child predators, that's about as low as you can go. It's still unbelievable that holding child predators accountable became partisan simply because their orange messiah and his friends are implicated in those files.
5. Everything conservatives claim to be "outraged" by is fake. Because we all know that if a Democrat had started a war with Iran, sent gas prices over $4 a gallon with no clear strategy and no end in sight to that war, while obsessing over a ballroom they planned to name after themselves and calling the current economy the "best in history" — when it damn sure isn't — conservatives would be losing their minds. Except, because Trump has done all of that, they're defending it.
6. Most of them would much rather live in an autocracy ruled by a dictator than in a constitutional republic, considering Trump exhibits practically every trait of an authoritarian — including putting his name and picture on as many things as he can — and they're absolutely on board with all of it.
7. When they claim they support "freedom of speech," they really just mean their right to say whatever hateful thing they want about others while opposing their opponents having that same right.
8. It really is true: if you just keep repeating a lie, eventually gullible people will believe it.
9. Conservatives would rather win by cheating than through free and fair democracy. Whether that's denying the results of elections they lose, storming the Capitol to block the certification of a presidential election, pushing strict new voting laws in hopes of disenfranchising voters, or engaging in unethical gerrymandering — they don't care how they "win" as long as they keep power.
10. These so-called "alpha male manosphere" types who worship a weak, insecure man-child who wears makeup, puts lifts in his shoes to appear taller, wears ill-fitting clothes to hide his obesity, lies about his height and weight, and wears ridiculously long ties to appear taller than he is, while obsessing over gaudy gold accents and ballrooms, are every bit as fake and insecure as Donald Trump himself. There's nothing "manly" about any of these frauds. They're pathetically weak, fragile, easily triggered snowflake bullies.
It's sad how much MAGA has taught all of us about how awful human beings can actually be — and the terrible things they're willing to support.