Think twice
“No one insults the intelligence of Trump voters more than Donald Trump,” said MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Wednseday night. Nobody, that is, except Marjorie Taylor Greene and MAGA TV.
Jimmy Kimmel assembled a MAGA TV gag reel:
The Independent reported on MTG’s “wild claim”:
Marjorie Taylor Greene has made the wild claim that the Justice Department had authorised the use of “deadly force” during an FBI search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence as a plan to “assassinate” the former president. The FBI have denied the accusation, saying that “standard protocol” was followed.
That raid on the former president’s Florida residence on 8 August 2022 ended with the FBI seizing hundreds of documents. On Tuesday, newly-unsealed court filings showed that four additional classified documents were discovered in Mr Trump’s bedroom in the months following the bureau’s search at Mar-a-Lago.
Mr Trump faces 40 felony counts for allegedly mishandling top secret documents taken to his estate after he left office. He denies all the charges against him.
In a fiery response, Mr Trump accused the Biden administration of soliciting the use of “deadly force” during the raid – which he called “unconstitutional” on Truth Social. He also sent his Maga followers a fundraising email with the subject line: “They were authorized to shoot me!”
Right. The FBI sent a team of agents to Mar-a-Lago, in broad daylight, to execute a kill order on Donald Trump who was at the time with his Secret Service detail 1,000 miles away in New Jersey.
“I nearly escaped death,” Trump added.
“Nearly escaped death?” asked Stephen Colbert to audience laughter.
Yes, the claim is laughable. Yes, MAGA TV’s very business model is stoking daily outrage. And yes, it’s a liberal guilty pleasure to mock Trump cultists, as O’Donnell does, for the “layers of stupidity” it takes to reply to that Trump fundraising email with their money. But it’s unhelpful. There was nothing funny about them storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Trump is preparing the ground for them to do it again. MAGA TV is dedicated the deadly project.
Anti-Trump attorney George Conway advised Greg Sargent recently that Team Biden needs to “keep making fun of Trump” during the debates until he loses it. “If the Biden campaign plays its cards right … we could have a Captain Queeg or a Colonel Jessup moment with Donald Trump” that could break through to the sensible elements of the American public that otherwise pay little attention to politics.
So mock Trump to his face. Mock the propagandists on Fox and OANN and Newsmax. And Marjorie Taylor Greene. But do not mock Trump followers. Calling them stupid is counter-productive and anchors them more strongly to the grievances Trump uses to exlpoit them. They will identify with him until they don’t. Hasten that. And welcome them when they turn against him. It’s not as satisfying as saying “I told you so,” but it’s more strategic.
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