The core difference between MAGA and Normals, a difference that matters far more than professed religious affiliation, is selfishness vs. other-centeredness.
Examples:
When a gun slaughter occurs, a Normal asks, “How can we prevent more slaughters?” The MAGA personality thinks first, last, and only of himself: “Don’t touch my gun! Don’t blame me!” The death of others means nothing to him, except as a source of threat to his fetish. He immediately places himself at the center, not only to defend his fetish, but to fantasize about himself as the hero of the most recent massacre, who would surely have saved lives if *he* had been there. In many cases, he accuses the victims of somehow conspiring to make him look bad by means a ‘false flag operation’ as at Sandy Hook and Vegas (victims were threatened by the cult).
When masking is needed, a Normal masks because thinks of the good of others. A MAGA narcissist he complains that masks don’t keep out the virus perfectly so why bother. In other words, he gives absolutely no thought to the fact that masks reduce his ability to transmit the disease to others. His only thought is about his chances of breathing in the virus. Because he is deeply and intensely selfish.
Same with vaxxing. His sole consideration is of his convenience. He lies to himself that vaxed people can still carry the virus and never notes that they carry it for a far briefer time.
And with Omicron, Normals observe precautions because they know that our health-care system is carrying a back-breaking strain and they don’t want to add to it. The only thing the Cult says is, “I hear it’s milder, so I don’t have to care about it” because their one and only thought is about themselves and not about the fact that exhausted health care workers are drowning in hospitalizations and other people with other medical issues are being denied care due to selfish unvaxed morons are swamping bed space. They never think of anybody but themselves.
It is the deep, entrenched pathological selfishness and self-centeredness that is the core defining mark of the MAGA personality. Christian MAGA simply cannibalize those bits of their religion that support that selfishness and radically reject those parts that attack that selfishness. What is really worshiped in that antichrist religion is the Self, decked out with a few Christian aesthetics to perfume the dung hill and maintain the lie as a holy thing. Watch what they do, not what they say.
There are people actually obedient to Jesus in this world. But as Jesus himself warns his would-be disciples, not Those People Over There, “Why do you call me ‘Lord! Lord!’ and not do what I say?”
When somebody always thinks first, last, and only of himself they are not obeying Christ whatever they blather about their supposed religious affiliation. The great attraction of Trump to these people is that he gave them moral permission to be pathologically selfish narcissists and sociopaths.
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17 Responses
Way back in the 80’s, while flipping channels on TV, I sometimes stumbled upon Jimmy Bakker’s show. And always within seconds I had the same thought: “Who the heck could possibly fall for this?”
Today I have the same thought when hearing Trump. I’ve been totally baffled by the magnitude of his support, but I think you might be on to something here: he gives his followers permission to be utterly selfish.
– joel
Mark,
I don’t think it’s just Maga types who are concerned about Covid restrictions fatigue, my family members are mostly liberal, and are all concerned about young people’s mental health over Covid now, and school closures, and this is from people that are all vaxed and wear masks, I think Joe Biden is getting the message, that we don’t want to live like this anymore, it’s been two years, we have never lived this way in the past for the flu, and there’s no way you can make the argument that Omnicron is worse then the flu, it’s time to move on, plus it’s crushing Joe Biden, and I’m sure you’ll say I’m making this political but I’m just being realistic, I don’t want Trump back, and the longer this goes on, the more likely that becomes, Learn to live with it, is not selfish, it’s how we handle every risk in the world,
“there’s no way you can make the argument that Omnicron is worse then the flu”
You’re joking, right? No? Then see the argument made with unmistakable clarity in this link.
We’re all getting tired of COVID. But it is nowhere near being tired of us. Arguments in defense of selfishness are not helpful.
– joel
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/hospitalization-7-day-trend/inpatient-capacity
Except we have lived that way before, just not in recent memory. The great plagues in Europe in earlier centuries – communities, cities, did shut down and people used masks. Yellow fever epidemics in the 18th, 19th centuries shut down communities and cities, and victims were expelled to isolated communities. The Spanish Flu was more merciless killing tens of millions (though COVID is probably going to exceed it), and communities, towns, etc. did lock down, using armed force and jail sentences if needed, and instituted mask mandates. For unknown reasons, that version did disappear rather quickly and didn’t seem to mutate (unless that’s why we’re getting the various flu variants). When polio appeared in communities, businesses, schools, etc. did close even when only one or two people actually got it. When the vaccine was perfected (It took a year for the trials), it was mandated in most schools. There was a smallpox attack in 1947 in NYC, only 12 people had it, and literally millions (6.5 million New Yorkers) got the smallpox vaccination in three weeks! And the word got out that anyone who had been or was going to NY had to get the vaccine, and they did, including the President who went there for a short speech. MAGAs would call them “sheepies” today! Instead we had a president who said only 15 people had COVID, and it would disappear – after being told by experts that it was a deadly virus! So epidemics and the responses to them aren’t new. What is new is the sheer number of public “servants” from the former president down who have done everything they could to minimize responses to COVID. And the misinformation spread by FOX and other media sources. And the sheer selfishness of most people who refuse to “love thy neighbor as yourself”.
I respectfully disagree, I know many, many people who are fully vaxed and have gotten Omnicron, and its orders of magnitude lighter than the flu, some of those people are in compromised health, and it was a walk in the park, my sense on hospital concerns is around workers, which granted is a huge problem, but its not because of covid like MArch of 2020. Don’t listen to me, listen to Biden over the next few weeks, they are moving on.
Vaccinated people can catch the new strains of covid, but in their case it is much less severe than in people who are unvaccinated.
I talked to someone today whose grandmother just passed away hours ago. She was crying. Beside herself. The hospital was so overcrowded they put her beloved grandmother in a big ward stuffed with people.
After a long life of being a mother and grandmother, she passed away next to a screaming, ranting drug addict that pooped right next to her in her final hours.
The LA Times (which I get) has been doing articles about people impacted by hospitalizations and COVID, many of them as sad as this. Yet people, even those whose family members – parents, grandparents, children – have died due to COVID. And yet, even in some of those families, members refuse to get the vaccine! Most of it due to the lies spread by FOX (every member of which is vaccinated). And now the McConnell packed Supreme Court (which has 7! Catholics on it) has ruled Biden’s mandate “unconstitutional”. There’s blood on their hands, and Tucker’s and Greene’s and DeSantis, etc., most especially Trump’s. The right was screaming about herd immunity months ago – looks like Omicron might get us there. Yet the unvaccinated continue to die, and Tucker/Hannity, etc. are lying about it.
I sent what you wrote above to all of my adult children.
Thank you
My mom tells me people at church are “listening to the wrong people” and not getting vaxxed, that her best friend died of COVID. I go on Facebook and see posts from people there who are getting COVID and getting hospitalized. It’s maddening when here I’ve been vaxxed, got COVID, and just had some sniffles for a couple of days.
Unfortunately, if you show them the facts you mention, it does no good. They double down on remaining unvaxxed. People go to their death in denial.
You wait and see if I am correct. I wish the problem was one man. Go back to the reformation. Read about Henry viii and Anne Boleyn and what Thomas Moore wrote about the reform. The smoke of Satan is in the church.
A reform was needed. What people today take for granted is the result of constant change. Some people think that pre-Vatican II, the liturgy was the same as it had been since it was finalized and some thought that it was finalized as soon as church left the catacombs (though you’d ask some and they will tell you that the Tridentine mass was sung in the catacombs as well.
Just consider indulgences (NOT absolution) and how difficult they were to obtain in the middle ages, or even just two hundred years ago. Now it’s hard to turn the page in the calendar and not find some opportunity to get complete indulgence at least for souls in the purgatory.
But on the topic of Councils, if somebody thinks Vatican II changed liturgy a lot, if you see just how much the Council of Trent changed, you’ll realize the people who went to Tridentine mass (considering it the ancient one and the only right one) would feel VERY out of place during mass in a 12th century church.
I went to Egypt with my wife in December 2009. On the 8th, we went to mass at the local Catholic Coptic school and chapel and we were both astonished with the liturgy and how it was completely different from the typical western or eastern tradition that we know of. And I presume that liturgy persisted and was preserved for centuries and was even older than Trent.
I’m going to sign up for the booster shot soon (right after I’m out of my current bout of common cold that might or might not be omicron variant). I probably went through covid in 2020, since I had the standard symptoms, but when antibody testing became available, my levels were just a bit higher than clear negative. My wife went through the same symptoms around the same time and had much higher antibody levels than me. We eventually got our shots as they were becoming available to our age or occupation groups, and now that my children (5, 9 and 10) can be vaccinated, I’m planning to sign them up as soon as it’s possible.
But I also see that a lot of people are not getting vaccinated and aren’t planning to.
In a way, maybe Omicron is God’s blessing in disguise in that its symptoms are typically significantly milder but the spread is also significantly faster. It will spread more quickly, kill fewer people and give immunity to those who wouldn’t get it normally. Not ignoring xkcd.com/2557, but also pointing out that if somebody won’t go get a shot, if a pi, rho or sigma variant turns out deadlier than smallpox, maybe the world population won’t get decimated this year.
The vaccinated world won’t get decimated (as long as they don’t have too many co-morbidities). But the unvaccinated are dying rather quickly right now.
There was a comment in a Bulwark (a conservative Never Trumper news site everyone should read) article today that mentioned that an antimasker who stated at Trump’s recent lovefest that he harasses cancer patients solicited laughter from his friends. That pretty much sums up the antivax, antimask crowd.
If we had this population of arrested development prima Donnas in 1942, we would have lost WW II, quickly. It wouldn’t have even been a contest.