The Fetishization Of Post Truth And Why Your Attention Is Feeding The Beast.

Originally published on Medium

I will start this article with one of my long held opinions: Maga are not as stupid as they seem. I do not believe they are as impervious to facts as they appear in this post truth world. I think they are cognizant and aware of Trump’s lies and deceit and their willingness to be complicit in his narratives does not derive from a place of deep ignorance or a lack of education. They have fetishized their history, their military might and their economic hegemony for the ultimate one-up-manship. They have foregone the facts in favour of dominance.

In fact, I would even go as far as to say that they are all too aware of the biggest threat to their continued trolling train wreck existence. They are the next in line on the path to irrelevancy in a world where facts and social efficiency have been taught to mean something.

Those creating technological infrastructure or scientific advancement or social commentary (etc, you get the picture) have skills that are well rewarded and integral to a society where the shared expertise of ‘truth’ is the dominant linchpin around which everyone else’s life revolves.

Clutching the pin on this particular grenade is of course a calamity waiting to happen but what about the person holding the promise of anarchy? Why would they remove the pin? Why would somebody do such a thing? Don’t they care about who will be hurt or injured to those closest to the blast? Maybe they misunderstand the danger, like a misbehaving child who went into the museum created by bigger and better people and decided to touch everything.

And all the while, maybe for the first time in this linchpin removers life, the world has its eye fixed on them. Some try to negotiate, encouraging that the imposing anarchy be placed down gently. Nobody has ever tried to negotiate with them before. They previously had nothing worth negotiating to obtain. That feels good. All at once they went from being at the disappearing fringes of a steadily fading outer ring of contributors to being thrust into the epicentre.

All this time, all they had to do was take it. Trump showed them how to do it and it was as easy as he claimed it would be. He was right.

Some truth tellers start to walk away and lose interest, muttering under their breaths and sniggering to each other. “They’re not gonna do it. It’s all sexist pomp and racist puffery.” Of course, then Maga has to pull the pin. Now it’s just a matter of the ticking of the clock. If the spectators walk away their attention goes with them and wherever their eye is fixed is where the nucleus of the future lives. When they choose a new fixed point of agreement, the newly acquired epicentre will once again wither into the outer fringes, unraveling at the neglected seams which break off and drift away into the void. When you shout into the void, nobody shouts back. It is you with yourself for eternity. A nice explosion would be an interesting change of scenery.

Our linchpin thief grows a little desperate. “All you liberals do is talk over us. You think you know everything but you’ve all been blinded to the truth. Wake up! Egg prices are lower than they have ever been!”

The retreating purveyors of truth stop, turning on the spot, brimming with the absurdity. The sheer wrongness of the lie makes them bristle and bulge with intellectual pride. Soon they will be ready to harvest.

Maga are stupid and ill educated. This is what happens when you don’t fund education.

They are narcissistic boomers.

They are called Karen.

They are capitalist psychopaths.

Yes, they are. See how they cower under your criticism and your hateful words? The very picture of victimhood and religious virtue, a veritable Madonna under a megalithic tidal wave of sin. SAD. They are also on your social media feeds and streaming services. They have launched themselves to the head of the queue for social science research. They are the number one google search result under election queries and they are your parents, your neighbours and your previous friends.

They are all of these things because those who value and place definitions of truth are fascinated by their ability to reject it.

The Maga clan are satiated, living in epistemic ecstasy, well fed and still asking for second helpings and here’s the worst part…

You have learned to love it too. You see their notifications ping on your phone and dopamine floods your reward system. Of course they are wrong and you love to tell them how pathetic it is, how desperate they are to have even a taste of relatability while they writhe at the bottom of the social barrel.

They are nothing while pretending they are everything.

That is the problem you have to put right. Your primal side loves a good puzzle and what better puzzle than this cannibalistic monster that feeds on its own tail.

I suppose it begs the question: In this bizarre cosmic menagerie, are you a top or a bottom?