I found this report on Secretary of Department of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin’s (R-OK) encounter with MAGA fascinating:
Yet [Mullin] apparently isn’t good enough for MAGA die-hards. They’re furious and calling for his ouster over comments he made Saturday at a National Governors Association meeting in which he drew a distinction between legal and illegal immigration, and also suggested immigration reform would be a good idea in the long term because it’s needed to help the economy grow. [Zeeshan Aleem, MS NOW]
What did he say?
Over the weekend, Mullin told the National Governors Association Summer Meeting that in order to grow the economy, there needs to be more employment visas for the farm and agriculture sector, which some Republicans have tried to change out of concern that those who use them will be taking Americans’ jobs.
“Because this narrative that it steals American jobs is true in some industries, it’s not true for all industries,” he said during a fireside chat moderated by NGA chair Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt. “We want to take care of Americans first. It’s our economy, it’s our homeland, but there’s a way to utilize labor where we’re not having the participation rate we need to, and we can plug those holes.” [ABC News]
I think that, to the dispassionate observer – sure, go look that up, I’ll wait – that’s actually the beginning of a nuanced conversation, even if it looks like maybe Mullin dropped a word here or there.
MAGA is given to neither being dispassionate or, in fact, analysis.
We could discuss this in the context of apparent MAGA precepts, or the impact of the loss of immigration on the economy, or several other contexts, but I find more interesting what the future behavior of MAGA might be. We need to remember that, like most human institutions, there’s a power structure involved, whether it’s your local club for collecting post-stamps, or the “Catholic Church hierarchy.”
In an organization centered around disputes with central societal assumptions, in this case tolerance of variations in such human attributes as skin color, immigrant, religion, and other such attributes, the important valuations center around purity, and rejection of anything that might imperil such purity, and so what I think we’re going to see is rejection of nuance, of compromise, and the very idea that MAGA can be wrong. Instead, much like the Republican Party, discussion within the group will center around who can go further into the extremes of ideology and, importantly, arrogance. These will be the valuations upon which judgments of social position will pivot, and the ambitious will strive to find more and more ‘pure’ positions.
In other words, look for MAGA positions to become more and more extreme, and MAGA attitudes to become more and more arrogant.
I don’t expect MAGA to grow appreciably; indeed, the drive towards purity may result in the ejection, voluntary and involuntary, of members. Some will not qualify for membership, and some will become disgusted, either by the perceived weakness of the organization or by the consequences of the group dynamics. Will there be a wall where no ideological warrior can move even further right?
But I had been ignoring MAGA as likely to dissolve – and I still expect them to dissolve. But they’ll be making a racket for while longer, it seems.
