The MAGA movement is really that of a cult that feels oppressed and is so used to following certain themes that they’re far beyond the reach of the reason. They’ve essentially become incapable of functioning as independent human beings. At least, that’s the experience of Jonathon Schwartz of the Intercept. Schwartz started out writing joke tweets, only to find that the MAGAs believed it. It caused him to write increasingly ridiculous tweets filled with lies, to see if he could get to a place where the MAGAs rejected it as mere lies. He never got there. It is funny at first, and then it because horrifying. This cultish devotion is exactly how Nazi Germany was able to inflict the most reprehensible.

The joke started long ago, prior to the 2016 election, even:

My guess is that at least 75% of the MSM, including me, has a side job destroying Trump ballots pic.twitter.com/8kg5VYNSQB

— Jon Schwarz (@schwarz) November 1, 2016

Schwartz then writes:

It ended this past week with an unhealthy 84-tweet long thread by me and a quote tweet by Gen. Michael Flynn’s brother Joseph, informing his 400,000 Twitter followers of my malfeasance:

Michael Flynn used to be a 3-star general. Of course, he’s fallen off his rocker since then, but that is the point. One doesn’t stumble into a 3-star position. It is exceedingly difficult to attain, the military starts washing people out fairly quickly after the Captain rank. It is remarkably impressive if one makes it to being a light-colonel, never mind a one-star. Presumably, the Flynn family (Michael’s other brother is also a 3-star) is or was highly competent in every other area. Joseph Flynn is highly unlikely to be some mouth breather who never made it past 8th grade.

But that is the thing with cults, at some point, someone’s mind breaks and it doesn’t matter how sharp one might have been before.

… They’ve been experiencing some modest cognitive dissonance that they’d prefer to resolve. The ideal solution would be a member of the hated mainstream media openly confessing that he and his colleagues don’t just put their thumb on the scales during their day jobs but are also so committed to cheating that they moonlight to do it directly. My 2016 tweets were that solution.

Schwartz then took it entirely over the top, when people started calling for him to be arrested, he said, “Arrested for what? It’s totally legal to destroy ballots!”

That didn’t work, either. They still believed he was serious. It drew even more outrage. Someone tagged the @FBI account, Schwartz said that the FBI was in on it! They believed him, of course. He then said that his right to destroy ballots was in the Ten Commandments, many believed him and thus said “Karma” would get him. He then said they don’t know what karma is, it’s a Buddist concept where if you destroy Trump ballots you’re promised a better life. He then said that the right to destroy ballots is in the Constitution.

This. Is. Insanity. And yet they believed he was serious at every turn. Schwartz started tagging different positions of authority, @WhiteHouse, @StateDepartment, @NASA, @”The Police,” @Walgreens, @Oprah, @Jesus, @OnlyFans. Plainly, it’s just getting sillier.

There are many more that you’re welcome to peruse, they get funnier each time, but Schwartz’s conclusion is terrifying:

“Only around tweet No. 50 did I comprehend how mentally oppressive I’ve come to find it to live in a country in which about a quarter of the other people are, for all intents and purposes, members of a cult.”

Stunning. Read more here.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak