The Long MAGA Apology That Is Never Coming

Liberals must accept that Trump’s popularity with MAGA was never about the economy.

Artwork: © Carlyn Beccia | www.CarlynBeccia.com

Dear Conversationalists,

This week’s Sunday article will not be behind the paywall. I know many of my readers are at similar crossroads, so this is a conversation all of us need to have. Comments are open for paid subscribers only. I don’t have time to police the usual MAGA toxicity.

Next week, we will discuss the latest research around the clitoris.

-Carlyn

---

Sometimes, I talk to MAGA.

I chat with them in bars, listen to endless focus groups, and debate with them online.

Why? I have always had a masochistic desire to understand MAGA for one reason — half of my family is MAGA. And not the kind that quietly voted for Trump because they thought he would make them rich. I mean, full-on, red hat-wearing, abuse immigrants, end DEI, kill science, attend the rallies, MAGA people.

I love my family, and I hate everything they represent. That kind of cognitive dissonance will shred your soul.

It will also make you look for answers.

An incident with a MAGA family member recently changed how I viewed the entire movement. Let’s call this family member Marge.

Marge is about to get fired from her job because the Trump administration is demanding all remote workers return to the office, even if the office is in another state. Marge has had her job for over 25 years.

I called her to see how she was doing. Now, I thought for sure Marge would have some starry-eyed epiphany. She would finally see that she voted for cruelty, and the chickens had come home to roost and peck out her eyes for good measure.

So I just listened to her complain. But at the end of her rant, I teased, “You might just vote Democrat after Trump is done tearing down the economy.”

Without missing a beat, she replied, “I love Trump. I want him to stay in office forever.”

And there it was. I thought losing her job would free her from this cult, but it only strengthened the bonds.

My experience is not anecdotal. A recent survey found that 90 percent of Republicans think Trump is doing a fabulous job, while only 4 percent of Democrats do.

Let that sink in. Trump currently has a 90% popularity rating with Republicans.

In only two months, inflation has risen, egg prices are ridiculous, job growth has slowed, the stock market has flattened, and consumer confidence has dropped to pandemic numbers. Trump is hurting his voters and has never been more loved by them.

This kind of blind loyalty terrifies me. I know where it leads.

Let’s break for a brief history lesson…

---

It’s 1930s Germany. Meet Hans. Hans is broke. Hans is angry. Hans has nothing going for him, and the world won’t let him forget it. His job prospects suck, his country’s been humiliated, and his future looks about as bright as a coal mine at midnight.

Then Hans meets Ernst Röhm, the scar-faced war hero who promises to build an army of discarded soldiers. He offers Hans a brown shirt and a purpose, so Hans signs up.

Hitler’s SA — the Sturmabteilung — isn’t just a street gang with uniforms; it’s a brotherhood of disaffected men who have been handed power for the first time in their lives. Hans finally gets what he craves: the chance to punch down, to hurt the people he’s been told are the cause of his suffering.

The SA unit in Nuremberg, 1929 | Public Domain — Germany

And for a while, it works. The SA terrorizes Jews, communists, and anyone who looks at them the wrong way. They are feared. They are useful.

Until they aren’t.

Ernst Röhm seduces Hans and countless other young men. Röhm isn’t just any Nazi — he’s one of Hitler’s closest friends. They fought together in World War I, broke bread together, and dreamed up the Nazi movement side by side.

Röhm builds Hitler his army of street brawlers — the Brownshirts — a gang of disillusioned men who have nothing to lose and everything to destroy. These men aren’t ideologues; they’re angry, humiliated, and hungry for power.

And it’s not the kind of power that builds but the kind that destroys.

Ernst Röhm, a German military officer and leader of the Nazi paramilitary force known as the Sturmabteilung (SA), 1924 | Public Domain

And for a time, it works. The Brownshirts terrorize political enemies, crush dissent, and pave Hitler’s path to power. Röhm believes he’s indispensable. He believes Hitler is loyal to him.

Hitler is loyal only to power and revenge.

One night, Hitler decides he doesn’t need Röhm anymore. The Brownshirts have served their purpose. Now they’re a liability. He has built a stronger army — the SS or Schutzstaffel.

The SA were thuggish, undisciplined, and violent, great for smashing enemies but terrible for Hitler’s goal of securing legitimacy. Hitler needed the support of the traditional military, business leaders, and conservatives.

Unlike the rowdy SA, the SS was a small, disciplined, and fanatically loyal force directly under Hitler’s control. Led by Heinrich Himmler, the SS was personally devoted to Hitler and could be trusted to enforce his will without question. (They also had better uniforms.)

Troop inspection of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler in Berlin, 1938 | Public Domain — Germany

Military leaders expected Hitler to rein in Röhm and the SA. The Night of the Long Knives (June 30 — July 2, 1934) was Hitler’s way of proving his loyalty to them.

So, on June 30, 1934, Röhm, Hitler’s old friend, is dragged from his bed and thrown into a prison cell. He is given a pistol and told to kill himself. When he refuses, he is shot. His SA army is dismantled.

When the Night of the Long Knives ended, roughly 85 political opponents were murdered, along with over 200 SA leaders.

And what happened to Hans? We don’t know. Many of these men were lost to history. If he was lucky, he was absorbed into the new order. If he was not, he was dead or discarded — just another broken tool tossed aside by the very man he trusted.

Flash forward to today, and you have the same story. Just swap out the jackboots for red hats. The rise of the MAGA movement isn’t a tale of economic anxiety assuaged by policy promises. It’s a narrative driven by a profound sense of societal alienation.

The grievances aren’t about GDP, unemployment rates, or the price of eggs. They’re about identity, recognition, and a visceral need to reclaim a sense of power in a world that seems increasingly indifferent, especially to white men.

MAGA wasn’t scammed. They weren’t tricked. They knew exactly what they were getting when they voted for Trump. They wanted chaos, lawlessness, and the thrill of watching everything burn. They weren’t looking for a strong economy or lower taxes.

They were looking for revenge — on liberals, on progress, on science, on a world that has labeled them losers.

And let’s be clear: they are losers, even the rich ones. They may not admit it, but watch how they act. They don’t fight to win; they fight to make sure nobody else does.

If they can’t have universal healthcare, nobody can. If they can’t afford college, then screw student debt relief. If their town is crumbling, then why should other cities get funding? If they can’t get a job, why should a Black woman or a disabled veteran?

They will set the entire country on fire just to roast a single liberal on the flames of their hate. And when the economy tanks, they won’t blame the billionaire tax cuts or the economic policies that hurt them most. No, they will double down because suffering is the point. If they’re in pain, they want you to be, too.

Think that’s an exaggeration? Look at what they cheer for. A government shutdown that starves federal workers and denies humanitarian aid to starving children? Good. Immigrants being treated like animals? Even better. Trans people treated like they don’t exist? More fodder for their hate.

They don’t want policy; they want a target. And if it means blowing up democracy to get it, so be it.

Many liberals see their thirst for hate but not their thirst for lawlessness, even though January 6 was a trailer of what is to come.

Bottomline: Trump isn’t America’s new autocrat because of a broken economy. He was handed an economy that was the envy of the world, and he smashed it to pieces in less than two months.

No, Trump did not come to power through a broken economy, but he will stay in power through it, and he and all of the Project 2025 masterminds know that.

Schadenfreude is delicious

Perhaps you have noticed a deluge of stories about MAGA voters being crushed by Trump’s policies? Liberals share these stories because schadenfreude is bittersweet.

The message is clear — look how these fools thought the abuser would only abuse the other guy and not them. Now, they are getting their just desserts.

What you won’t hear in these tragic MAGA tales is what we so desperately want to hear — I am sorry.

I am sorry, I shouldn’t have voted for a felon and not expected felonious behavior. I shouldn’t have voted for a liar and not expected more lies. I should have chosen the candidate who represented hope, love, and prosocial policies. I should have voted for the candidate with more than a “concept of a plan” to grow the economy.

Yeah, so that apology is never coming.

No moment of clarity. No rock bottom where they wake up and say, “My God, what have I done?” That fantasy liberals have — the one where MAGA voters, pockets turned inside out, come crawling back with an “I’m sorry” and a promise never to do it again? It ain’t happening. They don’t want to be saved; they want company in the misery they’ve embraced.

Psychologically, this phenomenon aligns with the concept of traumatic bonding, where individuals form strong emotional attachments to groups or leaders who reflect their pain and anger. This bond is reinforced by a cycle of perceived victimization. Eventually, this victim story becomes impervious to factual rebuttal.

The human capacity for denial plays a pivotal role in this psychology. When confronted with evidence that contradicts their beliefs, MAGA individuals often resort to denial as a defense mechanism to avoid the psychological discomfort of cognitive dissonance. This isn’t ignorance. It’s a deliberate, albeit subconscious, choice to preserve one’s identity and worldview, even at the expense of reality.

In other words, facts won’t fix this. This is the real problem. If MAGA voters admit they’ve been lied to, it’s an assault on their identity. And nobody wants to be branded the fool.

This cycle of disinformation and denial also happened in 1930s Germany. People clung to the lies because the truth was too painful. Embracing the truth meant they had been duped, that their anger had been weaponized, that they had been nothing more than pawns in a bigger game.

MAGA isn’t just a political movement; it’s an identity. And identities don’t change overnight.

So what do we do about it? That’s the real question. We can’t wait for them to change because they won’t. We also can’t out-anger them; feeding the rage machine just makes it stronger.

The only way forward is through empathy — not the naive “let’s all hold hands” Panglossian singalong, but the strategic kind. The kind that sees MAGA for what they are: lost, bitter, and hurting.

To be clear, empathy doesn’t mean endorsement. People like Musk see empathy as a weakness because he conflates it with surrender.

Empathy is an intelligence. It’s an intelligence that sees who can be saved and who cannot. And MAGA cannot be saved. It’s a cult, and cults only die when the movement dies. Not even cholesterol doing its thing to the King will end the cult. MAGA is far more than loyalty to Trump.

To be fair, the onus isn’t on them to seek redemption; it’s on society to create an environment where such radicalization loses its appeal. And unfortunately, that may take decades of rebuilding. Now, we don’t have that kind of time.

I know. I know. Most of you cut MAGA out of your lives years ago. I am playing catchup. But here is where we win back decency. There are a lot of moderate voters who chose to stay home and not vote. Those people can be reached. For them, the 2024 election was a Hobson’s choice between a felon and an anemic party of weak Democrats. Show them strength, and they will return.

And a lot of people just didn’t give a shit about democracy. But when their stocks are gone, healthcare is dismantled, and social security has been hacked away to the point that it is inoperable, those people will suddenly turn out at the voter booths. We can’t lose faith. Our better angels will prevail once we shut out the demons.

---

The historical lesson from Hans’ fate is sobering. The very movement that gave him purpose ultimately deemed him expendable. This underscores a brutal truth: authoritarian movements thrive on the disaffected but are quick to discard them once they’ve served their purpose.

The people who voted for Trump believed that by hurting others, they would hurt less. The only way for a loser to succeed is to cause loss to others. It’s a zero-sum game for them. The sooner we accept the psychology behind every government overthrow, from Hitler to Orban, the sooner this country can organize and fight.

Trump ignited his base by allowing MAGA to feel seen. And that is how you neuter them — ignore them.

But waiting for a collective awakening from the MAGA cohort is as futile as expecting Hans to have foreseen his betrayal. The long MAGA apology is never coming. Not from Marge, not from the thousands who lost their jobs, their farms, their healthcare, or their savings because of the very policies they endorsed. Because MAGA isn’t about learning from mistakes; it’s about never admitting them.

They will go down with the ship, not because they were tricked, but because sinking it themselves was always the plan.

Carlyn Beccia is an award-winning author and illustrator of 13 books. Subscribe to Conversations with Carlyn for free content every Wednesday, or become a paid subscriber to get the juicy stuff on Sundays.