MAGA: A Government Of The Children, By The Children, For The Children

In early 2024, a mommy blogger went viral for having an emotional breakdown on social media.

Through floods of tears, she explained how exhausted she was by her two-year-old’s constant misbehaviour, how overwhelmed she was by his screaming and violent outbursts, how loving and patient she’d been despite these provocations, and this might even have achieved something if she’d been telling it to someone other than the two-year-old in question.

Because, unsurprisingly, this kid did not address her problems.

He just stood there, sucking his thumb, totally indifferent to her perfectly valid complaints, because it turns out, children don’t think and behave like adults.

You don’t shame children by pointing out their childish behaviour, you don’t persuade them by whining about the damage they’re causing, you don’t convince them with logic or reasoning or appeals to empathy, because two-year-olds haven’t developed the capacity to think about anyone but themselves or think rationally about the monsters under their beds.

Kids don’t understand the sacrifices grownups make to keep them happy, they don’t appreciate the systems that support them, they’ve never had to learn how to weigh the consequences of their decisions or admit when they’re wrong, because when things go sideways, they know they always can cry or sh*t themselves until a grownup comes to clean up their mess.

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If you’ve been paying attention during this second coming of the Trump administration, you’ve probably been at least somewhat close to a breakdown.

Maybe you’re exhausted by Trump posting sombrero memes in response to a government shutdown that has left hundreds of thousands of federal workers without pay, cost the economy billions of dollars, and risks leaving as many as 42 million Americans unable to feed their children.

Perhaps you’re mortified by people like White House press secretaryKaroline Leavitt and the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, Sean Parnell, answering journalists’ perfectly valid questions with “your mom” jokes.

You might be overwhelmed by the childishness of people like Tim Pool claiming that the Vice President of the United States calling people “dipshits” on Twitter is “what he voted for,” or by Trump posting AI-generated videos of himself dropping turds on Americans who challenge his right to “plenary authority.”

But do you know who thinks stuff like this is “hilarious,” and “legendary,” and a “mic drop”? Do you know who thinks the resurgence of the word “retard” is “one of the great culture victories”? Do you know who thinks Nazi slogans are “based” and rape is “epic”?

MAGA!

Because it turns out, these kids don’t think and behave like adults either.

These kids think it’s “savage” when Trump gives his opponents elementary school nicknames like “Liddle Marco” and “Sleepy Joe.”

They think it’s “awe-inspiring” to rebrand the Department of Defence as “The Department of War,” and blow up boats off the coast of Venezuela without due process or evidence.

They think Trump is telling them the truth when he promises them clean coal, and non-existent healthcare plans, and the list of high-profile sexual abusers that Trump definitely isn’t on (thankfully, he can rely on kids’ notoriously short attention spans to hide the fact that he never follows through).

Because these kids don’t think about the consequences of their decisions, you can’t shame them by pointing out that their arguments make no sense, they haven’t developed the capacity to think about anyone but themselves or admit when they’re wrong or think rationally about the immigrants eating their pets.

MAGA is not a political movement. These are not adults trying to make the world a better place, they haven’t even thought about what making America great again means. These are just children, trying to tear down a system that made adults the boss of them.

And if the Democrats have taken their eye so far off the ball that these kids are calling the shots, there are only two things to do:

A: Do everything possible to contain the damage. And B: Do some urgent, uncomfortable soul-searching about how these kids got into power in the first place.

In the early 2020s, liberal adults faced down many a tantrum to keep the kids on the Left in check.

We railed against cancel culture, we fought to balance compassion with reality, and we warned, in our most age-appropriate voices, that identity politics and labelling everything “white supremacy” would trigger precisely the fragile, reactionary backlash we’re living through today.

The problem isn’t that the MAGA movement has kids in it; every political movement has its crybabies to deal with. The problem is that MAGA’s kids aren’t teenagers on TikTok or recreationally offended college students, they’re billionaires and senators and the president of the United States.

And nobody in the party of “personal responsibility” seems to have the guts to call them out.