Trigger Warnings
And MAGA safe spaces
Remember when Charlie Kirk was killed? People who then posted quotes demonstrating he was racist, sexist, and made his money pimping a politics of division always opened with, “Charlie Kirk did not deserve to die.”
That was a trigger warning to MAGA that let them know what followed was going to upset them. But it hit the Facts, Not Feelings crowd hard, nonetheless.
That same phenomenon—the MAGA Trigger Warning—has cropped up in the 48 hours since Trump pulled his own Putin, and began the Annexation of Venezuela. The posts start with “Maduro was a cruel dictator,” or something similar, condemning his actions as President of Venezuela. Then they make a statement saying that the military action is imperialist aggression, it violates international law, or this destabilizes both Large Nation/Small Nation relations in general as well as between nations with nuclear capabilities. The Trigger Warning is put there to counter the triggered response: “Maduro lost the last election! His was an unconstitutional regime!”
To MAGA, international relations and diplomacy are beyond their limited scope of comprehension. They engage with politics like they engage with sports: They root for their team. Like sports, they don’t have to have any idea how the game is really played, to bask in reflected glory when “we” win.
MAGA and the sports fan do not actually own the team they are rooting for, nor do they work for it in any capacity, but when the team wins, they feel good. That endorphin and dopamine combination gives a sense of belonging, of being part of the team. The team wins because they care, and the more they care, the more they are part of the team. They demonstrate their commitment through the amount of time and money they spend on the team—game tickets and logo-branded merchandise, mostly.
Considerations of the Constitution or global realpolitik are too nuanced. We won!
What nation bought the most Venezuelan oil? China? Is that what all the fuss over the Panama Canal was about, last winter?
Speaking of Panama, I wonder how secure their government is feeling, right about now. Colombia’s president invoked Bolivarian liberatory theory in a speech directed toward the United States. Trump has no idea who Simón Bolívar was, or that South and Central American unification would be possible. He decided to respond with a threat to invade Colombia.
The United States can easily dominate a fragmented South and Central America, but Bolívar understood a united front would be a formidable economic agent, and militarily unconquerable. Trump’s actions make such thoughts more approachable for the various nationalist movements: The United States of Other Americas.
These next 48 hours, while Congress comes back into session and we mark the fifth anniversary of the Insurrection, will determine how America is to be treated by the rest of the world. Trump did what leads other nations to be economically sanctioned or otherwise disciplined by nations that have come to rely on the post-WWII international order. Should the Democrats prove enfeebled (they will), other nations will discipline America, until the people are able to overcome the regime.
The Democrats are complicit, they are not an opposition party. Despite recent memes noting that Kamala Harris would not have done what Trump has been doing (no shit) that does not make her an opponent to the party that controls the government—The Corporate Party. They own virtually every national-level elected official, regardless of franchise (D or R) or personal brand.
Kamala Harris would not have done what Trump has, but she was also never going to address the reasons why Trump and the Corporatists were able to gain power.
Similarly, the Democrats who run the party are more interested in creating safe spaces for the ruling class, rather than addressing the problem of extreme economic stratification as it has weighed on the population. They play as a party of inclusion, but they doggedly attack anyone in favor of effectively using the state to mitigate social class conflict.
A real politics of inclusion needs an economic foundation. Otherwise it is just a bunch of identity politics, which Corporatists are happy to play.