Hartmut Vennen

Trump: “I am pleased to announce that TODAY my Administration officially filed the presentation and plans to the highly respected Commission of Fine Arts for what will be the GREATEST and MOST BEAUTIFUL Triumphal Arch, anywhere in the World. This will be a wonderful addition to the Washington D.C. area for all Americans to enjoy for many decades to come! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Why is MAGA so hateful? I get asked this a lot. The short answer is: because hate is the point. But let me break it down. Grievance as identity MAGA isn't a political movement built on policy. It's built on resentment. The core message has always been "you've been wronged" — by elites, by immigrants, by cities, by universities, by the media, by women, by minorities, by anyone who isn't you. This isn't a coalition that comes together to BUILD something. It comes together to tear things down. Hate isn't a byproduct of the movement. It's the fuel. Zero-sum thinking They genuinely believe that if someone else gains, they lose. Rights for gay people? That's an attack on Christians. Immigrants succeeding? They must be stealing from "real Americans." A Black president? He must be illegitimate. There's no concept of shared prosperity or expanding opportunity. Just winners and losers. And they're terrified of losing. The dominance hierarchy A lot of MAGA is rooted in evangelical and authoritarian psychology. There's supposed to be a natural order: white at the top, Christian at the top, male at the top, straight at the top. When you've been at the top of a hierarchy your whole life, equality feels like oppression. Giving others a seat at the table feels like theft. The media ecosystem Fox News → OANN → Newsmax → podcasts → Twitter/X. It's a 24/7 rage machine. Every algorithm rewards outrage. Every host competes to be more extreme than the last. These people are literally addicted to anger. Neurologically. They get dopamine hits from feeling righteous fury. They wake up and immediately check their phones to find out what they should be mad about today. Turn it off for a week and they go through withdrawal. Economic anxiety — weaponized Here's the thing: a lot of the underlying pain is real. Deindustrialization gutted their towns. Opioids killed their families. Wages stagnated while costs exploded. The American Dream stopped working for them. But instead of blaming the corporations that shipped jobs overseas, or the billionaires that rigged the economy, or the politicians that deregulated everything — they're taught to blame immigrants. To blame welfare recipients. To blame Black people in cities. To blame trans kids. Classic fascist playbook: take legitimate economic anger and redirect it at the vulnerable. The permission structure Trump didn't create the hate. He just gave it permission. For decades, these people were told to keep the quiet part quiet. Be polite. Use dog whistles. Then Trump came along and said the loud part loud — and nothing happened. No consequences. He showed them they could be openly racist, openly cruel, openly contemptuous of democracy — and not only survive, but win. "He fights" doesn't mean he fights for them. It means he's mean to people they don't like. The cruelty is the point. Community built on enemies This is the part people miss: MAGA is a community. For a lot of these people — especially older, rural, isolated Americans — it's their entire social world. Their friends are MAGA. Their family is MAGA. Their church is MAGA. The hate is the membership card. The shared enemies are what bind them together. Leaving the movement doesn't just mean changing your politics. It means losing everyone you know. So they double down. And double down again. Because the alternative is being alone. The bottom line Why is MAGA so hateful? Because scared people + relentless propaganda + permission to be cruel + community built on shared enemies = hate as a lifestyle. They're not going to be reasoned out of it. They weren't reasoned into it. The only thing that works is making it socially and politically costly to be part of it. Outvoting them. Out-organizing them. And building something better that gives people a different place to belong.