... the tweet features Ogles, a cheerful freshman Republican from Tennessee, wishing his followers a happy Fourth of July. The text of the greeting is remarkable only if you don’t live in MAGA-land:Hey guys, Congressman Andy Ogles here, wishing you a happy and blessed Fourth of July. Hey, remember our Founding Fathers. It’s we the people that are in charge of this country, not a leftist minority. Look, the left is trying to destroy our country and our family, and they’re coming after you. Have a blessed Fourth of July. Be safe. Have fun. God bless America.Can something be cheerful and dark at the same time? Can a holiday message be both normal and so very strange? If so, then Ogles pulled it off. This is a man smiling in a field as a dog sniffs happily behind him. The left may be “coming after you,” as he warns, but the vibe isn’t catastrophic or even worried, rather a kind of friendly, generic patriotism. They’re coming for your family! Have a great day!
Happy Fourth of July, y’all! 🇺🇸
— Rep. Andy Ogles (@RepOgles) July 4, 2023
I am thankful for this great nation my family calls home, where we freely practice our faith and exercise our liberties. pic.twitter.com/UT4Otqt5Sy
French continues:
It’s not just Ogles. It’s no coincidence that one of the most enduring cultural symbols of Trump’s 2020 campaign was the boat parade. To form battle lines behind Trump, the one man they believe can save America from total destruction, thousands of supporters in several states got in their MasterCrafts and had giant open-air water parties.MAGAs intimidate their political opponents, but they don't really notice, French says -- their self-image is that they're
good, likable people who’ve just been provoked by a distant and alien “left” that many of them have never meaningfully encountered firsthand.I agree with French that the MAGAs seem happy, and I think the reason is not just that they're happy and friendly within their bubble -- it's that the societal breakdown they feel is taking place is something that they've "never meaningfully encountered firsthand." I wrote about this back in March, when David Brooks argued that young liberals are more depressed because they're more likely to "catastrophize." Right-wingers catastrophize too -- as French would put it, they think America faces total destruction -- but, as I noted, the insulated, bubble-protected lives of most right-wingers are pretty sweet:
No one's really coming for their guns -- they have plenty, and it's easy to buy more. No one's really coming for their red meat or their big-ass SUVs. No one's forcing them to be gay or bi or trans. Politically, they run half the states. They run the Supreme Court and will control it for decades. They run the House, and they have an excellent chance of taking the Senate and the White House next year.As French says, we're a distant threat, so they don't care what they do to us. And because we're distant, all the things they hate us for are things they see only on Fox News, and don't recognize as exaggerations and distortions. They think America is going to hell in a handbasket, but they've never even seen the handbasket. And while they'll never admit it, their America is just fine. They run it. They own libs in it. And they'll stage more boat parades in it soon.
And in the meantime, they make liberals squeal in agony any time they please. Hey, let's propose a bill to make being a Democrat illegal! A legislator in Florida actually did that. Let's hand out AR-15 pins on the House floor! Let's find creative new ways to make guns more available and abortions less available! Let's ban books and drag shows, and put up more and more barriers to being trans, until eventually it's illegal at every age! Past a certain point, it's all just sport. It's quite possible that most right-wingers don't even care about the actual policy outcomes -- as the man said, the cruelty is the point.
The point is that the cruelty is fun for them. So of course right-wingers are happier -- they're having fun making us miserable.
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