Drinking the Orange Kool-Aid

Will The Cultists Ever Break Free?

The 2024 Presidential Election is rapidly approaching. There are campaign signs all over my fair city, mostly for local candidates, however, there are a few signs for the Presidential candidates.

As we all know, there is only one candidate for President who is out on bail after being convicted of 34 crimes, and I can’t help but have this visceral reaction whenever I see his sign:

To me, it seems like a natural, what-sort-of-reaction-do-you-expect-me-to-have, kind of thing. It is not a manifestation of some “derangement syndrome” or anything like that. He has earned every bit of my vitriolic scorn with his deplorable behavior. I believe taking the high road or turning the other cheek with this guy is pointless. Removing a pig from his stinking mud hole means getting a little muddy.

Try as I might, I can’t think of a worse excuse for a human being than Donald Felonious. His narcissistic, toxic, asshole-ism has damaged this country terribly. I cannot and will not ignore it.

Eventually, and I hope it is very soon, he’ll be enjoying his one hour a day outside of his cell in the prison yard of the nearest correctional facility. I wonder, what will happen to his cult followers then?

Yes, I admit I experience a certain train wreck curiosity about the MAGA cultists. I am not an expert on cults and cultish behavior. Heck, I’m not an expert on anything. I’m just a regular guy, who posts his thoughts and opinions online. Substack makes it easy. Anyone can do it.

The MAGAs seem to fit the accepted definition of a cult. They believe their leader is an infallible, all-knowing, God-like genius who will lead them to the promised land. Which, if one listens to the Regressive Party’s rhetoric, involves even more tax cuts for the wealthy, the creation of an Immigration Gestapo to round up and deport immigrants, Bible classes in all public schools, and chastity belts for women with men holding the keys. There are many more, of course. Apparently, they would prefer a Gilead-like society. (As in A Handmaid’s Tale.)

The cultists’ unshakeable belief allows them to enthusiastically drink the Orange Kool-Aid, despite the overwhelming evidence that their leader is a fraud and a liar and a scammer. They simply do not care. The proven malfeasances and criminal behavior their scumbag ruler exhibits on a daily basis does not matter. Logic and honesty and morality do not matter. The Constitution of the United States of America does not matter. To be in the cult, they must suspend all rational, intelligent thinking in service of their Sunkist Jesus.

It is tempting to see the MAGAs as ignorant morons who are too stupid to know how stupid they are. And, that would be the easy way to go. Certainly, a great many of them fit that unpleasant description. But, should they all be written off?

A gathering of Orange Kool-Aid drinkers.

Comedian Jordan Klepper does a funny segment on The Daily Show called Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse. His videos can be found on YouTube, as well. He and a film crew visit MAGA rallies to talk to the cultists. Klepper is very skillful at putting them at ease and allowing them to speak their MAGA nonsensical nonsense.

For example, he’ll engage in a brief discussion with a cultist about law and order, and how too many felons are walking around free in this country. The MAGA gets all revved up and says their guy will crack down on criminals, and crime has been out of control under Biden/Harris, and Kamala Harris will let criminals run wild, yada yada yada.

Klepper then will slyly mention a case in New York where they let a criminal convicted of 34 felonies just run free in the community. It’s quite humorous when the MAGA agrees, then realizes what has just happened. Occasionally, the cultist will go silent, like the pieces of the puzzle in his mind do not fit together anymore. It is priceless.

I suppose Jordan Klepper has not changed very many minds of people he has interviewed. Still, I wish I could engage with MAGA people the way he does in his comedy segments. Unfortunately, I am not well spoken enough, I’m not smart enough, and I’m too introverted to do anything like that. Getting them to see the hypocrisy and idiocy of supporting their felonious cult ruler would be so satisfying, though. Even if it was only temporary.

Are the MAGAs all hopelessly lost causes? Aren’t there some who are just mistaken or misguided, who maybe are not quite as committed as the true believers? I don’t know. The optimist in me would like to believe those people exist, however, I have seen little actual evidence of it.

If they do exist, there has to be a way to reach them. Danged if I know what it is, though. How do you reach the unreachable? How do you reason with the unreasonable? The question may as well be, “How do you wake the dead”? So many questions with so few answers.

The Presidential election is only weeks away, and the contest is way closer than it should be. Millions of people will vote for a candidate who is a criminal. A liar. A sexual assaulter. A cheat. A draft dodger who thinks military cemeteries are filled with suckers and losers. An addlebrained, blathering, incoherent old man incapable of maintaining a train of thought for more than a few seconds. A raging narcissist who has had everything handed to him throughout his miserable privileged life. A whiny weirdo creep who could not care less about what middle and lower economic class people go through on a daily basis. An almost octogenarian man who wears more makeup than most drag queens. Someone who is totally unable or unwilling to act like a normal, decent human being.

Perhaps his addiction to poorly applied heavy makeup is actually a cry for help.

Republicans, how did this become acceptable to you?

Any one of those labels (except for wearing a lot of makeup, I guess) should be enough to prevent him from holding any elective office. And, if one can imagine those labels as boxes to be checked, this bastard checks them all. Multiple times.

It is so confounding that none of this stuff matters to the cult. It’s as if they have all lost their minds. Will the Kool-Aid drinkers ever break free?

Maybe someday the cultists will see the light. Maybe someday they’ll wonder why a supposed billionaire genius businessman is always asking them for their hard-earned money. Maybe they’ll realize that spending $60 on a Bible that costs $3 to make, and is imported from - guess where - China, is yet another con perpetrated upon them by a serial grifter. Maybe they will see the upcoming election as a way to break free of the grip their Sunkist Jesus has had on them. Maybe they will finally tire of all the lies and chaos and nastiness and weirdness and the verbal diarrhea constantly spewed forth by their increasingly feeble and incoherent criminal leader. Maybe they’ll realize that their Sunkist Jesus cares for nothing, other than his own bloated lying ass.

Yeah, right, like any of that is going to happen. Maybe I’m the one losing his mind.

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Something to say about Reasoning With the Unreasonable? Well, then . . .