Lately, I’ve stopped lurking and started engaging in comment threads. If I’m going to do this project honestly, I have to get comfortable speaking up—and, yes, with being attacked. There’s something I keep seeing from MAGA commenters: the need for the “winning” side to seek out and provoke people who disagree, just to antagonize. It’s not enough to “win”—they need someone to grind under their heel.
What’s With All the Victimhood?
Your guy won. He’s delivering exactly what he promised. Why the endless posture of grievance? Why sum up my entire life as “hateful” or “deviant” based on one comment? Sure, I called your embrace of Trumpism “idiocy,” but let’s be honest—most of you are out here gloating, not explaining.
But this is what truly baffles me: the complete lack of understanding about what you’re cheering for. You celebrate mayhem and troll other commenters—sometimes just to be nasty. What’s striking isn’t the nastiness; it’s the prideful ignorance of the very policies you’re celebrating.
The Mayhem You Cheer For Will Consume You
Trans people are being driven from society by government overreach and open season on their lives—all cheered on by the loudest Trump supporters. Racism is emboldened, spilling off social media and into the real world. Here’s the thing: when constitutional rights are stripped from one group, those rights become conditional for everyone.
Every person in America—legal or not—has the right to due process. But people are being dragged off the streets with no warrants, no due process, and no accountability. ICE and other agencies are scooping up “suspicious-looking” people—undocumented, documented, citizens—and in some cases, even legal residents have been held without charges, sometimes deported, sometimes lost.
Maybe you think that’s just fine, as long as it’s happening to people who are brown, or queer, or otherwise “undesirable” to you. If you do, I’ve got bad news for you: that’s not how totalitarianism works. It never stops with the people you dislike. If the government can disappear someone for the color of their skin, they can disappear anyone—for anything.
It’s Not Just “Them”—It’s Me, and Maybe You
I’m a white-looking guy who’s less white than I appear. My mother, who died of COVID in 2020, spent her life “passing”—not really as white, but as anything other than Black. She was Afro-Caribbean; I’m an “octoroon” by racist nomenclature, and I’m also a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Recently, I came out as bisexual, too. Maybe you dislike one of those things, or all of them. Maybe you think people like me are less American, or don’t deserve the same freedoms.
Here’s the reality: the Trump movement is targeting people like me—Black, Native, queer—using the same old tools, repackaged for a new regime. The question isn’t whether my identity will get me sent to a camp; it’s which one will be the “reason.” And if I’m vocal—if this work has any reach—I’ll end up on a list, if I’m not already.
If You’re Still Smiling, Think Again
If you’re reveling in watching “libs” get owned or “undesirables” get punished, ask yourself: what happens when you’re no longer in favor, when there are no more “undesirables” left to punish except for people like you? Do you really think you’re on a protected list if you get caught in the wrong bureaucracy or when Trump’s economic chaos hits you?
There aren’t separate economies for “believers” and “others.” What’s coming—loss of jobs, freedoms, even the basic right to exist—will reach you, too.
Let me appeal, not to empathy (since that’s clearly not working), but to self-interest. Maybe you’ve seen the shirt: “I wish for you what you wish for immigrants.” I don’t. But it doesn’t matter—because this machine you’re fueling? It’s coming for you, whether you wish it or not.
You’re sitting at the end of a tree branch, cackling as you watch it being sawed off.
I’m not trying to convince you of anything. I’m just to wake you up.
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