MAGA Mash-up: Musings on a conversation with 'the other side'
Mashup: A song or composition created by blending two or more pre-recorded songs
For a little over a year, I’ve been exchanging text messages with a guy in my home state. In many ways, it's been like the proverbial mashup. We each had, and still have, preconceived notions, pre-recorded songs to sing. His is definitely M-A-G-A!
We met via a hometown Facebook group, when he went viral over a wind farm project in our home county. Although a longtime promoter of renewable energy transition, I had to agree: that particular project was too big and probably badly ‘sold’ to the locals. So, I reached out to him.
We agreed that the tower size and distribution was probably not suitable for a fairly dense rural residential area. But then he proudly supported his objections with ‘fossil fuel’ misinformation, some of which was over 10 years stale. I tried to update his objections with UCSUSA and Undecided info. He went further into the woods, railing against EVs, solar and wind, and almost everything I think has a real chance of saving the environment from roasting.
But we kept on talking. Singing at each other. Occasionally, shouting.
From wind generators, the topics kept coming, proliferating with the daily news cycle. As they played out from the MAGA dark web, we covered ‘illegal' immigrants, trans girls in his daughter's locker room (There were none, of course!), Biden's high price of gasoline and eggs. Sometimes it got heated. Sometimes I apologized for coming on teacherly. Sometimes he admitted he disagreed, but I always made him think. Music to my ears.
And then, of course, as the election year heated up, it got really hard to keep from insulting each other in worst terms.
“Can you not read simple English?” I'd ask. He’d send another sloppily edited reel of cherry-picked Sleepy Joe or Harris insults.
“You’re completely fooled by fake news!” he'd say. I’d send him a list of the international dailies I compared. And point out his insults were libelous.
We’re still talking, miraculous as it may seem. Well, he’s talking, with his voice-recognition app; I’m typing. It may be that we share a perverse tendency to masochism. It may also be that he’s really a bot based in Northern Macedonia.
Now, post-election, we’re starting the clock again. He’s hard pressed not to gloat. I’m equally hard pressed not to shout that he’s about to see what his idol-in-chief really wants from him. (Money, money, money!)
And I have yet to pound MAGA on his rejection of EVs vs Elon Musk being 47’s BFF. I'm waiting for the right moment.
In full awareness of the Chinese caveat, I think it’s going to be interesting. By this time next year, will I be helping him see a way out of his tariff-driven misfortunes? Or will I be disappointed the administration hasn’t been as quite crazy as we’d hoped to campaign against?
Roll the dice!
But, whatever the reason you can find to talk to ‘someone from the other side,’ I think it’s worth it. It’s time-consuming, yes, and sometimes maddening. But it’s also useful. If I make MAGA think, he also forces me to. Why is he so devoted to his sources? (Because they're right in front of him?) Why are liberal subscribers bailing from the major dailies we used to depend on? (Because they've let us down?)
Will we have reached any real understanding come the 2026 Midterms? Maybe. If we set that as our goal. It can't hurt.
###
Karen Lee is a past DAGR Chair, currently DAGR Communications Chair, DPCA Voting Rep, a co-lead of the DA Ohio River Valley Team, some other stuff, and totally un-opinionated.