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Who Goes MAGA?
...
In Thompson’s spirit, I’ve decided to give her parlor game a little update, one that fixates a little less on breeding, the Blue Book, Lindbergh, racing stables, etc., and replaces it with the accoutrements of our own time—and, of course, the knowledge that this particular brand of fascism is as homegrown as American corn. Alas, we haven’t extirpated fascism since Thompson’s byline most of a century ago. So with some trepidation and humility, here’s my 2025 version. It’s called “Who Goes MAGA?”
?
I.
It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go MAGA.
You are in a lushly-appointed room in an American city: perhaps the capital, perhaps New York, perhaps somewhere on the periphery of Silicon Valley. Around you there is the scant but expensive evidence of contemporary minimalism. The primary decorations, here, are human.
There in the corner, holding his drink, is Mr. P, a journalist of some renown, who has covered the tech industry for a long time. His magazine profiles have granted the aura of genius to numerous venture capitalists and start-up founders; he has written a book which got favorable reviews, deepening the mythos of these self-appointed arbiters of the future. He is canted toward the city lights outside the window, and they capture the rapt absorption on his face, as someone murmurs to him about the latest developments in venture funding, the latest spinnaker launched toward the stock market.
At some point Mr. P believed in the perfectibility of man through technology, and it was that initial optimism that shone through his early writing; long ago, he realized he was surrounded by gasbags and egomaniacs, people who were more enthused about breaking other people than easing any of their burdens through the wonders they made. But he kept writing, like Candide, like a press release, although his language is elegant and muscular. He knows which way the money goes, and who is in favor, and who is not, and directs his coverage accordingly.
This pertains to Mr. P’s ideology, which was long ago compromised, and to money and power, proximity to which intoxicates him. That is why he is here. You do not need to ask if Mr. P would go MAGA: by virtue of selling his words to the highest bidder, and his virtue to engender virtue in those who lack it, he already has. Unto the last extremity of cruelty he will be there, offering his burnishing excuses. He no longer sees cruelty anymore, because a long time ago he trained himself not to.
https://buttondown.com/theswordandthesandwich/archive/who-goes-maga/
In Thompson’s spirit, I’ve decided to give her parlor game a little update, one that fixates a little less on breeding, the Blue Book, Lindbergh, racing stables, etc., and replaces it with the accoutrements of our own time—and, of course, the knowledge that this particular brand of fascism is as homegrown as American corn. Alas, we haven’t extirpated fascism since Thompson’s byline most of a century ago. So with some trepidation and humility, here’s my 2025 version. It’s called “Who Goes MAGA?”
?
I.
It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go MAGA.
You are in a lushly-appointed room in an American city: perhaps the capital, perhaps New York, perhaps somewhere on the periphery of Silicon Valley. Around you there is the scant but expensive evidence of contemporary minimalism. The primary decorations, here, are human.
There in the corner, holding his drink, is Mr. P, a journalist of some renown, who has covered the tech industry for a long time. His magazine profiles have granted the aura of genius to numerous venture capitalists and start-up founders; he has written a book which got favorable reviews, deepening the mythos of these self-appointed arbiters of the future. He is canted toward the city lights outside the window, and they capture the rapt absorption on his face, as someone murmurs to him about the latest developments in venture funding, the latest spinnaker launched toward the stock market.
At some point Mr. P believed in the perfectibility of man through technology, and it was that initial optimism that shone through his early writing; long ago, he realized he was surrounded by gasbags and egomaniacs, people who were more enthused about breaking other people than easing any of their burdens through the wonders they made. But he kept writing, like Candide, like a press release, although his language is elegant and muscular. He knows which way the money goes, and who is in favor, and who is not, and directs his coverage accordingly.
This pertains to Mr. P’s ideology, which was long ago compromised, and to money and power, proximity to which intoxicates him. That is why he is here. You do not need to ask if Mr. P would go MAGA: by virtue of selling his words to the highest bidder, and his virtue to engender virtue in those who lack it, he already has. Unto the last extremity of cruelty he will be there, offering his burnishing excuses. He no longer sees cruelty anymore, because a long time ago he trained himself not to.
https://buttondown.com/theswordandthesandwich/archive/who-goes-maga/