'Tread on everyone except for me': Ex-GOP lawmaker exposes MAGA’s constant flip-flopping

In a piece in Baptist News Global, a former Kansas state legislator says that MAGA is "making America dizzy" with their ever-changing battle cries that are tailored to their own narratives.

Republican J. Basil Dannebohm was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives for the 113th District in 2014 but resigned after only 42 days in office, in March 2015, due to complications from early-onset Parkinson's disease.

Dannebohm notes that the "Tea Party Patriots” assumed the Gadsden flag as their banner. "Its famous 'don’t tread on me' slogan became their battle cry," he writes.

"Accusations waged by the far right are often confessions. Take, for example, conservative pastors, averaging one per day for 100 straight days in 2025, who have been arrested for sexual misconduct," he says.

Dannebohm cites an analysis by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) of President Donald Trump’s Truth Social posts from Jan. 1, 2023, to April 1, 2024, in which Trump vowed at least 19 times to weaponize law enforcement against civilians. "Since returning to office, Trump has regularly threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807," he says.

"Now, instead of 'Don’t tread on me,' so-called patriots are applauding the possibility of martial law, saying, 'Tread on everyone except for me,'" Dannebohm says.

He lists a number of contradictions some of the president's most ardent supporters have been guilty of, from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other prominent Republicans endorsing Maria Corina Machado for the Nobel Peace Prize — and then complaining that Trump deserved it —to MAGA influencer Laura Loomer condemning Charlie Kirk for not supporting Trump hard enough before his assassination and then threatening to publish the personal information of those who didn't mourn him properly after his death.

"Last month, an assemblage of conservatives blamed the 'radical left' for Kirk’s assassination, declaring a civil war on Democrats," Dannebohm writes. "Now, MAGA is divided over who bears responsibility for Kirk’s death, with provocateurs like Candace Owens blaming Israel for his untimely demise, a conspiracy theory that rivals Jade Helm on the absurdity scale."

When the state of Oregon asked a federal appeals court to rule on whether the Trump administration could legally send National Guard troops to Portland, officials sought the release of White House records as the White House objected to the discovery request as an “improper intrusion on separation of powers.”

"Surely they do not mean the same 'improper intrusion' that led to the National Guard deployment in the first place?" he writes.

He also cites the hypocrisy of MAGA declaring the Covid-19 pandemic as a hoax and then Trump receiving a Covid booster at his most recent physical.

"Conservatives claim to abhor cancel culture," he says, yet in April 2023, they called for a boycott of Bud Light when Anheuser-Busch sent a six-pack bearing his image to transgender TikTok personality Dylan Mulvaney.

"Now, they are losing their minds over the NFL’s choice of Bad Bunny to headline the Super Bowl LX halftime show," Dannebohm says.

MAGA, he writes, is confused. "Trump and his ilk need to make up their minds: Do they seek reality or conspiracy, freedom or restriction, peace or war, government or anarchy?" he says, adding, "In the 10 exhausting months since their return to power, MAGA has only succeeded in making America dizzy again."