The broken men: GOP insider exposes shame fueling MAGA’s new fury

Three-time Republican speechwriter Peter Wehner says he knows what fuels the fury that sent President Donald Trump and MAGA into a frenzy over the Natalie Harp debacle.

“In 2016, Trump found a constituency already primed for grievance, and taught it to want more. His supporters have kept themselves in a state of frenzy ever since. They need to be perpetually outraged, aggrieved, and insulted. MAGA world has become addicted to the feeling. It delivers a jolt of adrenaline, it provides a feeling of social belonging, and it gives people a sharpened sense of purpose,” said Wehner, describing the unique rage-fit that seized MAGA social media accounts and the White House media room after a Georgia Democrat made a sneering reference to Trump’s fawning dependence on a young blonde helper.

“They see themselves as warriors in a drama of their own construction. They view their opponents — Democrats, progressives, critics of Trump — as personifications of evil. Inflicting pain on their enemies feels good, really good, and it feels just.”

Wehner said Trump is aware of the rage he kindles in MAGA-world, of course. It’s why he once told his supporters: “I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution.”

The Georgia senator’s snipe was “a response to Trump’s collapsing support and the fracturing MAGA movement,” Wehner said, and it came at a time when Trump supporters desperately need common ground and a common enemy. The senator’s comments gave them “a chance to lash out, to go on the offensive, and to shake feelings of powerlessness and impending doom. At a time when defending Trump is nearly impossible, attacking his opponents becomes imperative.”

“But there’s something else going on as well, at least with one subgroup of Trump supporters,” Wehner added, “… many radio and television commentators, podcasters, and members of Congress among them — who were dedicated conservatives before Trump came along. They believed character was destiny and virtue mattered; they revered the rule of law, institutions, and norms; they championed free trade and free markets, fiscal responsibility, and a strong Western alliance; and they opposed patrimonialism, corruption, and lawlessness in the presidency.”

These same people had to surrender all those commitments and much more to support a cad like Trump, and they know it.

“The cost of speaking out against him, even when they knew better, was simply too high. They wanted to stay in the good graces of those in power. So they broke. And they know they broke,” said Wehner. “This has caused a painful degree of cognitive dissonance within many of them. They want to think better of themselves — and others to think better of them — than their actions warrant. What they see in Ossoff’s comments is a chance to signal that they are still who they once were, or at least seemed to be. In this case, they are portraying themselves as enraged at Ossoff’s ‘misogynistic lies.’ His comments are ‘repulsive’ and ‘guttersnipe statements.’”

They adore finally getting to call a Democrat a “disgusting coward” and a “disgusting pig,” said Wehner. It soothes the rotten spot created by their own cowardly pig in the White House.

“One can almost hear, from the distant past, their words of moral outrage at Bill Clinton for his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Of course, in this case, Trump supporters have aligned themselves with a man who was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming a woman. Who falsified business records to conceal a sex scandal with a porn star shortly after the birth of his child. Who celebrated his affairs through tabloids. Who said if you have power, you can “grab ’em by the [privates].” Who has called women ‘fat pigs’ and ‘piggy,’ ‘slobs’ and ‘disgusting animals,’ and ‘horseface.’”

Trump had even suggested that tough questioning by a woman was due to her monthly period, Wehner said. And he’s said that “it doesn’t really matter” what the media write “as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of [body].”

But nobody flew into a rage over Harp like Trump, Wehner believes, because the Ossoff sting made clear that Trump is a sundowning president with emerging mental decline who requires a “diaper nurse” to keep him walking in a straight line at public events.

“Gabriel García Márquez’s novel The Autumn of the Patriarch is about an unnamed dictator, an illiterate who rises to power and brutally takes control of a country. … The ‘autumn’ in the title refers to the corrupt patriarch’s physical and mental decay, his growing paranoia, his psychological isolation, and his inability to form genuine human connections. He surrounds himself with sycophants, creating a false reality, complete with fake news and newspapers, including a single copy of the national daily newspaper — the news rewritten to please him, created only for the dictator. He needs it to maintain his ‘throne of illusions.’”

“Ultimately, we know, thrones of illusion do collapse,” Wehner added, “and not only in novels.”