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Understanding the Performative Hypocrisy of Trump, DeSantis, MAGAs

Being hypocritical is the how GOP authoritarian leaders compete to signal their personal power.

Mark Greene
2 min readSep 23, 2023

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Being openly and repeatedly, hypocritical is how MAGA leaders like Trump signal their dominance and power. In the GOP’s increasingly authoritarian political climate, no MAGA leader can be successful without intentionally signaling their hypocrisy continuously.

Elon Musk displays power to his white supremacist followers by performing his hypocrisy daily on the Twitter platform, saying for example, that he stands for the right of free speech while attacking organizations like the Jewish Defense League when they exercise that exact right.

When Ron DeSantis declares “I stand for personal freedom” and “I ban books,” he’s being openly and intentionally hypocritical. This how authoritarians troll those they are attacking while at the same time signaling that they have the power to not be held accountable.

Which is exactly why the impending convictions of Trump enrage MAGA so much.

Being held accountable in a court of law shatters MAGAs collective delusion that Trump can commit any crime, assault any person with impunity and that, by extension, so can they. The collapse of Trump at…

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Mark Greene
Mark Greene

Written by Mark Greene

Working toward a culture of healthy masculinity. Links to our books, podcasts, Youtube and more: http://linktr.ee/RemakingManhood.