# Is MAGA a fifth column? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [September 7, 2024, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-maga-a-fifth-column/1006924 "2024-09-07T20:17:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2024, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-maga-a-fifth-column/1006924/41 "2024-09-17T11:12:15Z")
I’ll point out that $100K per vid and $400K a month to one person, presumably for multiple months, will pretty quickly exhaust $10M. Plus there were other being paid something as well. I strongly suspect $10M is the money we know about, not all there is. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2024, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-maga-a-fifth-column/1006924/42 "2024-09-17T15:27:53Z")
I think that’s the same one I linked to in post 29? So yes, from the NRA having functioned as a foreign asset to these folk and no doubt others, people on the right paid to do the bidding of a foreign power. I don’t buy just dupes. These specific folk are minimally incentivized by the money involved. Trump himself? Functions as if he is Putin’s puppet. Just easily manipulated? Looking out for business interests? A sincere love of dictatorships as the model to defend? I do not believe he cares about American greatness. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2024, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-maga-a-fifth-column/1006924/43 "2024-09-17T16:05:37Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I don’t buy just dupes. These specific folk are minimally incentivized by the money involved. > > Trump himself? Functions as if he is Putin’s puppet. Just easily manipulated? Looking out for business interests? A sincere love of dictatorships as the model to defend? I do not believe he cares about American greatness. Russia and the various right-wing collaborators (including Trump) see themselves as using each other. The right-wing gain power, money and a chance to force their policies down people’s throats as well as into other orifices, and Russia (taking a longer view) know that the right doing this will weaken and divide America, to Russia’s greater benefit. And no, Trump only cares about his own greatness (for an extremely subjective value of “great”). ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2024, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-maga-a-fifth-column/1006924/44 "2024-09-17T16:29:23Z")
I don’t think it’s so much that MAGA specifically wanted **Russian** support as it is that they would latch onto _any_ outside benefactors that they could get. If it had been China and the CCP supporting Trump and funneling money to them, they’d have latched onto that teat and started sucking it, too. Movements generally are not picky about allies. ---
**Author:** ![BayLeaves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c67d28/32.png) [@BayLeaves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BayLeaves)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2024, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-maga-a-fifth-column/1006924/45 "2024-09-25T21:56:52Z")
This is not a direct answer to the question that begins this thread, but I think a lot of Trump’s MAGA supporters have lost confidence in American democracy, and they want Trump to obtain dictatorial powers. I think Trump wants to do that too. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2024, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-maga-a-fifth-column/1006924/46 "2024-09-25T23:27:52Z")
They’ve certainly been told it’s a failure for the last 30 years. Ever since the 1994 election when Newt Gingrich took over the vision thing for the Rs with his Contract for/on America. It was a lie then, it’s a lie now, but they believe it. Because it’s being sold to them every day by the best propagandists on the planet. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2024, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-maga-a-fifth-column/1006924/47 "2024-09-26T03:19:12Z")
Right. It’s amazing logic. This system is broken let’s throw it away as well as the last 500 years of political philosophy and start from scratch. Locke? Loser. Jefferson, Madison and Washington? Those guys didn’t know shit. Ayn Rand? Well, that Atlas Shrug looks like a society I could deal with. I would make a great railroad baron. Donald Trump? Fuck yeah! Democrats are pussies! And the Europeans are assholes! Sure Trump is a dick, but… ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-maga-a-fifth-column/1006924/48 "2025-04-10T04:48:30Z")
I really want to reopen this zombie thread. It has only been 7 months so it’s only mostly dead, right? Seriously, I have seen worse and I think this thread has a lot of reasons to live (to blave? Bluff? I just can’t see a way to complete this tie in to popular culture. ☹ ) Well, we are 79 days into Trump’s second administration and I am having a hard time imagining what more damage could be done to our country if Trump was part of a “5th column” (Dissonance, please sit this one out). He has done great damage to our rule of law, gutted what soft power we wielded, alienated our allies, done incredible damage (much of it yet to be felt) to our economy, decimated our scientific research, and emboldened our enemies. And we are only 80 days in. I saw today he ordered the DOJ to investigate his own past director of cybersecurity for declaring the 2020 election secure. Who knows what other damage he is doing behind the scenes. Does anybody disagree? Can we declare it resolved that MAGA is a 5th column? Note: please do not nitpick my definitions of 5th column, psyop, soft, decimated, or any other word or term. For those of you who just can’t let terminology go and are using the OED to look up every term (Dissonance), please assume I am a small child, foreigner, or golden retriever and don’t have full command of the English language and try to focus on my meaning and not my actual words. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-maga-a-fifth-column/1006924/49 "2025-04-10T04:50:32Z")
Oh damn, I forgot to mention all the stuff about crypto currency. The corruption is just unbelievable… ---
**Author:** ![MacDoc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/macdoc/32/18696_2.png) [@MacDoc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacDoc)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-maga-a-fifth-column/1006924/50 "2025-04-10T05:12:57Z")
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**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2025, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-maga-a-fifth-column/1006924/51 "2025-05-05T19:30:32Z")
While it’s true that MAGA native-born citizens do have a higher crime rate overall than immigrants, I’d have to see some data before I buy those specific numbers. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-maga-a-fifth-column/1006924.md?page=2)