# What's missing/awry/disturbing about people's lives that MAGA/hard-right populism is so attractive? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 6, 2026, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-missing-awry-disturbing-about-peoples-lives-that-maga-hard-right-populism-is-so-attractive/1027436 "2026-02-06T14:20:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2026, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-missing-awry-disturbing-about-peoples-lives-that-maga-hard-right-populism-is-so-attractive/1027436/61 "2026-02-07T15:17:37Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > And like Velocity’s mother, she believes the world is very evil now-- maybe _uniquely_ evil, and at any rate, _critically_ evil, and something must be done, NOW. She knows this, but for some reason a great number of people don’t, so it is important for her to stick to her guns, and, to mix my metaphor, keep the ball in the air. > > It makes _her_ feel important. That’s a separate and legitimate thing, though I don’t think it’s particular to either side. People want to feel some sense of purpose and autonomy in their lives. Getting into QAnon seems nuts until you imagine for a moment that these people are finding a sense of community, a sense of purpose, a sense that they’re changing things and they’re part of a story that matters. I wouldn’t put this solely on right-wingers though, because there are a lot of cosplay revolutionaries on the left who who suffer that exact same main-character syndrome, exulting in the idea that it’s just me and my plucky pals against the world, and we’re doing to take down the rich and poweful elites. The mindset is everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2026, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-missing-awry-disturbing-about-peoples-lives-that-maga-hard-right-populism-is-so-attractive/1027436/62 "2026-02-07T16:33:33Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > nobody should ever, for a single moment, assume that actually doing something about kitchen-table issues will bring MAGA back to supporting reasonable candidates. > > Their grousing about kitchen-table issues is always code for something else. So it’s important not to waste too much political capital addressing what ultimately is a fake complaint anyway. How about it’s being important to seriously address such issues for the good of the country and nearly everybody in it? ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2026, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-missing-awry-disturbing-about-peoples-lives-that-maga-hard-right-populism-is-so-attractive/1027436/63 "2026-02-07T17:16:17Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Trump got 15 percent of the black vote, for instance - almost unheard of for a Republican. Bush, McCain, Romney were all in the 3-9 percent range. This is something that can’t be handwaved away as “MAGA is just white-supremacist.” Right. They’re also misogynist. Dissagregate that data by gender and see what you get. My WAG is very few Black women support Trump, with some support from Latina women because of Catholicism. ---
**Author:** ![Lizzie1210](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f04885/32.png) [@Lizzie1210](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lizzie1210)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2026, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-missing-awry-disturbing-about-peoples-lives-that-maga-hard-right-populism-is-so-attractive/1027436/64 "2026-02-07T17:20:49Z")
MAGA is an intensely tribal collection of people who desperately need to feel justified in all their illogical and baseless resentments, hostilities, fears and prejudices. Donald Trump has made them feel good about all that seething ugliness again. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2026, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-missing-awry-disturbing-about-peoples-lives-that-maga-hard-right-populism-is-so-attractive/1027436/65 "2026-02-07T18:02:04Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > I wouldn’t put this solely on right-wingers though, because there are a lot of cosplay revolutionaries on the left who who suffer that exact same main-character syndrome True-- except I think that Trump has exploited it to a degree usually only seen in labs. He’s a snake oil salesman with prodigious talent. He may be not especially bright, and devoid of the kind of talent that can win a Nobel, not to mention currently experiencing dementia, but he’s always been a huckster on the _n_th degree, and great at selling himself So Trump with his snake oil meets discontent right-wingers with delusions of grandeur, and we have what follows. ---
**Author:** ![BrieSpice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f17d59/32.png) [@BrieSpice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrieSpice)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2026, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-missing-awry-disturbing-about-peoples-lives-that-maga-hard-right-populism-is-so-attractive/1027436/66 "2026-02-07T18:03:37Z")
I have worked with low income people my entire career. People who grew up in rural generational poverty. Both old and young. People who without government aid programs, quite possibly wouldn’t be alive. Despite this, many have flocked toward MAGA. I think it sometimes has to do with jealousy of others they feel have more than them. I think it also has to do with belonging and peer pressure. One brilliant young person I worked with would not take her last GED test because parts of her family were harassing her because none of them had a GED and she must think she is better than them. She finally left the program to take a waitress job. I also think some poor young adults don’t think anyone is actually going to help them. They feel no control in their lives and the MAGA movement gives them a sense of power. They would rather have that perceived power in spite of it potentially making their bad situation worse. Also a feeling of belonging to a group that shares their perceived pain is attractive to them. Hate is much easier than hope when you feel you have no future. I also think many are simply ignorant, hurtful people who finally have an outlet for their hate, especially those who well off enough to not worry about the results of their actions. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2026, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-missing-awry-disturbing-about-peoples-lives-that-maga-hard-right-populism-is-so-attractive/1027436/67 "2026-02-07T19:13:16Z")
About 30 years ago , a supervisor of mine said something about how great the 50s were. When I replied “ Sure, if you were white, male, straight and Christian.” he had such a look of surprise on his face that I realized it had never occured to him that other people, even white women, had a different experience. And he wasn’t particularly racist or sexist - it really doesn’t occur to a lot of people that others have different experiences. I think a certain amount of the MAGA fandom is that they really do think the 50s were better - and they were , for them. And they’re willing to believe anything that gives them hope that they will return. I mean, think of why some ordinary people want coal mining to be revived- it’s not because they think it’s cheaper, or better for the environment. It’s because it’s a relatively high-paying job for a certain group of people. And they think if the industry is revived, the jobs will come back. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2026, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-missing-awry-disturbing-about-peoples-lives-that-maga-hard-right-populism-is-so-attractive/1027436/68 "2026-02-07T19:27:05Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > I mean, think of why some ordinary people want coal mining to be revived- it’s not because they think it’s cheaper, or better for the environment. It’s because it’s a relatively high-paying job for a certain group of people. And they think if the industry is revived, the jobs will come back. Folks that _cough_ have never had _cough cough_ a real heart _cough_ to heart talk _cough_ with a coal miner about _cough_ the joys of being _cough cough_ a coal miner. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2026, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-missing-awry-disturbing-about-peoples-lives-that-maga-hard-right-populism-is-so-attractive/1027436/69 "2026-02-07T19:32:02Z")
I think I know a lot of the answer here. I was raised in mostly-white American evangelical circles, and even in the 70s there was a resentment against Madeline Murray O’Hare for suing and getting mandated prayer removed from schools. There is always the tension between “should Alex be forced to view the awful movies and conditioned to be non-violent, or is free will the more important value of society?” Some people who are pretty protected will default to “society needs to be programmed to run right.” Also, a lot of those people were raised during the great American expansion and wealth generation after WWII, and it seemed like an idyllic time that deserved preservation (if you were white). Then people like Jerry Falwell and James Dobson told them that they were in a culture war for the soul of America, and greatly intertwined conservative politics with Christianity. Falwell went even to the point of basically uncritical support of Israel, which isn’t even strictly a “moral” point. I know that philosophy and morals are the basis of judgments, and we all vote on our evaluations based on those fundamentals, so using those to reach conclusions isn’t the problem, but these people basically taught that the process of evaluation wasn’t really important, and the the conclusions had been reached, and you should just get with the program and vote right. The masses weren’t interested much in parsing the subtleties of decisions. This showed in things like “protecting the environment is for dirty hippies and I won’t be part of it,” driven by the greed of business, and the association of the “tree huggers” with the idea of “free love” and lots of drugs. Those people could never have a good idea, and they were to be rejected basically out of hand. “Look at them, do they look reputable to you?? And what kind of good ideas could they even have if they’re basically advocating for allowing godless communism to be allowed to run rampant, and they just sit around stoned and sleep around? Charles Manson is what you get!” My grandpa was the son of a Methodist minister, and he let out a little “man from 1909” racism against Muhammad Ali, I think both for the hype (arrogance) and the blatant rejection of Christianity. This then led him to a little bit of “black guy doesn’t know his place”. When you spend a lot of time thinking about the right way to act and the right way to do things, it’s easy to get a resentment against the people who are “doing it wrong” and working for more people to “do it wrong.” Then you’re hating the sinner (if it’s even sin at all) and working for a political outcome on a completely political basis and not a moral one. Now we’re at the point of “if they didn’t want to be brutalized, they shouldn’t have crossed the border”, and the empathy has withered to the point of “ICE can brutalize anyone they want unless it’s me.” A bunch of these people learned to identify Republicans as their team, and Democrats as libertine crime-allowers whose empathy spilled over into just being soft on immorality and crime, and then Fox News just lit a bonfire under this with decades of lies. This then appeals also to the personalities who like to face a head wind. That punk kid you see in your town is relishing in your hate (at least as he imagines it). I can identify with this a bit. Once in a while I have 2 seconds of feeling the adrenaline surge when I read some screed from a maga idiot who imagines himself to be standing against the tide of immorality and stupid thinking, then I remember that this all makes no sense, is definitely not working for the greater good for the greatest amount of people, and this guy is the one being illogical and exhibiting bad morals. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2026, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-missing-awry-disturbing-about-peoples-lives-that-maga-hard-right-populism-is-so-attractive/1027436/70 "2026-02-07T19:37:27Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > Folks that _cough_ have never had _cough cough_ a real heart _cough_ to heart talk _cough_ with a coal miner about _cough_ the joys of being _cough cough_ a coal miner Some of them, yeah. But some of the people wanting coal to come back are coal miners. It’s the life they know, and there’s a kind of pride in being tough enough to do it. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2026, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-missing-awry-disturbing-about-peoples-lives-that-maga-hard-right-populism-is-so-attractive/1027436/71 "2026-02-07T19:44:29Z")
Maybe some of them - but it’s not exactly uncommon for people to seek dangerous jobs because they are high paying and don’t require much in way of education . They wouldn’t be so high-paying if they weren’t dangerous. ---
**Author:** ![Ancient\_Nerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed655f/32.png) [@Ancient\_Nerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ancient_Nerd)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2026, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-missing-awry-disturbing-about-peoples-lives-that-maga-hard-right-populism-is-so-attractive/1027436/72 "2026-02-07T19:59:54Z")
The term ‘Illegal immigrant’ can be taken in different ways. Many of those in rural America subscribe to the stereotype that all immigrants are illegal. People who actually are immigrants see it as applying to the subset who are actually working around the law in any way that they can. They thought that el donald was only going after the people they saw as cutting into the line. The wait for a green card can be incredibly long. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2026, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-missing-awry-disturbing-about-peoples-lives-that-maga-hard-right-populism-is-so-attractive/1027436/73 "2026-02-07T20:03:45Z")
> [@Aspenglow](#): > > Fox and other right wing propaganda channels focus with laser-like focus on ginning up a sense of victimhood and fear in their viewers. Couple this with people who correctly perceive that they are being done dirty by… well, someone, give them a cohort to hate (brown and black people) in lieu of the true culprits, and you’ve got the society we’re all living in now. I’m going to add a piece that has been missing in the discussion to date that applies to Republicans and Fox. The money behind the advertising and the message. In no small part, a large number of executives have been claiming wages (and not just Musk) that as a proportion of the wages their employees make are, frankly, obscene. [https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay/](https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay/) While it never materialized (because most of the political class is pretty wealthy), there has been ongoing calls for a substantial increase tax on the ultra wealthy. And it’s rather popular, because after all, those people can afford it, right? So now we have various executives, tech bros, and other oligarchs who are very carefully funding a dialog about how much _they_ provide to society and need their extra billions, despite how the livelyhood of most American’s could be fixed with a more equitable distribution to workers, execs and shareholders. So they absolutely sell that it’s government inefficiency (blamed on Dems), and “those” people who are taking away your wealth so you won’t tax the billionaires. IE the actual enemy of many of those working poor and working “comfortable” is scapegoating and directing the narrative away from their own crippling of the system for profit they’re pretty much unable to ever spend! > [@BobLibDem](#): > > I agree with much of what has been posted previously. I think it’s the realization of many that their parents had it better than them. The dad working in a blue collar job could have a stay at home wife, raise a couple of kids in a house in the suburbs \with a new car in the driveway. That’s no longer possible and never will be again. They want someone to blame. To them it seems all of a sudden you had women and minorities in the workplace. You had people all of a sudden being different than you and not hiding it. All of those “other” people were living better than they used to, at your expense. They believe in zero sum games- if the “other” gets ahead it’s because they’re taking from good old white heterosexual Christian males. It ain’t right and by God and sonny Jesus they need to take their country back. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2026, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-missing-awry-disturbing-about-peoples-lives-that-maga-hard-right-populism-is-so-attractive/1027436/74 "2026-02-07T21:41:52Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > The success rate of such logic-based persuasion is near 0%. Whereas the right affirms them in their fear, makes them feel heard and listened to, makes them feel understood and empathized with. Maybe a lot of them just feel as though the Trump is paying attention to them. I keep thinking of that Maya Angelou quote, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Trump made them feel as though someone was paying attention to them, so they forget his lies and foolish plans. ---
**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:** [February 7, 2026, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-missing-awry-disturbing-about-peoples-lives-that-maga-hard-right-populism-is-so-attractive/1027436/75 "2026-02-07T21:50:40Z")
If back around 1980 we could have magicked up about 75 million high wage low skill _secure_ jobs that were about 75% male-coded and sprinkle them across the country this whole problem would’ve been avoided. Alas, no magick wands to be had. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2026, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-missing-awry-disturbing-about-peoples-lives-that-maga-hard-right-populism-is-so-attractive/1027436/76 "2026-02-07T23:35:03Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I think this is just continuing the largely untrue trope that Trump’s supporters are mostly the working poor. The statistics mostly don’t support this. Or even that they aren’t educated. The anecdotal cross section of Trump/MAGA supporters I know range from my wife’s elderly conservative not particularly educated family to regular college-educated working professionals to one former college fraternity brother and Ivy League grad who became a very successful tech founder / venture capitalist and has even spent time in Mar A Lago. Some of these people live in rural areas, but even those are within 90 minutes drive of NYC or Philadelphia. Most of them (but not all) I wouldn’t consider racist or homophobic. But I would say that they all seem to find some grievance where the thought of voting Democrat is unthinkable to them. And it’s fascinating the mental gymnastics they go through trying to justify their position. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2026, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-missing-awry-disturbing-about-peoples-lives-that-maga-hard-right-populism-is-so-attractive/1027436/77 "2026-02-08T02:52:18Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > As a society we dont want to admit that this is who we are in 2026, so we keep coming up with convoluted arguments to avoid facing the truth of who America is. For my part, I’m not claiming that bigotry and racism are absent, I’m just saying that they’re a symptom, not a cause. In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll tell my own tale here. My parents were Silent Generation/Baby Boomers, with Dad born in early 1945, and Mom in mid-1948. Neither was particularly racist- Dad was somewhat racist toward black people (never toward Hispanics, oddly enough), but mellowed after getting a public service job in mid-career, which exposed him to a great many people of color, and he revised his attitudes. So much so, that his best friend ended up being a black man. Mom was never in the least bit racist- I was raised explicitly not to be racist, and that skin color was just that- skin color, and that beneath that, we were all humans and should be treated with the same respect that anyone else gets. Fast forward out of the 1970s into the early-mid 2000s, and you start seeing my parents end up fearful, especially my mother. The propaganda took hold and she started being afraid of her own shadow- there were all sorts of criminals out there, and they were all just itching to rob her or worse. And she bought into the whole Republican propaganda that they were the party of law and order and going to defend all of us from the criminals. She has never spoken out in a racist way though (she’s got pretty late-stage Alzheimer’s disease) Dad on the other hand, was just cynical enough to not buy that the world was going to hell, and criminals were out to get us, etc… He always felt that the world was much like it’s always been, warts and all. He actually commented to me about two years before he passed (2018) that with Trump, he felt like what you saw is what you’re getting. Unfortunately, his Parkinson’s disease progressed into dementia shortly thereafter, so I never got to have a cogent conversation with him about this stuff, which is unfortunate because he always had good insight into things. I think that a lot of the problem is the fear-mongering. The GOP has managed to convince a huge chunk of the population that civil society is going to hell in a handbasket, and that “criminals” (read: Black/Mexican people) are the cause of this, and that they’re the party that will remedy that. Which is a powerful message, and when fearful people will clutch at any life ring thrown their direction, it’s an easy set of votes to get. I’m not sure how the Democrats can overcome that sort of thinking. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2026, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-missing-awry-disturbing-about-peoples-lives-that-maga-hard-right-populism-is-so-attractive/1027436/78 "2026-02-08T03:42:48Z")
…I’m sure many of you have heard of our former Prime Minister, Jacinda Adern. She was uniquely _competent at her job_. As in not only genuinely empathetic and populist and knew all the right things to say. But was one of those people who _knew all of the details_. Even her opponents admired her ability to just listen, ask the right questions, and be able to have a full grasp of the situation. Adern presided over probably the most tumultuous period in recent history. Whakaari. The Mosque Shootings. And of course, leading the country during Covid where arguably we had the best response in the world. She was also _popular_. She lead the Labour Party to resounding success in the 2020 elections. It was a landslide. But then Auckland went into its second lockdown in late 2021. And it all began falling apart. Quite dramatically. There was the “anti-mandate” occupation of Parliament grounds where a bunch of cookers took over the public space. Her popularity and the Labour Party dropped significantly. She got chased by [anti-vax protestors](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/26/jacinda-ardern-shrugs-off-car-chase-by-anti-vaccination-protesters). And she ultimately ended up resigning before the Labour coalition resoundingly lost the next election. [The Disinformation Project](https://www.thedisinfoproject.org/) was an initiative set up in 2020 that focused on “the COVID-19 pandemic and how false information contributed to people’s responses to public health interventions.” What they found though by the end of the project was: > [@The Disinformation Project](#): > > Since then, we have charted the descent of many New Zealanders into more extreme conspiratorial beliefs. These include widespread vaccine refusal, climate change denial, opposition to immigration, reductive beliefs around gender, anti-Māori racism, and hatred towards the LGBTQ+ community. > > In 2024, it’s clear that the disinformation networks established or expanded during the pandemic are deeply connected to far-right, neo-Nazi, and accelerationist networks and actors – both domestic and foreign. Disinformation has become both more mainstream, and more connected to wider issues of political and social division, violence, extremism and national security. > [@](#): > > **We want to specifically note the marked increase in polarising and dehumanising rhetoric we have studied since our research began, specifically anti-Māori racism. We witnessed a shift from relatively amateur, individual or small network-based tactics, to polished, technical strategies for spreading disinformation at scale.** From this report: > **[2021-11-09-FINAL-working-paper-disinformation..pdf](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/65c9ceb1a6a5b72d6f280d67/t/65cd6bd072f7fb5eb6f0cfbd/1707961305959/2021-11-09-FINAL-working-paper-disinformation..pdf)** > > 2.31 MB > [@](#): > > Both posts and engagement have drastically increased since 17 August 2021 and show a trajectory of growth and spread that is increasing, widening, and deepening every week. Disinformation activity shows a high degree of coordination and collaboration within and between platforms. > … > Quantitative analysis around the mis- and disinformation volume (amount of content), vectors (platforms and apps content is produced and shared on) and velocity (speed at > which content is produced) since mid-August, under the Delta Level 4 lockdowns, is unprecedented. We note that it is by order of magnitude more than the content seed and spread over 2020, and even in the first half of 2021. What they noted was a significant and qualitative increase in coordinated disinformation around about the time the second Auckland lockdowns began. > [@](#): > > Other content tends to focus on a cluster of notions related to state versus individual rights and responsibilities. It is here that international content, particularly from the US and Australia, is repackaged and re-shared in Aotearoa New Zealand, framing a state that is described as tyrannical, treacherous, and forsaking international and/or national law. These frames are where some of the most extreme content is observed: violent imagery and language, threats to groups and individuals, allusions to historic violent events and war or crime. It wasn’t uncommon at the time for me to have arguments with “New Zealanders” on Twitter arguing they had the “right to bear arms” or something about the “first amendment”. The disinformation clearly had US-centric framing and I have no doubt that a lot of the disinformation was coming from there. > [@](#): > > The online mis- and disinformation content The Disinformation Project observes targets key individuals and groups. This includes but is not limited to Māori, Pasifika, migrants > and ethnic minorities, women, gender minorities, LGBTQIA+ people, people with disabilities, health workers, government employees. In addition, leading public figures and officials– including members of Parliament, journalists, health officials, academics, and community leaders – receive specific targeting and abuse. For example, mainstream media’s reporting on the uptake of vaccination by Māori has increased a perception of Māori as vaccine hesitant and anti-vaccination, which has > been picked up within circles of disinformation in way that capitalises on racism and further targets disinformation towards those groups. This allows for the targeting of Māori, and the intensification of anti-Māori racism within mis- and disinformation circles. This shift in framing became obvious in both the tactics the opposition parties were using at the time, and how the media chose to frame it. “Co-governance” and the treaty came under attack. Tactics and strategy between what was bubbling under the surface through disinformation and what the political parties were now prepared to say out in the open were more closely aligned than ever. And since they have been in power the right-aligned coalition has been peeling back the layers of things considered “woke” and “DEI.” So I think there is a bigger, underlying picture at play. I think while all the stuff that people are saying in this thread is perfectly valid, and yes, it all contributes, it’s the things that are circulating in places like Telegram that most of us will never ever see that is taking its toll. The vulnerable are being targeted and converted. And those who were previously disposed to this way of thinking are having their feelings validated. It isn’t so much that they are drawn to them isn’t because “something is missing” but because they are being _given answers_. The reason their lives suck is because of immigration or because of trans people or because of the Brown people and if we fix that: their lives get better. There isn’t an easy fix to this because the biggest problem is that most people don’t even know that it is happening. ---
**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:** [February 8, 2026, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-missing-awry-disturbing-about-peoples-lives-that-maga-hard-right-populism-is-so-attractive/1027436/79 "2026-02-08T03:44:29Z")
Yeah, it’s pretty discouraging, since if even a place like New Zealand could have its own version of MAGA insanity, no place in the world is immune. ---
**Author:** ![fedman1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2026, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-missing-awry-disturbing-about-peoples-lives-that-maga-hard-right-populism-is-so-attractive/1027436/80 "2026-02-08T04:07:41Z")
and the Latino vote, I think 9 % [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-missing-awry-disturbing-about-peoples-lives-that-maga-hard-right-populism-is-so-attractive/1027436.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-missing-awry-disturbing-about-peoples-lives-that-maga-hard-right-populism-is-so-attractive/1027436.md?page=5)