Make America Outraged Again
The run-up to the MAGA mentality was a slow burn, but not unnoticed in the wider fandom communities. I remember back in the early 2010s, outrage being dispensed over Marvel Comics promoting more female characters, and the vitriolic reaction to Zack Snyder’s DCEU getting canned. Movements like “Comicsgate” were a sign that we were moving towards a caustic age full of people bend out of shape because their gods had failed them. (Whatever those gods may be. We all “worship” what gives us perceived meaning and purpose, and curse whatever may challenge it.) Every other “-gate” since has been equally underwhelming, sometimes bordering on the absurd. The idea that this nomenclature derives from the Watergate Scandal, and that something so horrendous as that has been equated with hiring women (the other 50% of our population) to write comics, is as remarkable as it is sad.
Yes, I have my opinions.
Everyone does, right?
Although that seems to be the problem. The internet always had the potential to weaponize ignorance and paranoia. Sure, it originated as a network to pass notes between universities, but it’s pragmatic use-case has evolved to not just communicate information, but to sell it. Therefore, if you are a toxic piece of shit, and people invest their outrage into your posts, you will make money (most likely). Additionally, the anonymity that the internet confers allows human interaction to forego all of the nuance of non-verbal cues that heretofore kept us from killing each other. We exist in a new Gilded Age with the only difference being that our Billionaires are profoundly stupid. While the extremely tenuous (and loosely defined) idea of Christendom and the Social Gospel—I believe—drove individuals like Andrew Carnegie (see “On Wealth”) to give away their fortunes for the betterment of society, we instead worship the very individuals that have contributed to the decline in quality of our lives. In general, our outrage is warranted, but it cannot, will not save us. Outrage is toxic. It also makes those who enslave us more wealthy.
Outrage is only amplified when the source of it remains vague and confusing. I’ve heard pastors suggest that this outrage is inherently demonic. I agree, but to a point. It’s a worthy thing to be angry at injustice or corruption, but if we have no constructive way of alleviating the tension it creates then it only increases and festers in our minds like viral meningitis. Social media foments this outrage primarily because it overextends our attention spans. We are told to save the world, and if we can’t, then we despair. However, the antidote to the poison—for some really weird reason—is to regress: encourage the development of smaller, in-person communities and care about what you actually have the ability to change. To those that are Christian that are reading this: this is the part where we become small working models of the new creation, where we allow the Holy Spirit to work through our communities. The change won’t be in our own generation, but it will come if we are faithful.
As I alluded to earlier, casting aspersions as a means to generate wealth is very effective. One can only look to individuals like Alex Jones, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Brian Michael Johnson (AKA, the "Liver King”) to behold the latest reincarnation of the huckster and Snake oil salesman. Each of these individuals, and many others like them, create a problem that their audience didn’t know they had (misplaced patriotism, holistic medicine, diet and exercise, et al) and then offer an expensive solution. Right-wing and left-wing politics stoke the fires of outrage citing the mainstream outlets that we are familiar with (Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, Epoch Times, etc), but it is our engagement that allows their power over us to grow. Somehow we have turned our own sources of knowledge and inspiration into Queen Mab, and it is our duty to look away and ignore her. Again, to the Christian, these concerns (patriotism, voting demographics, health, etc.) are all completely irrelevant in the face of the Gospel. Our goal is to advance the kingdom, not ourselves.
To be so outraged all of the time is exhausting. As a Christian, it’s something I need to repent of. As a people, it’s also our duty to understand why these things are happening. I’ve taken a lot of solace in reading N.T. Wright and Michael F. Bird’s Jesus and the Powers this past month. If anything, it’s a relief to know that I’m not going insane.
The outrage of MAGA, then, is the most puzzling of all, because it’s founded on phantoms and offers no tangible solutions. When I first encountered it, I found it very Nietzschean: the fable of America being built by a handful of white protestants, amplified over and over again until it became true. Things that meant something (religion, language, history) were trivialized and leveraged to make something without meaning have meaning, creating a fascist mentality. Case in point. Remember when Trump made a typo in a tweet during his first administration? Remember the effort expended to spin it in such a way for it to have meaning when it clearly had none? It’s hard not to be a nihilist when humanity prioritizes the spending of millions of dollars out of spite, instead of the orphan and the widow. To the Christian, this is where we hold our leaders, and the powers backing them, to account. It is not the media’s job to call out people being corrupt assholes, it is ours and ours alone.
Despite all of this turmoil and angst, I have faith that Jesus is still at work in all of this. His Kingdom has always been marched onward by the marginalized and the lowest members of society. Remember the Roman empire? The greatest power in human history? Christian aid was what trounced it and rendered it ineffectual. We can, and will, do the same.
