MAGA 2.0 Is a Pyramid Scheme
It is easy to fall for the false promises of Multi-level Marketing scams. And the MAGA movement is almost exactly like every multi-level marketing scam that has tried to pillage just about every community in the USA.
MAGA Politicians Are Not Typical MAGA Voters
Most Americans are really good people who care deeply about the health of their community and our country as a whole.
This means that most MAGA voters are also really good people who care deeply about the health of their community and our country as a whole.
So why would so many of these folks vote for unapologetic fascists?
Well, see chapters 1 through 4 of this book. Fascists are good actors who are really good at projecting their faults onto their opposition. So, most of these folks genuinely believe they will keep the baddies out of Washington, D.C., by voting for MAGA 2.0.
Propaganda and the repetition of the lies from the news source that you trust is fucking hard to overcome.
But there is one more big fucking reason why really good people will vote MAGA. Really good people keep falling for the false promises of MLM scams, and the MAGA movement is almost exactly like every multi-level marketing scam that has tried to pillage just about every community in the USA.
Yes, MAGA is a fucking pyramid scheme ... on steroids.
I can't prove this story, but I designed an early draft of this sketch about a month before MAGA Mike took over OUR PEOPLE's house. Like most Americans, I'd never heard of this January 6th co-conspirator before his face became recognizable.
Do I love the fact that this random clipart preacher — and random white guy with a beard and glasses that I randomly picked to be Trump's favorite fake Christian Prosperity Preacher — turned out to be an identical twin of MAGA Mike Johnson?
Yes. Yes, I do.
But this is an important note!
Hey, all random white guys with beards and glasses! You know, all of us who look like one another! We don't have to be on team baddie!
But MAGA Mike, who looks like you and me, is undoubtedly on team Baddie. Fuck MAGA Mike.
Sorry, I just got distracted from my point. Let's get back to MAGA Mike's pyramid scheme.
BOTH SCAMS:
If you join, I promise you will be rewarded with a lifetime of riches!
MLM SCAM:
I will make your life great ... if you buy these 50 boxes (of useless shit that will sit in your garage for years). All you have to do is sell those 50 boxes to your neighbors, then get them to join our cult and tell them they will get rich if they simply sell 50 boxes to their neighbors.
Please tell your neighbors to wear our brand like a daily uniform. This is your new persona, and you are now one of us!
We will also gather weekly to discuss how extraordinary our business is while recruiting new entrepreneurs! This is your tribe!
With a bit of grit and hustle you will get everybody in your community to buy this awesome merch, and everybody will be on the pathway to greatness!
You will all live like I do! Look at my yacht!
MAGA SCAM:
I will make your life great if you invest in my crypto scam, buy this (ridiculous) pair of gold shoes, and this $10,000 "gold" watch (that was almost definitely made in China for $10).
Then, you must convince your neighbors to buy all of this awesome merch, too!
Please tell your neighbors to wear our brand like a daily uniform. This is your new persona, and you are now one of us!
We will also gather weekly to discuss how extraordinary MAGA is while recruiting new voters! This is your tribe!
With a bit of grit and hustle, you will get everybody in your community to become MAGA voters. And everybody will be on the pathway to greatness!
You will all live like I do! Look at my yacht!
BOTH SCAMS:
If you keep investing in the bank accounts of those on the top floor of the pyramid, then one day, we will definitely make your life great, like mine is! I'll be greedy for you, promise! We will trickle down all of our winnings and all of our success to you peasants! Promise!
You will all live like I do! Look at my yacht!
And just like every MLM scam, the only thing that MAGA politicians and their owners know how to do is to manipulate and then extract.
In both scams, there are the rapacious assholes, professional liars, who are running the scheme on the top floors.
In both scams, there are a few assholes in every other community who know this is a pyramid scheme but think they can make it to those top floors of the pyramid, so they play along and are okay with screwing over their neighbors.
In MAGA's case, these are Trump's proud little boys and every other racist/misogynistic piece of shit in this country. These assholes are trying to convince/coerce enough neighbors to buy into the scam so the gods on the top floors will love them and invite them to the galas. The gods on the top floor will always need loyal goons in the field, so these guys will make some money ... but they will never get their true dream delivered. The dream of becoming one of the gods. In reality, the gods laugh at all these goons for being as pathetic as they are.
And there is everybody else. This is a massive group of teammates who sincerely believe that the get-rich-quick-scam-artist is on their team and wants what is best for them. The promise of the American Dream delivered overnight will always be an easy promise to sell. Sadly, like every MLM scam, 100% of the folks on the mid to bottom floors of the pyramid will be blindsided when they wake up one day and realize the snake oil worked on them.
And don't trust my word that every MLM is a scam. Here is the always excellent John Oliver breaking down how truly awful 100% of MLM businesses are.
Also, the podcast The Dream, from Jane Marie, is a deep dive into how these scams work and devastate communities. Jane is a brilliant storyteller, and her empathy for all of the victims while telling their heartbreaking stories is so important.
This is a story that so many need to hear.
Like almost every American who lives outside of the giant golden gates and moats that protect the 1%, most of us have seen an MLM successfully ravage our communities and then quietly leave after there was nothing left to be extracted.
Hell, I even fell for one once! I was desperate for cash, and the coffee I was supposed to sell had some magical Chinese herb that cured basically everything.
Didn't you hear cancer has been cured!?!
We couldn't legally promise that it actually cured anything, but damn, I drank it during that shitshow of a period of my life, and I felt great!
Until I didn't. And guess I much money I made? Yeah ... for fucks sake.
I am a fucking idiot, but I am not alone. The formula works. Not the magical coffee formula, the MLM scam formula.
MAGA 2.0 aims to use this extraction formula to destroy the biggest economic game the world has ever seen. The pain when MAGA goes away, if it ever does, will be far greater than what the MLM scammers leave in their wake.
But hey, at least there will be a $1 Depot left in Everytown, USA!
These rapacious assholes will just keep extracting until there is nothing left to extract. This is the only thing they have ever been good at. This is the only thing Trump knows how to do.
There is a clear alternative. Kamala Harris is a proven investor and steward of the real American Dream (which I wrote about at length in the introduction to this book).
She is a proven patriot. And Tim Walz is a proven patriot.
And there were patriots in the Trump 1.0 administration — like General Milley (Trump's top ranking General) and General Kelly (his chief of staff). And they stopped Trump from turning the entire country into a pyramid scheme in his first attempt at becoming a fascist dictator.
And yes, they both used the f-word to describe what Trump aspires to be.
Eric Bradner, Kate Sullivan
Their job was to hold the line, and the line was held. Patriots like those two American heroes were the reason January 6th failed.
But here is the bad news. Because all patriots are anti-dictator and anti-coup, zero patriots were invited back to the MAGA 2.0 party. There are only kleptocratic and sycophantic goons remaining on the top floor of the MAGA 2.0 pyramid.
Trump and so many of his fellow kleptocrats were highly paid speakers on the MLM scam tour before they got into politics. Hell, I'm sure they will get back on this tour the second that the election is over, no matter which way it goes.
The playbook is almost identical, but MLMs destroy one community's economic game at a time.
And yes, beyond the racism and hate, the core business model of fascism is a pyramid scheme. Putin does what he does for wealth and power. The asshole in North Korea does the same. Fascism always has been and always will be a pyramid scheme that creates a malnourished and broken society.
You know, like every MLM scam artist aspires to do.
Here are the two political alliances in the USA on my handy economic scale (you can read more about this scale here).
Yep, my new media company is biased as fuck. Biased for community investors and stewards, biased against those who are in the business of manipulation and extraction.
Bothesidesism has become a cancer that lives inside even our nation's best newsrooms (looking at you, New York Times and Washington Post). But we won't ever let that disease in here. There is no reason to sanewash the actions of those trying to deceive and then ruin the lives of their prey.
Sure, the Democratic Alliance has done and will always do a fuckton of stupid shit in the gray zone. And yes, sometimes even in the "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING" zone.
Some of the stuff on that vicious side of the scale are trades for essential policies on the virtuous cycle-inducing side. And some of the stuff they do in those vicious zones are hard as fuck to change.
But the facts are the facts.
The Democratic Alliance is the only pro-American Worker alliance in D.C., so it is the only party working to deliver the actual American Dream to every American in every state.