A MAGA Trump Voter and Liberal Hamas Supporter Woke Into a Bar

Seeing the hypocrisy in something is frustrating. It’s depressing and downright infuriating when someone you count on acts in ways or says something contrary to their beliefs.

On the other hand, finding something ironic is so satisfying on a gut level. The more ironic, the funnier it is.

That’s why I’m giddy over how much young, white, liberal supporters of Hamas have in common with older, white MAGA Trump voters. After all, it’s more than fair to suppose that progressives, the ‘LGBTQ for Palestine’ folks, Bernie Bros, and Black Lives Matter members, detest Trump more than any other political figure, if not more than any other person on the planet.

At the same time, those hardest of hard-core Heartland, Southern and Southwestern Trump supporters aren’t looking to meet up with anyone woke for arts and crafts and an oatmilk flat white either.

Before you jump down my throat, I’m not talking about people who would vote for Trump because they think he’s better for Israel or the economy, or who could never vote for Biden. I’m referring to the true MAGA and Q-Anon types who show up at the rallies Jordan Klepper has a field day with.

The MAGA and white pro-Hamas demographics seemingly have nothing culturally or politically in common. Okay, they have absolutely zero in common except for their disdain for each other (and the 100% likelihood that neither will be reading this piece), and that each views the other as largely the reason America is in the heaping mess we’re in, whichever mess that is.

Though what’s awfully similar between them is their unrelenting, cultish-like support for their team, no matter how much evidence suggests that maybe it’s time to abandon ship.

It was way back in 2016 when Trump famously proclaimed that he could, “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” He was prophetically right, as he said that well before the Access Hollywood tape (which came out on 10.7, speaking of an irony within an irony), two impeachments, the Georgia call for 10,000 more votes, January 6, the stolen classified documents scandal, being found liable of sexual assault in the E. Jean Carrol case, all the tweets, name calling, all of it.

No matter what Trump says, does, Christian value he violates, or law he’s accused of having broken (trials pending in fairness), his core base has remained fiercely loyal. To see the light that he was a sheister all along and never actually cared for the common man would mean that they got manipulated and taken for a huge ride (and not in one of Trump’s luxury cars). To break ranks now would be too much of an indictment of their personal, social, anti-liberal political identity, not to mention all the money they spent on red hats.

Sounds a lot like white supporters of Hamas (well, that’s where I was going obviously). No matter how much video evidence there is of women being horrifically raped, entire families and children viciously murdered, the endless proof that Hamas does hide its weapons in schools and hospitals, and how ideologically opposed they are to every single liberal value, many on the left just won’t condemn them. To do so, would be to abandon their entire pro-struggle, side-with-the-oppressed vibe (and to be even handed, all the money they spent on white scarves).

To realize they got played because of their desire to rail against the establishment, champion people of color, or because TikTok told them what to think about a complex subject, and that lately, they’re behaving more like injustice warriors, bruh, would be so rude.

As ironic as all this is, there’s really nothing funny about the lack of critical thinking. The loudest people these days seem to be the ones consuming the least information. Both of these groups remain locked in the same oxygen-less news bubble and friend groups, and that lack of fresh air is what breeds such intellectually dishonesty and unwillingness to call foul on their own side (that holds for both political parties in general), and not incidentally, to believe in conspiracy theories like 10.7 never really happened or that Trump is entirely innocent.

Be it the war in the Middle East, American politics and the slew of challenges facing the country, climate change, or any other great issue of our time, best we can hope for going forward is that a lot of people start acting like hypocrites and reevaluating what they’ve been conditioned to believe.