An Open Letter from a Doctor to America’s MAGA Patients
A Clinical Diagnosis of Your Delusions, Derangement, and Self-Destructive Devotion
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Dear Patient,
It is with the utmost mockery—pardon, concern—that I address your advanced case of Mass Affection for Grifters and Autocrats (MAGA). As your physician, I regret to inform you that your prognosis is grim, though entirely self-inflicted. You have willingly imbibed a lethal syrup of lies, paranoia, and cultish devotion—chased with willful ignorance—and now find yourself awash in symptoms too glaring to ignore. But fear not; you’re not alone. This epidemic has swept through the nation, leaving behind a trail of delusion, empty wallets, and bad merch.
Let me dissect your condition, compare it to history's most infamous bouts of collective madness, and—though I suspect I’ll be rejected outright—offer a cure. After all, self-awareness has never been a condition of the MAGA disorder.
Symptom 1: Enemy Obsession Disorder
Historical Case Study: The Salem Witch Trials (1692)
Your compulsive need for enemies rivals that of Salem’s Puritans. Imagine a cold winter in Salem, Massachusetts, 1692. A group of teenage girls began writhing, screaming, and accusing their neighbors of witchcraft. Soon, mass hysteria gripped the town. Over 200 people were accused of consorting with the devil, most of them women who were inconvenient to the patriarchal status quo. By the time this theological fever broke, 20 people had been executed, and Salem’s residents were left to reckon with their collective lunacy. The damage went beyond the gallows. Salem’s fabric was torn apart, leaving families broken, trust obliterated, and an indelible stain on its history.
MAGA Manifestation: Deep State Delirium
Fast forward to 2025, where you’ve turned fearmongering into an Olympic sport. Your witches are immigrants, LGBTQ+ individuals, teachers, scientists, and anyone with the audacity to question your narrative. Just this week, Trump—your High Inquisitor—proposed expanding his infamous “woke task force” to root out educators accused of teaching inconvenient truths, like history. Teachers beware: apparently, adding “freedom of thought” to a syllabus now qualifies as heresy.
But let’s be honest: your enemies are fictional, conjured to distract you while the real culprits loot the treasury and laugh at your expense. Immigrants didn’t steal your job; the billionaire tax cuts did. Scientists didn’t fabricate hurricanes; your willful ignorance exacerbates their impacts. And no, teachers aren’t brainwashing your children. That’s Fox News’s job.
Symptom 2: Crowd Psychosis
Historical Case Study: The Dancing Plague of 1518
Your rallying cries echo the frenzied rhythms of Strasbourg’s doomed dancers, chasing unity in chaos. Picture Strasbourg, Germany, 1518—a woman begins dancing uncontrollably in the street. Within days, dozens join her, gyrating to no music, flailing until they collapse from exhaustion. Physicians, baffled, prescribed more dancing. Deaths followed. The contagion, historians now believe, was fueled by stress, superstition, and the unrelenting pressure of conformity. In essence, these people danced themselves to death for no discernible reason.
MAGA Manifestation: Rally Fever
Step onto your own dystopian dance floor: the MAGA rally. Flags wave, chants erupt, and the crowd pulsates in a frenzy of synchronized grievance. This is your version of Strasbourg’s aimless gyration—loud, relentless, and entirely disconnected from reality. You cheer his ramblings, void of solutions, prosperity, or progress, as if sheer noise could transform fiction into fact. As if repetition alone could summon a new truth.
In his impending return to power, Trump has unveiled plans for national loyalty oaths and sweeping purges of so-called “traitors” within federal agencies—a theatrical purge designed to feed your appetite for vengeance, not governance. The parallels are glaring: you’re not rallying for solutions; you’re auditioning for his spectacle.
Do you understand what’s happening? You’re not moving toward progress; you’re a whirling dervish in his choreographed farce. And when this grotesque performance finally collapses, it won’t be Trump left drained and discarded. That distinction will be yours alone.
Symptom 3: Reality Rejection Syndrome
Historical Case Study: Galileo and the Church (1610)
Reality has become your enemy, and Trump’s con artistry has convinced you that rejecting it is a patriotic duty. In the early 17th century, Galileo Galilei dared to challenge the geocentric model of the universe, presenting evidence that the Earth revolved around the Sun, challenging centuries of religious dogma. The Catholic Church, fearing a loss of authority, clung to outdated doctrine, branded him a heretic and silenced him. Their refusal to engage with evidence delayed scientific progress and cemented the Church’s reputation for clinging to ignorance for centuries.
MAGA Manifestation: Truth Decay
Your Church is the MAGA movement, and your heresies are facts: climate change is real, vaccines work, and Trump unequivocally lost the 2020 election. But accepting these truths would shatter the comforting bubble of grievance and denial you’ve so carefully curated. Trump, like Galileo’s inquisitors, feeds this delusion, recently calling climate scientists “frauds” and suggesting rising sea levels are a “hoax to punish hardworking Americans.” Just this week, he dismissed scientific consensus on rising sea levels, calling it “fake news from the climate cartel.”
Let me remind you: denial doesn’t stop reality. Hurricanes, wildfires, and collapsing infrastructure aren’t political statements. They’re coming for you whether or not you believe in them. Galileo’s science didn’t stop for the Church, and reality won’t pause for your Truth Social feed.
Symptom 4: False Prophet Phenomenon
Historical Case Study: The Children’s Crusade (1212)
False prophets are nothing new. In 1212, thousands of children from France and Germany embarked on a doomed march to Jerusalem, believing their innocence would inspire divine intervention. They had no weapons, no resources, no plan, and no chance. Most died en route, and those who survived were enslaved or exploited by opportunists—their faith manipulated by unscrupulous adults who saw an opportunity to profit from their zeal.
MAGA Manifestation: Tangerine Tyrant Disorder
Trump is your promised land—a mirage of salvation delivering only deserts of chaos. Despite four years of corruption, incompetence, and outright failure, you march once again, convinced that his second term will deliver the greatness he somehow forgot the first time around. And now, as he prepares for his second term, he has made his priorities clear: consolidating power, persecuting enemies, and enriching himself.
You are the children of this crusade, marching toward ruin while Trump watches from his gilded tower. The only divine intervention will be the moment you realize you’ve been used.
Symptom 5: Speculative Bubble Complex
Historical Case Study: Tulip Mania (1637)
Your investment in the Trump illusion mirrors Holland’s tulip frenzy—a bubble destined to burst, leaving only humiliation and empty bank accounts. In 17th-century Holland, tulip bulbs became the ultimate status symbol, sparking a speculative frenzy. At its peak, a single bulb could cost as much as a house. When the bubble inevitably burst, fortunes evaporated, and the Dutch economy tanked, leaving behind a cautionary tale of greed and delusion. The tulip’s value was never real; the mania was the true commodity.
MAGA Manifestation: Great America Mirage Affliction
Trump is your tulip bulb (an orange one)—a shiny object of perceived value that withers under scrutiny. You’ve poured your money, identity, and dignity into a man who sells nothing but empty promises and phony populism, only to watch him funnel your donations into his legal defenses and private ventures. Just last week, it was revealed that his “Election Integrity Fund” (you know, “Stop the Steal”) financed luxury renovations at Mar-a-Lago.
The bubble is already bursting. How much more will you sacrifice before admitting that Trump’s promises were as empty as the wallets he’s drained?
Prognosis and Prescription
Dear patient, your case of MAGA may be severe, but it is also tragically self-inflicted—and therein lies the slim hope for recovery. History is a graveyard of movements fueled by mass hysteria, delusion, and blind loyalty. None of them ended well, and you are no exception.
The cure is brutally simple: Stop. Believing. Lies. Reject the false promises of a man who has built his fortune—and his presidency—on your gullibility. Wake up. Stop conflating grievance with truth. Demand accountability from your leaders and yourself. Reclaim your capacity for independent thought before history stamps you as yet another cautionary tale—another footnote in the annals of collective insanity.
Or don’t. Stay in the thrall of a man whose only consistency is his disdain for you. Just know that while you’re busy cheering from the sidelines of your own undoing, Trump will be on the golf course—laughing, rich, and untouched by the consequences of your devotion.
Deny this cure, and history will not remember you as patriots but as demolitionists of a once-great democracy—applauding as its pillars crumbled beneath the weight of lies and self-delusion. You won’t be revered as defenders of liberty; you’ll be forever marked as the willing saboteurs who allowed fear and grievance to ignite the flames that consumed the ideals you professed to cherish.
Prescribing Reality,
Chief Diagnostician of Willful Ignorance, Mersault
P.S. I’d offer you a vaccine against this kind of hysteria, but we both know you’d call it a hoax.
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Cartoon by Clay Jones
Thank you for this detailed exploration of destructive, delusional movements of the past. The similarities with MAGA are clear. It is beneficial for the sane among us because it shows that all of these similar movements died out. Unfortunately, the MAGATS will never read this and wouldn’t understand or accept it if they did. These are people who clearly have to learn the hard way. It’s too bad the rest of us have to endure what they have caused.
Another fantastic Open Letter, Mersault—all the history trump worshipers have forgotten (or, most likely, didn't know to begin with because education is another of their weak points) and are doomed to repeat. I know comparisons to Nazi Germany are now old hat but that's in there, as well; despite all the openly outward signs, they're still falling into the Hitler trap of "nationalism" and I'm convinced that, because of it, people are going to die one way or another—whether it's mishandling of another epidemic or pandemic, vigilante-style "cleaning up the country" on perceived orders from their savior, or outright rounding up portions of the population to be put into modern-day concentration camps. Scary days ahead. I'll look forward to your missive for your take on everything that happens in the next hellish four years.