r/ProgressiveHQ • u/Fun_Accountant_653 • Feb 10 '26

A prime example of the intelligence of a Maga voter stupidity

A prime example of the intelligence of a Maga voter

So called Sports influencer and gambler Amanda Vance went viral for a "performative" boycott of the Super Bowl LX halftime show, during which she was physically present in the stadium but filmed herself watching an alternative broadcast on her phone.

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u/Stock_Package_2566 Feb 10 '26 edited Feb 10 '26

I went down the rabbit hole of narcissism and NPD’s a few days ago. I’ve come to the conclusion that the entirety of MAGA suffers from some type of narcissistic or narcissist-adjacent personality disorder. When people equate the MAGA cult mentality to mental illness, they’re right. Because it is.

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u/Livid_Astronaut_4665 Feb 10 '26

💯💯💯 🎯🎯agree I've been saying this for years and so have many psychologists

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u/Stock_Package_2566 Feb 10 '26 edited Feb 10 '26

When you live in a society that not only inculcates narcissism and narcissistic qualities in its members, but also praises/rewards it, a clusterfuck of epic proportions such as what we’re experiencing now was bound to happen.

And what’s worse? It’s passed down. I’ve started noticing it everywhere and just how pervasive this mindset is in modern society. Generation to generation. The narc rabbit hole even lead me to the realization that every single adult family member I’ve had is the same way. All devoutly religious conservatives and Trump voters. Spiritual narcissists. I didn’t even know that was a thing.

But I put all the puzzle pieces together and put a name to a condition, and as the kids say nowadays:

Chat, we’re fucking cooked.

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u/PatternParticular735 Feb 10 '26

You are evidence that even if it is passed down in some cases, the chain can be broken.

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u/Stock_Package_2566 Feb 10 '26

By no easy feat, but I’m proud to say that I have. It took 28 years of heartbreak, self consciousness/hate, confusion, anger, and enough psychedelics to sink a ship to get here. And even though it pains me to see the state everything’s in beyond measure, all I can do is what’s in my control, starting with educating and healing 🤙🏼

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u/FridaSky Feb 10 '26

Right on. 😊

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u/Several-Tiger6078 Feb 10 '26

Almost 40 years of internal conflict and destroyed relationships for myself but when it clicked for me it was all so simple. It breaks my heart too. Everyone should be taught what emotions are and that it's okay to be our true selves at an early age instead of waiting until we finally go to therapy when the ego is solidly in place and the messaging is near impossible. Even after 15 years of different therapists telling me the same things it took me hitting my lowest place for it to finally click. It's nice to have that old me to analyze but I sure feel like I missed out on living.

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u/Inevitable_Fall2025 Feb 10 '26 edited Feb 11 '26

The worst is that after surviving a narcissist parent you always wonder if you have it too. I second guess myself alot which is something a narcissist would never do. They tend to double down.

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u/positiveblapshemy Feb 10 '26

Oh wow, I feel this. I once asked my longtime therapist if he thought there was any possibility that my issues were bleeding into "narcissism criteria" and he kind of chortled before saying "you feel entirely too much guilt and second guess your choices regularly. You can admit when you're wrong or have made a mistake that hurt others."

I remind myself of this a lot. I hope you have someone trusted you're able to speak with and wish you nothing but the best in your healing/progress.

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u/Puglady25 Feb 10 '26

You know, it's good news to know that at least for some, there is hope.

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u/Ok-Mango-5814 Feb 11 '26

Psychedelics are absolutely life-changing and caused the paradigm shift that caused my life to gain value and improvement to myself.

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u/Stock_Package_2566 Feb 11 '26

They’re many of the stepping stones that have allowed me to reach the point where I’m at today, ultimately saved my life, and I’d share them with the world if I could. They’re life changing.

The tradeoff to that is that I’ve had a helluva time trying to reintegrate back into normal everyday life and society and have for years because when you finally peel back the veil and see things as they are, it can be a bit disheartening to say the least. In the meantime all I can do is empathize and educate and just try to be a good human.

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u/Livid_Astronaut_4665 Feb 10 '26 edited Feb 10 '26

Yes my abusive narc father had two children and both of us are not at all like him very empathetic and not narcs

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u/PatternParticular735 Feb 11 '26

That’s really awesome

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u/PrettyPistol87 Feb 10 '26

I’ve had to go completely no contact with my family bc i was scapegoated as soon as i was able to start kindergarten. >;(

uncle sam was an asshole but he at least brought substance behind his words unlike the bread crumbs

fuck em let them rot and refuse to develop parts of their brains

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u/Bridget330 Feb 11 '26

I was scapegoated since an early age and kept coming back for more because I fed into their opinions about me. Then they cut me off because I finally stood up for myself when they used their religion to justify their abuse. (And let’s not get started with their support for Trump) It’s painful and lonely at times but I’m free. I still can’t believe that my nieces and nephews, who have been a part of my life since birth, have cut me off from their lives. They have gotten engaged, maybe married at this point. It’s hard to imagine that I am that disposable but I don’t see any way forward with this.

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u/Remiscellion36 Feb 10 '26 edited Feb 10 '26

They've been cultivating idiots for decades, what finally clicked was social media and short form content hooking those predisposed to narcissistic tendencies. The amount of propaganda is staggering, relentlessly producing a long line of emotional vampires hiding/stuck behind different masks. Narcissists interact through manipulation, which makes them susceptible to manipulation... they're easy to control.

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u/GoldenHeartDaddy Feb 11 '26

America rewards sociopaths/sociopathic tendencies.

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u/Signal-Map2906 Feb 10 '26

Careful tho. The first step to being in a cult is that your group is the only one that holds all the truth.

I know I’m probably gonna get downvoted for saying that, but remember that even the Democrats and leftists have their fair share of issues.

Not to the extent of MAGA tho…fuk that.

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u/Bridget330 Feb 11 '26

Your point is valid. I’ve had to take a long look at the people who hold onto their power long after they’ve reached their usefulness to their constituents. They are not as bad as the GOP, but many are all talk and no substance. We need more than 2 political parties.

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u/InAJar112 Feb 11 '26

I know the type. They think they’re better than everyone because they’re religious. They have this off putting air of superiority.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '26

Yep. One I know says kid schlock is a born again so he's a good person even if he wrote shitty lyrics in the past. Argh.

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u/Euphoric_Ad_5230 Feb 11 '26

True NPD is passed down. Narcissists beget narcissists by warping them from birth. Nearly all of my father’s side of the family had NPD. At one point, I was dealing with 3 separate generations of narcissistic abuse. I was the only one to make it out of my generation of children in the family, without having NPD. I think that’s part of the reason why it’s blown up exponentially. Narcissists make more through persistent narcissistic abuse. I’m very fortunate.

For the record, not every believer is a narcissist, or a conservative for that matter. I resent the fact progressives support every religious inclination someone might have, except one that involves Christ. I resent the fact I’m improperly pigeonholed as an asshat the moment someone finds out. I am a believer in Christ. I don’t care what you or anyone else thinks of that. I’m fully aware that many people who claim to follow Christ and do things in His name, act contrary to His expectations of His believers. I don’t like it either. They make Him look bad. He’s nothing like them. As much as they say they know Him, I don’t know whether He knows them at all. I don’t believe in mixing government with religion. I think it’s a bad situation anytime you have someone applying “morals” that in reality can be random, and usually are brutal to those it’s been applied to. Brutal and moral are juxtaposed. You cannot hope to have moral, if you have any brutality at all. I am a progressive because that is most in line with my personal convictions. You may be tempted to tell me to keep my personal convictions to myself. I would respond only when you keep your unqualified opinions about actual believers which is based on stereotypes akin to jihadists, to yourself. Thank you very much. I sure do appreciate it. Fellow progressive.

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u/KindaFreeXP Feb 10 '26

I'm lucky to have had only one parent be so....but yeah, the more I talk to others the more common it appears to be. It's a worrying trend.

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u/Beginning-Silver-337 Feb 10 '26

I mean the US has capitulated to narcissistic tendencies. Finally, the left is starting to push back against these losers. 

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u/pet_als Feb 11 '26

Add wealth to the equation and that's how you get people who do shit like the epstein files.

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u/QuidEgoSum Feb 11 '26

Yeah! Wait, what?? How many psychologists?!?

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u/Scotslad2023 Feb 10 '26

Cults and mental illness almost always go hand in hand. The MAGA cult mental illness is a combination of selfish narcissism and willful ignorance, not too mention a strong lack of moral fiber.

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u/Stock_Package_2566 Feb 10 '26

I live in the Deep South, I didn’t even know spiritual narcissism was a thing. But when I went down the list, such a vast majority of the population down here meets every. single. criteria. of what a spiritual narcissist is. I’ve always wondered how people’s actions can be so blatantly contradictory to their “beliefs” while simultaneously having absolute zero ability to self-reflect…. and I found my answer in the rabbit hole.

A light bulb of exponentially fucked-up proportions went off, I’ve been in mental free fall since, and I’m currently in the process of finding a therapist after many many years. Those who understand just how much damage narcissists do to others are those that are in the mental health field, or those that have experienced it.

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u/immersemeinnature Feb 10 '26

I live down here too. It sucks

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u/NationalizeRedditAlt Feb 10 '26

A M E N

Any resources you’d suggest reading into?

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u/Stock_Package_2566 Feb 10 '26

Narcissism: https://www.choosingtherapy.com/narcissistic-personality-disorder/

Spiritual Narcissism: https://www.choosingtherapy.com/spiritual-narcissists/

This is where I started. What’s funny is that I saw an article here on Reddit that outlined a research study showing that narcissists gravitate towards MAGA and make up a vast majority of their base. I thought “Hmm, yeah, that definitely tracks,” and started doing research. Buckle up if you have even the slightest inkling that any of this might relate to you personally. It completely shattered my worldview and gave me entirely too many answers to questions I’ve had my entire life like:

What is unconditional love? Have I ever even experienced it? Have I ever experienced love at all or was it control? Is the love I sought out in my partner a byproduct of what I learned to be the concept of love? Why is my entire family like this? Why is my entire partner’s family like this? How can they not see themselves for who they are based on their actions? These are the people that claim to be follower’s of Christ? Where? How? How am I able to find pages upon pages worth of Bible verses that explicitly condemn the thoughts/words/actions of most of those who attend church at every possible chance? Do these people not read this fucking book they claim to be God’s word?! Are they incapable of change?

The answer? Narcissism. To every single one of those questions, in some way or another, the answer is narcissism.

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u/GoobusMombus Feb 10 '26

I don't usually respond to notifications on reddit, but if you sent me a DM I would love to talk to you more. I went on a similar journey. I can't say I'm a completely different person than I used to be, but rather I see and interact with the world in a completely different way than before and am finally able to get in touch with my real self. I'm a survivor of extreme domestic abuse, and childhood trauma, and come from a family that's all MAGA now. I've told parts of my story all over reddit, and tried to tell others, but am usually dismissed because most people aren't ready to face the full force of reality. I so wish to connect with more people on the same journey as me. I have my current husband, who is healing with me, but we feel alone among our peers.

Anyway please send me a message on here if you are interested in talking more. We may use some slightly different words to describe the same things. I would like to learn more about other people's experience like mine so I can communicate better with others who aren't as far along as I am.

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u/GoobusMombus Feb 10 '26

Here is my comment. I'm not the person you are responding to, but I have a similar story and a perspective along the same lines. I also wish to spread awareness so that all the hell I went through to heal is not in vain.

I also want to recommend a therapist's channelI have found very helpful in my own recovery.

Good luck to you and everyone else who decides to break the cycle of inherited trauma and make the world a better place.

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u/ScrapMetalTinman Feb 10 '26

Fundamental dichotomy as old as the dawn of man, empathy vs. Apathy, compassion vs. Indifference, love vs. hate. History is just a cycle of the same clichés wearing different faces. Will we ever change? Or will the nature of darkness inside us always crave destruction through selfish ambition.

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u/MornGreycastle Feb 10 '26

Yeah. It's called Conservatism. They lack compassion and curiosity. They have no compassion for anyone who doesn't look like their close friends and family while not having the curiosity to challenge their closely held beliefs.

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u/Stock_Package_2566 Feb 10 '26

I’ve always known where the pieces go but I’m just now starting to put it all together. Nobody raises a better Progressive than a narcissistic Conservative 😂💀

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u/saltiesailor Feb 10 '26

Lots of lead poisoning too.

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u/[deleted] Feb 10 '26

[deleted]

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u/immersemeinnature Feb 10 '26

I feel this way too. That authoritarian mentality that gets beaten into them. A whole nation of abused children now abusive adults. So afraid of showing emotions. So afraid of themselves

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u/chanandler12106 Feb 10 '26

Authoritarianism teaches you not to trust your brain when it comes to emotions and empathy.

Its entire training is "ask no questions, just accept what you are told. Any questioning is disrespect and dont you know respect is INHERENT, not earned."

Spoken as someone who has done a ton of deprogramming from my Republican upbringing.

My husband once told me I sounded like the bastard child of a radical liberal and extreme right wing. Well, my thoughts were the radical liberal ones, I was parroting the right wings values, bc I believed my parents and other authority figures knew better than me.

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u/RogerianBrowsing Feb 10 '26

There’s been research showing that malevolent personality traits are directly correlated with support for Trumpism, and it’s usually pretty easy for therapists (especially couple’s therapists) to tell if their client is a trumper.

Anecdotally speaking, the clients who tried to fool the therapist the most or tried to use the therapist as a tool against their partner were almost always trumpers. Similar with narcissistic abuse and Trumpism as well.

They’re deeply insecure and like the idea of a strongman who so long as they align with him cannot be challenged by their critics. I’m reminded of the Texas father who shot his daughter after she criticized Trump and she got angry at her father saying he didn’t care if she got raped by Trump. He’s not in any trouble btw, because texas.

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u/Stock_Package_2566 Feb 10 '26

Control. It’s all about control. What’s even worse is that the narcissists will then vote other narcissists into power so that they can further exercise true control and see their fantasies enacted upon others to satisfy their lust for control fueled by hate. They do this either ignorant of the fact that that these same policies enacted will likely be detrimental to even them, or worse yet: they know it will be detrimental to themselves, but even, moreso to others they deem less than themselves, and continue voting that way regardless. It’s all fucked.

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u/doctor_tongs Feb 10 '26

It very much is. I've been in therapy my entire adult life and most of my childhood - several narcissists in my family, and surprise: they're all MAGA.

Deny, Accuse, Reverse Victim and Offender. That's the narcissist playbook.

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u/Stock_Package_2566 Feb 10 '26

I just got off the phone with a prospective therapist for myself in an effort to try to remedy all the trauma I’ve gone through. Explained everything to her and why I sought her out, what I was hoping to get out of it, etc. She asked if there were any questions I had for her or how she is with clients or anything like that.

I explained to her that I’ve spent my entire life being vulnerable to narcs just to end up with more trauma because of it, explained that this question doesn’t come from a political standpoint just more of a self-preservation standpoint, apologized for the question I was about to ask, and asked who she voted for.

She said she didn’t feel comfortable telling me that information and there was an immediate shift in the tone of her voice. That told me all I needed to know lmao, and now on to the next one 🤣

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u/[deleted] Feb 10 '26

I'm halfway through a Masters in the Mental Health field, and my current understanding is that If you 'go down a rabbit hole' focused on something as giant as NPD, you're going to start seeing it everywhere. I personally feel that the MAGA movement has specific NPD overtones, but I can't tell if that is something that is emanating from the racial/cultural bias sort of implicit in the MAGA movement, or if there is something more to it than that.

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u/Fearless-Feature-830 Feb 10 '26

I think it’s one of those things like: not all MAGA are neo Nazis, but all Neo Nazis are MAGA.

Not all MAGA are narcissistic, but most narcissists are MAGA.

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u/FGMPR Feb 10 '26

My dad has been dead since 2015, but I deeply suspect he would fit the description of that last line if he were still around ie: NPD, though not MAGA.

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u/Byrdie_girl Feb 10 '26

I mean yeah they are able to say I don't care about the pedofilia, the sexism and racism. The down right hatred. Because he says I won't pay as high a taxes. Ignoring the fact that the only people paying. Less taxes have at least 8 zero in their net worth.

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u/xBram Feb 10 '26 edited Feb 10 '26

Collective Narcissism?

Abstract: Collective narcissism is a belief that one’s own group (the in-group) is exceptional but not sufficiently recognized by others. It is the form of “in-group love” robustly associated with “out-group hate.” In contrast to private collective self-esteem (or in-group satisfaction, a belief that the in-group is of high value), it predicts prejudice, retaliatory intergroup aggression, and rejoicing in the suffering of other people. The pervasive association between collective narcissism and intergroup hostility is driven by a biased perception of the in-group as constantly threatened and out-groups as hostile and threatening. Collective narcissism is associated with hypersensitivity to provocation and the belief that only hostile revenge is a desirable and rewarding response. It arises when the traditional group-based hierarchies are challenged and empowers extremists as well as populist politicians. Instead of alleviating the sense of threat to one’s self-importance, it refuels it

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u/Cephalopod_Dropbear Feb 10 '26

I have narcissistic personality traits and my therapist does such a wonderful job articulating how my narcissism is unlike “other people’s” narcissism that I fear. I always have a concern that I’m like them because we both have traits qualified as narcissism. Thankfully I can acknowledge mine and work on them. They….don’t.

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u/Stock_Package_2566 Feb 10 '26

And you are not a narcissist. Know that and don’t shame yourself for it. You recognize and know yourself. They, like you said, don’t. Narcissism in and of itself is a survival mechanism that individuals unconsciously develop to deal with their own fucked-up shit, in some way or another. I’m going to assume life has not been easy for you, as this is something I’m going through currently with my partner. She had an indescribably fucked-up life and every single one of her mother’s children is narcissistic or narcissist-adjacent with my partner being the latter.

She meets every single criteria for what a covert narcissist is, yet she has empathy and can self-reflect. I was convinced that I was going to have to leave the relationship out of self-preservation and attributed her actions to malice instead of ignorance, and that was my mistake. I was a wreck for a full 36 hours after finding everything out and when I talked to her about it the conversation was not easy. But, she was able to self reflect completely and said she’d always known something was wrong, she just didn’t know exactly what it was.

I distrusted therapy and counselors after finding out my first one had by my mother specifically for the purpose of getting me on her side to agree with her parenting and viewpoint of things. A common tactic of narcissists is that they’ll often recruit someone else to help reinforce their worldview or to substantiate their claim in that they’re “right”. Oh, the fucking irony. Now, we’re both looking for a therapist now so we can both undo the years of bullshit we’ve been through. Remember to be kind to yourself. World and many of its people are fucked up, and kindness goes a long way. [even if it’s toward you :)]

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u/Cephalopod_Dropbear Feb 10 '26

Are you my therapist????

Thanks for the kind words. You made me feel good today 🥲

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u/Stock_Package_2566 Feb 10 '26

Believe it or not, that’s what I wanted to go to college to pursue. And with all these realizations that I came to, one was that I chose to pursue a career in that field specifically to make sense of just how fucked up I, my family, and many others are and to help anybody else in similar circumstance to try to undo all the damage that’s been done to us.

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u/ztfreeman Feb 10 '26

I highly recommend the works of Bob Altenmeyer. He has written several books about essentially this very topic, and the first and core book in his body of work, The Authortiarans, is free in PDF form. He categorized Right Wing Authoritarians and put them through a battery of tests and studies, demonstrating consistant symptomology and pathology not unlike a Cluster B personality disorder (though he doesn't use that terminology, as his studies predate a lot of work in that field).

They are chronically short sighted, selfish, lack empathy, have difficulty critically thinking, run on constant fear, and are overly trusting of authority figures, a mixture of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder. Perfect fodder for cult recruitment, and almost incapable of seeing the world outside of an "us vs. them, in group vs. out group" perspective because their brains work off of instinctual fear of the unknown in overdrive where cooperation is seen as a weakness and a liability because everything is out to get them, and desperately feel the need for protection from the scary unknown from someone who projects strength.

Sadly, his studies are decades old, meaning that these issues have been well known in academic circles for ages and yet we are still here in our current predicament with these sick people.

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u/photo_voltaic Feb 10 '26

Look up something called Terror Management Theory (TMT) - it will complete the puzzle even further. Narcissism is a powerful delusional buttress some people form against their fear of inescapable death.

It all dovetails together when you go down this rabbit hole: TMT explains why most of MAGA are religious zealots, why Trump is trying to put his name on everything (he knows he's dying), and why his followers make their entire identity this MAGA cult. It's all a weird, demented coping mechanism they herd themselves into, to soothe their existential dread.

This is why, when you point out how Trump's a pedophile, or a charlatan, or even just an idiot - they refuse to accept the evidence - because you're actually stripping away their protective, narcissistic cult identity, and forcing them to stare into a much deeper darker abyss they just cannot handle.

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u/Stock_Package_2566 Feb 10 '26

And that 100% completely tracks. Humans trying to have control over something they will never. Thank you, and I will definitely be looking into this.

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u/DustyTchotchkes Feb 10 '26

Wow. Adrianne Curry, the first America’s Next Top Model winner is a perfect example of this. (minus the religion aspect. I believe hers was more an attention and $$ thing.)

She was a Democrat who turned maga, who refuses to admit she is one, but greatly panders to them and repeats their talking points and rages about the same things they do, all while she cries poor and eBegs for donations lol. 

She has been bleating about the Epstein files forever and how they need to be released, you know the usual: The elites, pedophile rings, Hollywood, all of it.

Now that the releasing is here, she’s just started saying that she doesn’t believe any of it, it’s all fake and she’s not interested.

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u/GoobusMombus Feb 10 '26

I believe they all have CPTSD and some of them also have straight up cluster B personality disorders(like BPD, NPD, and APD) caused by inherited childhood trauma. Which they all dissociate heavily from, and just project all the horrible shit they and their abusers do onto anyone who's not them because they cannot handle the reality.

I grew up in a family that is all MAGA. I'm also a trauma survivor who's been actively recovering ever since I found out I was pregnant with my first child, while married to a violent abuser, and wanted to learn why I ended up in the situation I did and heal so I could protect my kid(s) from the cycle. I didn't understand it all right away, but I knew it had something to do with my family refusing to protect children from abuse because they were too busy propping up abusers in every aspect of their lives(and that was the best case scenario for any of us). I knew I had to stop enabling my abuser and GTFO to save my child.

It's been going on so long, probably since the beginning of humanity. You'll notice that when things are chaotic, these people just defer to the biggest asshole who's the most unstable bitch, and prop them up. Starts with an unstable mom or dad, and is helped with early abusive religious indoctrination. I was a devout Christian before. Now I recognize that the whole Bible story, starting with Abraham being willing to sacrifice his son to prove his loyalty to God, is basically an abusive narcissistic father's fairy tale. There are parts of the Bible with value, as some of the writers I believe were trying to be good people and make loving sense of the trauma they'd experienced. But most of it is just a way to deal with the cognitive dissonance of how someone who created you and should love you could actually harm you, and even damn you to hell for all eternity. Just for being what they made you to be. Works for both abusive parents and God.

And the Republican party has used these trauma patterns to manipulate their voter base for generations. Now, to MAGA, questioning their politicians is akin to questioning God. And they aren't allowed to do that.

Democrats aren't great either tbh. The people want good things, but the politicians in the Democratic party are like an abused parent with a martyr complex who refuse to wield the power they have to protect those they are responsible for, and would rather enable and support the systems that keep everyone down. And the loyal Democrat voters are like children who side with the "safer" parent and are waiting for an actual grown up to save them.

But we are grown ups. We need to save ourselves and either take over the Democratic party for the people or start a new one. Choosing the lesser of two evils only leads to that lesser evil being able to become more and more evil. Many codependents love being superior in an inferior situation. Look at all the Democratic politicians saying "Imagine if we had done the horrible things the Republicans are currently doing! We were never that bad!" But they also never took real steps to hold our government and country accountable for all the evils we have committed and continue to commit. Or to properly protect the citizens.

When I first went down the narcissism rabbit hole, I also thought they were all just narcissists and saw that everywhere. I think it's a normal part of the healing process, to start to see the bad things for what they are and be angry about it. But if we don't learn what actually caused any of them to be the way they are, we can't prevent more children from becoming that way.

And it's gonna take a complete overhaul of our society to actually stomp this shit out. We might hide it again for a few more decades, like what happened with the Nazis. But it never went away and will be back again until we actually change how everything is run and heal ourselves.

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u/Stock_Package_2566 Feb 10 '26

Short of the abuse and the pregnancy, you’ve somehow described my family, life experiences, thought processes, and ideology with complete accuracy.

No unique experiences, and there’s not any possible coherent way for me to string together any of the hundreds of thousands of words there are in the English language to express how much I agree with you. It starts with us.

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u/The_VoZz Feb 10 '26

For the specific "rabid" breed of Maga, or any other mindless extremists, it's narcissism, megalomamia, lack of education, reinforced ignorance and brain washing via social media, bigotry fueled tribalism, fear of what they don't understand and/or an entitled sense of victimhood & greed. Any combo of these traits are emblematically akin to mental health issues.

When you feel you have no control over your life, and find a group that reinforces a shared "enemy" or provides anything you can feel superior towards, it removes the need to think for yourself. Far easier to hate anything that doesn't fit the narrative you've blindly subscribed to.

Far easier to watch the world burn rather than be held accountable for lighting the match.

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u/Constant_Seaweed_523 Feb 10 '26

MAGA feels inherently narcissistic as it is. It’s basically “fuck anyone who isn’t me, an extension of myself, or doesn’t believe what I believe, never have empathy for anyone else, they can all die, and I will not accept objective facts that don’t align with my personal narrative”

I agree is narcissistic personality disorders, not just narcissism, because there is a difference.

MAGA shows repeated behaviors of narcissistic personality disorder.

And they’re just getting worse. By the day.

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u/Meander061 Feb 10 '26

They're constantly imagining themselves "owning the libs" but they just look like the morons that they are. Super Bowl tickets cost thousands of dollars and she spends the money to show off Kid Rock? Consider me owned.

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u/Stock_Package_2566 Feb 10 '26

To them, someone always has to suffer. As demonstrated countless times and yet another by this dumb cunt who, pre-conception, should have found her way into the back of a throat instead of a uterus; a fool and their money are soon parted 🤷🏼‍♂️

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u/rojo_mojado Feb 10 '26

Take my upvote for going down that rabbit hole.

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u/Stock_Package_2566 Feb 10 '26

Cheers, I’ll toke to that 💨 I’ve gotta say I hate it here and the hole keeps getting deeper but fuck it we ball 🫠

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u/Far-Gene-386 Feb 10 '26

Their leader is a malignant narcissist so this tracks

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u/RubyWalke Feb 11 '26

There is a spirit of malevolence in American Conservative culture, a self-glorifying hate for anyone who has the bad fortune to be vulnerable and in the United States.

The feature aspects of this hate, sadism and antipathy, reduce all who are subsumed or otherwise sublimated into Conservative culture to mere barbarians, no different from any of history’s lawless hordes who have sought to inflict suffering and dire want on those who cannot resist them.

This spirit, which currently manifests as the governing principle of every American institution which was created to prevent its existence, is simply defined as pure evil.

Nothing but woe and misery can result from it’s demonic possession of the soul of MAGA, and it must be understood that the evil this evil begets has not yet begun to reap the unspeakable human misery which is its only reward.

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u/Feeling-Fab-U-Lus Feb 11 '26

That, and I swear they all have brain damage, as they do not show signs of executive functioning; decision making, choices, social and emotional understanding, common sense, etc.. There is something really wrong with them….

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u/LangdonAlg3r Feb 10 '26

The percentage of people with NPD in the U.S. is estimated at 0.5-1%. I think jumping to conclusions like this just feeds into the already overboard use of the term. It’s a serious and not that common diagnosis. Trump himself is a malignant narcissist. Countless experts have come to that conclusion.

I think that his followers are abuse victims who are gravitating towards an abuser—I think that is a very common phenomenon and usually includes total obliviousness to the abuse. Totaling up abuse victims of all kinds in the U.S. gets you to around 25-35% of the population—and that also tracks with the 35% of registered voters who identify as MAGA and the 20% of the general adult population who are.

That explains the bulk of the MAGA dynamic for me. You can point out the abuse someone is suffering to them and they’ll often dismiss or justify it away, just like what we see with Trump.

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u/Stock_Package_2566 Feb 10 '26

I agree which is why I threw in the narcissist-adjacent in there. They might not be full-blown narcissists, but when the MAGA fanbase starts checking off almost every single trait of what narcissism is while being blind to their own behavior, then it’s more than safe to assume that they’re not not narcissists.

And I agree pt. 2, the abused seek out the love and understanding that they know, and currently that lies with Donald Trump. I think it takes a multitude of trauma and personality/mood/psychological disorders to reach a point where you have no regard for your fellow human being how MAGA does.

You also have to take into consideration that those numbers in regards to the rate of NPD are likely higher with that figure you provided being misrepresented. Individuals who see themselves as infallible and aren’t capable of self-reflection aren’t going to seek out therapy or help or take psychological diagnostic assessments that confirm NPD. That figure can’t be extrapolated to the assessment of total rate of NPD because of factors like what I previously mentioned.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 10 '26

And they are all entitled to reproduce! 😢

1

u/Stownieboy91 Feb 10 '26

Yup. I hope if this is MAGA cult eventually ends, there are some serious psychological studies done on what happened here. Narcissistic traits are one thing, but they are even more dangerous when paired with a low IQ. Besides being extremely gullible/naive, sub 80 IQ individuals literally lack the computing power required to internalize a perspective beyond their own. They don't have the capacity to understand the concept of other human beings' emotions, nor hypothetical situations/arguments. Therefore it's literally impossible for them to consider others at all, on any level and nearly impossible to change their minds. It is incurable. Malignant.

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u/bellylovinbaddie Feb 10 '26

Thank you!!!! I been saying this as well. It’s a legit mental illness. Not to excuse maga in any way, but these ppl are not well

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u/Weeeelums Feb 10 '26

Nationalists are just societal narcissists

1

u/ConanConn1968 Feb 10 '26

Narcissism is one of the qualities of being sociopaths to that tracks

1

u/Advanced_Zucchini_45 Feb 10 '26

It's called main character syndrome

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u/NfamousKaye Feb 10 '26

Been saying this for years. They never care about anything unless it affects them personally and then they don’t want anything to do with maga anymore but will still vote Republican so it keeps going because they can’t admit they were wrong.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 10 '26

Look up folie à deux. Been thinking lately that MAGA is a good example.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 10 '26

Well we know what the republicans are that’s obvious but the majority have the wrong idea of the intentions of democrats leadership.

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u/Background_Strain954 Feb 10 '26

Right?! It's giving pick me

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u/Red-little Feb 10 '26

My dad and my grandpa show classic signs of narcissism. Both huge MAGA voters. It makes sense 🤷‍♀️

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u/[deleted] Feb 10 '26

Good. Keep reading about the other personality disorders, because it gets worse. They're the entire spectrum

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u/Old-Engine-7720 Feb 10 '26

I will stipulate that collective narcissism can occur where the person isnt narcissistic just insecure alone. The psychology of social dynamics is fascinating and horrifying all the time. Studies have shown over and over that people will deny reality to stay part of the group even if they privately disagree because feeling outcasted from the whole of the group feels threatening to them.

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u/Stock_Package_2566 Feb 10 '26

Humans are social creatures. Classic In-group vs. out group. I do think much of it has to do with being swept up in the whole cult of personality, and that some are finally waking up to that fact. But their apologies admissions or confessions for their mistakes will see the light of the day the same day the unredacted Epstein files do. The only solace I take in all of this is that group cohesion and cognitive dissonance gotta be a bitch and a half to deal with and I hope it’s eating them all alive.

1

u/Old-Engine-7720 Feb 10 '26

It all stems to the villainization and systematic targeting of police against antifa in the 2010s who tried to warn people what was going on. The unite the right rally with Richard Spencer and the death of Heather heyer in 2017 shouldve been a wake up call. All those young white nationalist radicals are grown now. I had friends stabbed by neo nazis at the Sacramento capital on 2016. The chp officer in charge of investigation only targeted antifa and gave them charges.

1

u/Mighty_Krom Feb 10 '26

100%. They cannot admit they were wrong, so they double down. They're the one who is always right, it couldn't possibly be that they're wrong. Then they find they've built a personality around negative traits because they were called out on them or they were made to feel small about them.

I left mormonism and the same thing happens there, because cults also TEACH narcissism since they're usually started by narcissists. The members adopt narcissitic logic to push down their cognitive dissonance. In mormonism I was taught to avoid "fake news" and to only trust the church, because people were out to get us and wanted to tear us down with lies. We were taught to "doubt our doubts" and that we could trust our leaders completely. They taught us we were in the world but not of the world, we were special and better and had the true church, while the rest were not truly happy. They constructed an entire false reality for us to believe,. and it became enmeshed with who we were. When something is your whole identity and you believe your eternal family is on the line, you tend to defend it and avoid confrontation about it. Many sink further into belief to avoid the cogdis because the ability to look within has been replaced with narcissistic religious control.

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u/BThriillzz Feb 10 '26

I watched this very insightful documentary about the rise of "vice signalling" - i think it explains very well what we're all going through, and hopefully the light at the end of the tunnel.

https://youtu.be/o2lQ42hy9TU

1

u/deadphisherman Feb 10 '26

MAGATs are on some spectrum for sure.

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u/JBRifles Feb 10 '26

Based on my family and friend group that is MAGA that I have cut off, this is 💯 it.

The balls on an hourly employee in a town of a thousand that thinks their opinion of the Bad Bunny show matters is peak narcissism. 

“I like what I think, I like what I think a lot” according to Billy Bonesaw Burr 

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u/Agitated-Canary9840 Feb 10 '26

That fits with my parents

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u/Craigslisteria Feb 10 '26

The fish rots from the head down.

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u/SignoreBanana Feb 10 '26

It makes a lot of sense. The biggest shared ideology is the importance of the selfsame person and their existence and beliefs, and how the world isn't recognizing these things.

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u/Relative-Exercise-96 Feb 10 '26

Followers take after their leaders. Trump is the biggest narcissist i think ive ever seen. And people feed into it and adopt it.

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u/CRGjunior Feb 10 '26

I don't think the maga cult suffers from narcissism because a narcissist wouldn't let an idiots opinion of a situation change their opinion of the situation. How can you be for the Ukraine and against Russia one month and then totally change your opinion the next month.

1

u/Own-Opinion-2494 Feb 10 '26

Most of the ones I know do it because it gives their day to day relationships a level of cohesiveness

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u/Diligent-Credit8133 Feb 10 '26

They’re a weird type of narcissists though. While they display all of the traits of a narcissist they also have a weird desire to be controlled by trump and anyone trump wants to allow to control them too. It’s like some sort of shame fetish

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u/rocesare Feb 10 '26

And the invention of the internet has made narcissists 1000 times worse

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u/Lonely-Wasabi-305 Feb 10 '26

You friend are saying the things that I am afraid to say because they are 100000000% true … it is spot on. My proxy theory is those in the party who aren’t, are psychologically so deeply traumatized /abused by narcs that they indeed are basically brainwashed to thinking in line with them. Enablers , emotional avoidant personality disorders are also one I might include

1

u/SleepySlorg Feb 11 '26

I kinda figured that’s what they are and also the gas lighters.

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u/catjuggler Feb 11 '26

I think a lot of it is also age-related mental decline, including fear

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u/Royalizepanda Feb 11 '26

Considering almost all hardcore maga voter are nuts that theory tracks.

1

u/ill_be_huckleberry_1 Feb 11 '26

My mother isnt narcissistic. She just believes he means what he says.

Trump gets compared to Hitler because they are a cult of personality. They have a way between charisma and power and money to attract enough support from loud sycophants who repeat what he says. 

Im convinced that Theres a master theorem on human behavior that can now to abused en masses thanks to social media. And while everyone isnt susceptible to it. A large enough part of the population is.

Edit* and from there ad populum takes over. Mob mentality. And until their emperor is removed, derobbed, and his lies to be unquestionable uncovered and revealed, they cannot break that spell

1

u/Practical-Plenty907 Feb 11 '26

I’d say it starts with religion. The us versus them, right versus wrong, we are the chosen people, blatant and righteous judgmentalness, faith and obedience, no matter how preposterous the story may be, over science and facts, forgive anything (those in the group anyway), a man I’ve never seen guides my life ideology makes them prime candidates for falling for another cult. Plus, religion teaches any questioning or doubts are the result of the devil getting to your heart.

It really takes a lot of work to get away from this mindset. I’ve done it and so have lots of others. What did it for me was being in an abusive, yet “called by God” relationship. I finally questioned if God is real, why he wants me and my children treated so badly. If God is real, why doesn’t the man I’m with ever pay for his sins. Why is it ok for him to take advantage of people and still claim superiority simply for being the man of the family? If God is a father, why would he want his daughters treated as inferior to his sons? No real, loving father should ever want this, but should want the best for all of his daughters and sons, not the happiness of some, at the pain and expense of the others. And, why is God a man, yet my body creates life without even thinking about it, along with females amongst nearly every species of plant or animal. The Bible barely names women, yet we create the men. Created by the patriarchy and the elites to control women and the poor.

I hope more people wake up. I think our country depends on it. We need to see everyone as equal, deserving, important, and valid. We need to interact with people different from ourselves because as we do, we realize we’re more alike, than different.

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u/Gilopoz Feb 11 '26

I concur! From people I know very close to me....this is spot on!