What MAGA Really Believes, Part 4: I Watched 28 Minutes of MAGA’s Mask Slipping and Found a Doctrine of Purification

It wasn’t rage — it was ritual. A gospel of grievance wrapped in flags, scripture, and the promise of domination.

The Mask Is Off

There’s a particular kind of clarity that only arrives when no one thinks they’re being watched, when the performance ends and the doctrine speaks for itself.

In this fourth installment of What MAGA Really Believes, we’re not dissecting a news clip, a press conference, or a “what they meant to say” moment. We’re dissecting a full-throttle, gloves-off MAGA rant, not whispered in a fringe forum, but delivered with conviction, affirmation, and applause in a public livestream. No filters. No hesitation. No euphemisms. Just the raw, uncut id of a movement that no longer feels the need to pretend it’s about liberty.

What unfolds in this monologue is not simply outrage, it is a psychological blueprint. A sermon of moral superiority, historical revisionism, dehumanization, paranoia, persecution, and purification, all wrapped in flags, Bible verses, and conspiratorial certainty. And the speaker? A Black man. Which, if you know the research, is not surprising, it’s illuminating.

Studies show that Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) can run high in marginalized men when they feel culturally alienated, masculinity is threatened, or political power seems attainable only through identification with dominant ideologies (Perry, 2013; Dunaway & Hetherington, 2020). In those moments, MAGA doesn’t look like betrayal, it looks like the only offer on the table.

What you’re about to see is that offer in full. A man so possessed by the mythology of grievance and the sanctity of domination that he openly dreams of violence, calls fellow citizens “subhuman,” rewrites the nation’s sins into virtues, and blames “leftists” for every social, moral, and institutional collapse.

And yet, every line he speaks is familiar. You've heard it before. Just more carefully packaged. Less vulgar. More plausible. But the message is always the same:
We are under attack. We are chosen. We will rise by force if we must.

This article is not about him. It’s about what he reveals: a movement fused to identity, fueled by grievance, and animated by a hunger for domination disguised as justice.

This is not a tantrum. This is a worldview.
And now, we’ll break it apart.

Righteous Rage and the Narcissism of the Group

The rant opens not with facts, but with a declaration: that leftists are “subhuman,” “satanic,” and “barbaric.” That they are destroying the country. That they don’t even deserve a soapbox.

This isn’t policy disagreement. It’s dehumanization.

And it’s not incidental, it’s psychological.

What you hear in that fury is collective narcissism in its most weaponized form: the belief that one’s group is morally exceptional but constantly disrespected by outsiders. Unlike healthy patriotism, collective narcissism doesn’t simply want recognition. It demands it, and lashes out when it’s denied.

In the speaker’s view, "real Americans,” his tribe, are not just right. They are righteous. They are God-ordained. And they are under siege. Every perceived loss, every challenge to that moral dominance, becomes an existential threat. That’s why dissenters aren’t merely wrong, they’re “troglodytes,” “delusional,” “mentally lethargic,” and “anti-American.”

This isn't just rage. It’s grievance sanctified.

Studies by Golec de Zavala and others show that collective narcissism correlates with intergroup aggression, especially when the in-group's image is questioned or when out-groups are seen as undermining the group’s rightful status (Golec de Zavala et al., 2020). In this worldview, unity doesn’t mean peaceful coexistence. It means submission to the dominant identity. Anyone who won’t conform is a traitor, a threat, or a vessel for Satan.

This explains why MAGA loyalty isn’t just political, it’s spiritual. The speaker doesn’t just want to win arguments. He wants to convert the country or purge it. You’re either for us, or you’re not American. And if you challenge that group identity? You’re not just an opponent, you’re unworthy of speech, rights, or even personhood.

In his words:

"You don’t even deserve a damn soapbox… get out of the way or lay down."

This is not rhetoric seeking compromise or common ground.
It’s a moral crusade. And the group must stay pure.

That’s why facts don’t matter.
That’s why contradiction is irrelevant.
That’s why cruelty becomes clarity.

Because in the eyes of collective narcissism, defending the group’s greatness is always righteous, even when it means threatening democracy, distorting history, or fantasizing about violence.

This isn’t fringe anymore.
It’s become foundational.

The Authoritarian God Complex

One of the most jarring elements of the rant is not just its rage, it’s the righteousness of that rage. The speaker doesn’t merely express anger. He sanctifies it. And the justification for that sanctification isn’t just political. It’s biblical.

He isn’t mad.
He’s anointed.

Throughout the monologue, he frames his ideology as divinely inspired:

“The Spirit spoke to me this morning… He said, ‘I am pruning you.’”

“I have to love you because of my faith, otherwise, I wouldn’t give a damn about you.”

“I am taking my country back. You don’t deserve it.”

This is not incidental religious language. It’s theological authoritarianism — the belief that one’s political agenda has been endorsed by God, and therefore, dissent is not just wrong… it’s evil.

This is a textbook marker of Right-Wing Authoritarianism, which research has long associated with rigid religiosity, moral absolutism, and an aggressive stance toward those who threaten the perceived divine order (Altemeyer, 1996; Duckitt & Sibley, 2009). And in RWA, punishment becomes a moral duty. Mercy is weakness. Doubt is betrayal.

But what makes this moment especially dangerous is the fusion of that moral rigidity with messianic self-perception. The speaker doesn’t just quote scripture, he believes he’s part of a divine mission. He fantasizes about violence, openly dreams of enacting vengeance, and then cloaks it in humility by claiming God gave him the strength not to act… yet:

“It’s been a couple days when I wanted to pick up my damn hole puncher and just go out there and start poking holes into some damn people.”

He says this calmly. Then he says he prayed.
That’s not repentance. It’s divine restraint, until the moment he decides God says go.

This God complex doesn’t stay personal. It spreads. When followers of authoritarian movements believe they are soldiers in a holy war, compromise becomes blasphemy, and enemies become demons. The individual’s sense of personal morality is absorbed into a collective, punitive identity, the nation, the faith, the race, the “real people” who must be defended at all costs.

This isn’t religion being corrupted by politics.
It’s politics posing as religion, and giving permission to destroy anything that contradicts it.

What we’re seeing here is not faith.
It’s fascistic sanctification.

History as Fantasy: Weaponizing the Founders

One of the most emphatic moments in the MAGA rant is the speaker’s wild claim that the Founding Fathers were mostly Christian abolitionists, that 36% of the Constitution came directly from the Bible, and that the Three-Fifths Compromise was a punishment against slavery. He even references David Barton, a known Christian nationalist pseudohistorian, as an authoritative source on America’s founding documents.

None of it is true.

But in the world of MAGA — that’s irrelevant. Because the goal isn’t historical accuracy. The goal is identity validation. And in that goal, motivated reasoning, epistemic closure, and authoritarian myth-making converge.

The truth is that many Founding Fathers were not devout Christians. They were deists, skeptics, and Enlightenment rationalists. Thomas Jefferson rejected the divinity of Christ, cut the miracles out of the Bible with a razor, and wrote that “our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry”. James Madison, the principal author of the Constitution, argued that religion and government should remain separate because “they will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together”.

The U.S. Constitution, the highest law of the land, contains no mention of God, Jesus, or Christianity. Its only reference to religion is a rejection of religious tests for office:

“No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” (Article VI, Clause 3)

The phrase “in the year of our Lord,” cited by Christian nationalists as proof of religious intent, appears only in the date line, not in any substantive clause of law. As Andrew Seidel notes, this was “boilerplate diplomatic language… not a theological affirmation,” and its inclusion no more proves America is a Christian nation than using “Thursday” proves we worship Thor.

And as for the Three-Fifths Compromise? It wasn’t anti-slavery. It was a pro-slavery concession to southern states. It allowed them to count enslaved people, who had no rights, as 3/5 of a person for congressional representation, increasing slaveholder power in the federal government. The compromise was about boosting political clout, not punishing states for slavery.

But in MAGA’s world, historical truth is only useful if it serves ingroup superiority. This is motivated reasoning at work, where facts are filtered to protect belief and self-image. As Jost and colleagues have shown, system justification theory predicts that people will bend their perception of history to reinforce the status quo, especially if that system benefits them socially or morally.

That’s why the speaker doesn’t cite historians. He cites David Barton, a man whose work is so historically flawed that even evangelical publishers dropped his book The Jefferson Lies after scholars exposed its factual errors. Barton has been criticized by actual historians for fabricating quotes, misrepresenting documents, and promoting religious nationalism as history.

What we’re witnessing is not ignorance. It’s the active cultivation of a parallel mythology, one in which the United States was divinely ordained, Christian from inception, morally pure, and only corrupted when “leftists” took over. And if that requires rewriting the sins of the nation as virtues? So be it.

Because in the authoritarian imagination, purity matters more than truth.

Authoritarian Masculinity and the Appeal to Marginalized Men

The speaker in this rant is a Black man, a detail that might appear surprising at first, especially to those who assume MAGA is purely a white grievance movement. But that assumption misunderstands both the psychology of authoritarianism and the ways marginalized identities can internalize systems of dominance when survival, belonging, or masculinity feel threatened.

This moment isn’t an exception. It’s a case study.

In the 2024 paper Support for the MAGA Agenda: Race, Gender, and Authoritarianism, researchers found that Black and Latino men, especially those scoring high in Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA), were more likely to support MAGA than women of color, sometimes even outpacing white conservatives in their ideological rigidity and affinity for authoritarian policies. Why? Because MAGA offers something that can feel more immediate and tangible than systemic reform: restored status and dominance through masculine identity, cultural conformity, and power alignment.

The speaker in this monologue doesn’t talk about policy. He doesn’t mention tax rates, infrastructure, or job training. What he offers is a sermon of dominance, over liberals, over women, over other racial groups. He sanctifies power. He ridicules weakness. And he embraces submission to a cause larger than himself because that cause makes him feel exalted.

This is classic authoritarian masculinity:

• Aggression cloaked as righteousness

• Power framed as divine duty

• Submission to the leader as moral clarity

As the study explains:

“Women of color were the only outliers for RWA, exhibiting significantly lower authoritarianism scores, while men of color, particularly Black men, expressed levels of RWA that in some cases exceeded those of white men” (Study: Support for the MAGA Agenda, p. 14).

This doesn’t mean that Black men are more authoritarian by nature. It means that when authoritarian beliefs take hold, they do so in a context of historical disempowerment, and the MAGA movement exploits that. It offers control where there has been humiliation, certainty where there has been chaos, and masculine redemption through the language of grievance, nationalism, and religiosity.

In this monologue, we hear a man who doesn't just want to be heard, he wants to be obeyed. He wants to punish his enemies, mock the oppressed, reclaim the spotlight, and feel like a chosen defender of the real America. And he does so by embracing every available tool of the dominant class: racial essentialism, patriarchal values, Christian nationalism, and authoritarian rage.

He has become the very hammer that once nailed him down.
Because in the MAGA worldview, domination is the only escape from subjugation.

The Dream of Purification

Underneath the furious cadence of the speaker’s rant is something far darker than outrage: a yearning for moral and political purification. This isn’t just anger at liberals or frustration with government. It’s a desire to eradicate, to cleanse the nation of perceived contaminants, whether they be “leftists,” “feminists,” immigrants, or anyone else who challenges the MAGA worldview.

He calls his ideological opponents “troglodytes,” “subhuman,” “barbaric,” and “Satanic.” He declares that they “don’t deserve a soapbox,” that they should “get out the way or lay down,” and fantasizes aloud about picking up a hole puncher and “poking holes into some damn people.”
Then he says it’s all out of love.

This is not rhetoric. It’s purification fantasy, a common feature of authoritarian ideologies, where the path to national salvation lies in eliminating the impure.

Researchers Golec de Zavala and Lantos (2020) call this collective narcissism: the belief that one’s group is exceptional and under siege, and that any criticism of it is an attack that must be met with aggression. This narcissism drives a cycle of humiliation and vengeance, where defending the group's image becomes a sacred act, even if it requires cruelty.

Authoritarian psychology thrives on this binary:

• There are the righteous, and the enemies.

• There are the pure, and the corrupt.

• There is salvation, and there is extermination.

When the speaker says things like “I’m done asking. I’m telling you now, I’m taking it,” he isn’t talking about civic engagement. He’s describing a political seizure, one justified not by reason, but by divine entitlement and cultural revenge.

This also ties directly into Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA), especially in times of perceived societal collapse. When authoritarian followers feel their world is “losing its moral foundation,” they don't demand reform, they demand purge. Feldman (2003) notes that high-RWA individuals are especially drawn to aggressive policies framed as restoring order or “making things right” again. That’s what the speaker believes he’s doing. Cleansing. Restoring. Punishing the wicked.

And the rhetoric doesn’t stay symbolic. It escalates, from slurs, to threats, to openly fantasizing about using violence.
That’s not just emotional expression.
That’s authoritarian conditioning.

Delusions of Persecution, Grievance, and Glory

There is a consistent thread running through this MAGA tirade, and it’s not policy. It’s not even ideology in the traditional sense. It’s a story, a fantasy in which the speaker is the underdog, the prophet, the persecuted hero standing against a corrupt and godless machine. And every element of that machine, from academia to public health to civil rights, is portrayed as a coordinated campaign to destroy him.

This is not disagreement. It’s delusion of persecution, and it is central to authoritarian psychology.

The speaker believes:

• Leftist educators destroyed critical thinking.

• Liberals own “the seven mountains of influence.”

• Leftists secretly run every major institution.

• Blue states are parasitic.

• BLM is a Marxist plot.

• White conservatives are the most oppressed group in the country.

It would be comical if it weren’t so dangerous. Because when people fuse their identity with a fantasy of siege, reality becomes a threat. And any disagreement becomes betrayal.

This is where collective narcissism, motivated reasoning, and Right-Wing Authoritarianism intersect, to create a worldview that is not just self-pitying, but militant in its victimhood. As Golec de Zavala (2019) found, collective narcissists are especially prone to interpreting even mild criticism as persecution, which leads to retaliatory aggression, often justified in the name of “defending values”.

In this monologue, we see that dynamic unfold in real time. The speaker says:

• “They’re trying to erase us.”

• “They disgrace our flag over a damn criminal.”

• “We know who the villains are.”

• “They’re on Satan’s side.”

He doesn’t just feel aggrieved, he feels chosen.
It’s the language of prophecy, not politics.

This is grievance mythology, where history is rewritten so the speaker’s side is always righteous and the enemy is always vile. It’s the same logic that fueled every authoritarian regime in history: We were betrayed. We are persecuted. We will rise again.

And because this movement is fused to identity, not evidence, there’s no exit ramp. If you criticize the movement, you’re attacking them. If you ask for sources, you’re gaslighting them. If you correct a lie, you’re humiliating them.

This isn’t civic discourse. It’s a cult of martyrdom, where every act of democratic accountability feels like crucifixion, and vengeance is mistaken for justice.

When Democracy Feels Like Oppression

At the heart of this tirade is a paradox that defines the MAGA worldview: freedom is only freedom when it reinforces their dominance. Anything else, equity, accountability, pluralism, feels like tyranny.

Throughout the monologue, the speaker lashes out at perceived “leftist control” over education, media, public health, and cultural norms. But none of what he describes is actual repression. It’s disagreement, diversity, and democratic governance. And yet to him, it’s total war.

Why? Because in authoritarian psychology, dissent is not competition, it’s contamination.

When he rants about how leftists “own academia,” or how “they moved into our red states,” or how “they don’t deserve a soapbox,” he’s revealing a mindset that sees democracy as a zero-sum game. If others are rising, it must mean he is falling. If others have rights, his must be under attack. And if others criticize America, they must be traitors.

This is what political scientist Karen Stenner calls the authoritarian dynamic — the idea that when diversity or complexity increases, authoritarian personalities don’t seek dialogue. They seek uniformity, obedience, and the removal of the threat.

As she writes:

“What authoritarians cannot abide is difference. They will support any political movement or leader who promises to suppress difference and restore oneness — especially under conditions of perceived normative threat.” (The Authoritarian Dynamic, 2005)

In this case, MAGA acts as that political movement. It promises to restore order not by balancing power, but by purging opposition.

That’s why, to this speaker, democracy doesn’t feel like freedom, it feels like harassment. Because true democracy requires shared space. It requires compromise. It requires letting other people exist in ways you don’t personally like.

And that, to the authoritarian mind, is intolerable.

So they flip the script. They turn every loss of unchecked privilege into persecution:

• Equal rights for trans people? Tyranny.

• Acknowledging systemic racism? Marxism.

• Removing prayer from school? Oppression.

• Letting others vote? Voter fraud.

Democracy isn’t being dismantled in spite of MAGA, it’s being dismantled because democracy feels like a threat to their hierarchy. What they want is not civic equality. What they want is unchallenged authority dressed in the language of liberty.

Projection, Contradiction, and the Death of Thought

Throughout the monologue, we hear MAGA’s favorite mantra: that the left is the problem. The left is emotional. The left is irrational. The left is dangerous, collectivist, authoritarian, delusional.

But look closer, and you’ll see something familiar. Because every accusation is a confession.

“They don’t think critically.”
“They just follow.”
“They’re a cult.”
“They want to control everything.”

These aren’t critiques. They’re projections, psychological defense mechanisms that reveal more about the speaker than their target. In authoritarian psychology, projection isn’t accidental. It’s structural. When identity is fused to righteousness, any challenge must be deflected. That’s where motivated reasoning takes hold.

Studies show that high RWA individuals are more prone to projection and contradiction. Their thinking is rooted in moral absolutism, but their logic shifts constantly to maintain identity coherence. If liberals protest, they’re ungrateful. If they don’t protest, they’re complicit. If they speak, they’re indoctrinating. If they stay silent, they’re hiding something.

Truth is never the goal. Victory is.
And the battlefield is meaning itself.

This explains the contradictions riddled throughout the rant:

• “They hate free speech” — while saying leftists don’t deserve soapboxes.

• “They’re indoctrinated” — while quoting David Barton and QAnon tropes.

• “They love criminals” — while lionizing a man with felony charges.

• “They hate racism” — while mocking slavery and generational trauma.

• “They’re the fascists” — while calling for purges, censorship, and unconditional loyalty.

These aren’t contradictions to them. They’re proof of virtue, because the goal isn’t coherence. It’s dominance. In this worldview, logic is optional. Allegiance is not.

MAGA must always believe it is resisting oppression, even when it is parroting fascism.
That’s why projection is so effective. It turns power into victimhood and turns those demanding equality into a threat.

As Jost et al. (2003) explain in their meta-analysis on motivated social cognition, conservatism (especially when fused with authoritarianism) is often driven by fear, uncertainty avoidance, and a deep need for order, which leads to black-and-white thinking and contradictory beliefs used to reduce psychological tension.

This isn’t hypocrisy.
It’s cognitive insulation.
And it’s how authoritarianism survives the weight of its own absurdity.

Conclusion: This Was Never About Policy, It Was Always About Power

There is a dangerous illusion, especially among political moderates — that if we just listen more, meet in the middle, or show them grace, the authoritarian current in American life will subside.

But what you’ve just heard wasn’t a political disagreement.
It wasn’t an economic plea.
It wasn’t a cultural misunderstanding.

It was a sermon of domination, soaked in persecution fantasy, historical revisionism, eliminationist rhetoric, and unyielding belief in the righteousness of vengeance.

This speaker didn’t demand better representation. He demanded retribution.
He didn’t ask for a seat at the table. He demanded others be silenced.
He didn’t defend liberty. He redefined it as control.

And he didn’t do it alone.
He was applauded, affirmed, and protected, even when he dreamed aloud of violence.
Even when he called fellow Americans “subhuman.”
Even when he declared that dissenters should “get out of the way or lay down.”

This isn’t about policy.
It’s about power, and the psychological scaffolding that seeks to preserve hierarchy at all costs.

We see this echoed in the research on:

• Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) — submission to authority, aggression toward out-groups, and moral absolutism.

• Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) — a desire for group-based hierarchy and inequality.

• Collective Narcissism — a fragile group identity obsessed with its own greatness and hypersensitive to criticism.

• Motivated Reasoning — the bending of truth to protect that identity from cognitive or social threat.

These aren’t quirks. They are predictable behaviors of movements that do not want democracy, they want obedience wrapped in patriotic language.

And yet, far too many Americans, especially in the center, still believe that we can moderate this. That we can meet fascism with fellowship. That we can cure a worldview that dreams of control with more civility and softer tone.

But here is the truth:

You cannot debate your way out of authoritarianism.
You cannot negotiate with people who deny your right to exist.
You cannot appease a movement that only views compromise as weakness.

MAGA is not seeking mutual understanding. It is seeking total narrative control, of history, of morality, of who gets to be American and who must be erased.

The moment we pretend this is just passionate disagreement, we’ve already lost.

What you heard in this monologue is not the fringe. It is the fuse.
And it’s getting shorter.

This is what MAGA really believes, not when the cameras are rolling, but when the mask is off.

It doesn’t want a seat at the table.

It wants to flip the table, set it on fire, and ban anyone who remembers what fairness once felt like.

---

References

• Altemeyer, B. (1996). The Authoritarian Specter. Harvard University Press.

• Duran, A., Cruz Nichols, V., & Osbourne, D. (2024). Support for the MAGA Agenda: Race, Gender, and Authoritarianism.

• Duckitt, J., & Sibley, C. G. (2009). A dual-process motivational model of ideology and prejudice. Psychological Inquiry, 20(2-3), 98–109.

• Feldman, S. (2003). Enforcing social conformity: A theory of authoritarianism. Political Psychology, 24(1), 41–74.

• Glick, P., & Fiske, S. T. (2001). Ambivalent sexism and attitudes toward social roles. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(3), 491–512.

• Golec de Zavala, A., Cichocka, A., Eidelson, R., & Jayawickreme, N. (2009). Collective narcissism and intergroup aggression: The mediating role of group identity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97(6), 1074–1096.

• Golec de Zavala, A., Lantos, D., & Bowden, D. (2020). Collective narcissism and its social consequences: The bad and the ugly. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 29(3), 273–278.

• Gorski, P. S. (2017). American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Present. Princeton University Press.

• Hochschild, A. R. (2016). Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. The New Press.

• Hetherington, M., & Weiler, J. (2009). Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics. Cambridge University Press.

• Jost, J. T., Banaji, M. R., & Nosek, B. A. (2004). A decade of system justification theory: Accumulated evidence of conscious and unconscious bolstering of the status quo. Political Psychology, 25(6), 881–919.

• Jost, J. T., Glaser, J., Kruglanski, A. W., & Sulloway, F. J. (2003). Political conservatism as motivated social cognition. Psychological Bulletin, 129(3), 339–375.

• MacWilliams, M. (2016). Who Decides When the Party Doesn’t? Democracy Fund Voter Study Group.

• Marchlewska, M., Cichocka, A., & Kossowska, M. (2018). Addicted to right-wing authoritarianism? Collective narcissism and the roots of intergroup aggression. Political Psychology, 39(1), 65–83.

• Seidel, A. L. (2019). The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American. Sterling Publishing.

---

Link to audio