An open letter to MAGA: History will not remember you as patriots but as a cult that betrayed liberty

To those still clutching their red hats, still chanting in arenas, still calling yourselves “the real America.”

You’ve lied to yourselves for so long, you’ve forgotten what truth sounds like. So let me speak it plainly, without apology:

You are not patriots. You are not victims. You are not fighting for freedom.

You are the willing foot soldiers of a con man. You are the enablers of a criminal. You are the architects of a slow national suicide, still cheering as the foundation gives way beneath your feet.

Let’s start with the basics.

Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. He knew it. His campaign knew it. His lawyers knew it. His family knew it.

You knew it too — you just didn’t care. Because losing with integrity wasn’t as important to you as winning by force.

You didn’t rally to “stop the steal.” You rallied to steal the country back from democracy itself.

You stormed the Capitol to overturn an election, not to protect it. You erected gallows, waved Confederate flags, and beat police officers with Blue Lives Matter ones.

And now you dare to call yourselves “law and order”?

You spat on the Constitution you pretend to revere, then smeared the blood on your hands across its parchment as if it were your birthright.

This is who you are.

You scream that you’ve been silenced, while flooding social media with threats, lies, and propaganda.

You scream that you’ve been canceled, while your movement controls the Supreme Court, dozens of legislatures, and a major political party that now fears your wrath more than it loves this country.

You are not silenced. You are not oppressed. You are not persecuted.

You are dominant, and you are violently dangerous.

You once said character mattered. That faith and decency and dignity were the backbone of leadership.

Then you elected a man – not once but twice, a man who mocked the disabled, bragged about sexual assault, paid hush money to porn stars, dodged the draft, dodged taxes, and dodged every moral standard you ever claimed to hold dear.

You swallowed it all. You cheered it. You baptized him in the waters of your grievance and called it salvation.

Trump didn’t corrupt you. He revealed you.

You were already primed to worship power. You were already aching for someone to hate.

Immigrants. Black athletes. Women who said no. Scientists. Journalists. Librarians. Teachers. Trans kids.

You didn’t just need a savior. You needed a target.

Trump gave you both. And you thanked him by giving him everything — your voice, your vote, your conscience.

You wrapped yourselves in the flag while desecrating everything it’s meant to stand for.

You posted Bible verses while following a man who can’t quote one without mocking it.

You wailed about Christian values while backing a movement rooted in vengeance, cruelty, and vengeance masquerading as justice.

Let’s be honest, you never wanted equality. You never wanted democracy. You never wanted liberty for all.

You wanted control. You wanted obedience. You wanted the right to never be challenged.

And now, backed into a corner by facts and indictments, you howl about tyranny.

As if tyranny is being told you can’t ban books or jail pregnant women seeking an abortion or ignore elections you lose.

As if tyranny is having to live in a country where people unlike you have the same rights you do.

You want to be feared, not forgotten.

But history will remember you. Not as patriots. As cowards, and a cautionary tale.

This movement — your MAGA movement — is not about policy. It’s not about the working class. It’s not about jobs or borders or crime.

It’s about grievance. It’s about White Supremacy. It’s about the fragile egos of a demographic terrified of losing unearned power.

And your champion?

He doesn’t care about you. Not your towns. Not your struggles. Not your families.

You’re not his base. You’re his shield. His echo chamber. His army of unpaid propagandists too desperate to see they’ve been conscripted into their own humiliation.

Donald Trump is not fighting for you. He’s using you.

You are the product he sells.

Your anger is the currency.

Your loyalty is the scam.

And the worst part is — you’ve chosen this. Eyes wide open.

You want to talk about freedom?

Your freedom has come at everyone else’s expense.

You’ve turned your selfishness into a political identity. You hoard rights and call it liberty. You strip the rights of others and call your acts of cruelty expressions of “patriotism.”

You invoke the Constitution while making a mockery of its most basic promise: that all are created equal. You claim the divine right of the 2nd Amendment while ignoring the 1st, the 14th, and the rest.

You scream about your right to speak, while banning books and working to silence others.

You scream about religious freedom, while forcing your religion into every law, every school, every womb.

You scream about government tyranny, while worshipping a man who tried to overthrow the government by force.

You demand your guns, your votes, your voice.

But you attack ours.

You’ve stolen the rights of women to control their own bodies, but refused to wear masks during COVID so others didn’t die.

You’ve stolen the safety of LGBTQ+ kids in their own schools.

You’ve stolen the dignity of immigrants, the freedom of voters, the science from classrooms, and the justice from our courts.

And then you have the audacity to say you’re the ones under attack?

Your cult has taken everything from the rest of us.

My life. My liberty. My pursuit of happiness.

All devoured by your rage, your propaganda, and your insatiable hunger for power you neither earned nor deserve.

We have watched you wreck the country, election after election, lie after lie, scandal after scandal.

We’ve seen truth gutted, norms shattered, institutions hijacked.

We’ve seen the rule of law turned into a punchline — so long as it protects your king.

You defend a man convicted of dozens of felonies, who avoided prison by running for the presidency.

You defend him when he threatens judges. When he attacks jurors. When he mocks the rule of law.

You laugh when he bullies women. When he mocks Gold Star families. When he celebrates violence.

You excuse it all — because you no longer care what’s right. You care what wins.

But what exactly are you winning?

You’ve poisoned your own towns with conspiracy and hate.

You’ve raised a generation of children who think cruelty is strength.

You’ve destroyed trust in elections, in medicine, in teachers, in truth itself.

You’ve turned your fear into fire and burned down the country to warm your hands.

The damage is measurable.

You’ve packed the courts with extremists.

You’ve gutted reproductive rights for tens of millions.

You’ve stopped every type of gun safety legislation while kids are murdered each month in schools by guns.

You’ve criminalized protests.

You’ve legalized discrimination.

You are not the silent majority. You are the loud, lawless minority, and you are holding this country hostage.

You demand we treat your beliefs with respect, but they are not beliefs. They are delusions.

You demand we treat your movement as legitimate, but it is not. It is fascism wrapped in a flag and sold by a grifter.

And if the rest of us don’t push back against you, you’ll do it again.

You’ll rig the next election, or deny it, or overturn it.

You’ll send armed mobs to the Capitol again and call them tourists.

You’ll lock up political enemies and call it justice.

You’ll silence the press and call it reform.

You’ll burn down democracy and call it restoration.

So here is what you need to understand:

You are not owed forgiveness.

You are not owed understanding.

You are owed consequences.

Because you did not just disagree with us, you betrayed us, your fellow Americans.

You threatened our lives, our freedoms, our families.

You weaponized your vote, your voice, your faith, your flag.

You’ve confused cruelty with courage.

You’ve confused submission with strength.

You’ve confused a television huckster with a savior.

And now you’ve confused yourselves into believing you’ll never be held accountable.

But you will.

We will not reason with you anymore.

We will not debate your delusions.

We will not beg for decency from people who cheer indecency like sport.

We will outvote you.

We will outlast you.

We will outlive the Jim Crow era you’ve tried to drag us back into — and dismantle it, piece by piece, along with every lie you shouted until nothing of it remains but your shame.

History will remember what you did.

It will remember you as traitors, like your Confederate ancestors.

And so will we.