It’s not the term that’s offensive though. It’s not a slur.
You (and many MANY others) find their beliefs and actions and words offensive and that’s fine. I do too.
If Bernie Sanders had beaten Donald Trump to the punch and used “Make America Great Again” as his campaign slogan in 2016 you wouldn’t have found it offensive.
It’s not the term itself, it’s the politics behind the term that are offensive.
No
Its the term itself thats offensive. Dont put words in my mouth to claim that id be fine with it with bernie sanders. I wouldnt be.
Actually, I was more thinking of just how toxic political debate has become in the US.
We’re approaching the point where “we” can’t talk to “them” [*] without arguments or worse breaking out. While some of this is the result of too many people of opposing political stances being locked in echo chambers, another element of the problem is the increasing tendency for discourse to dissolve to insults and fighting words.
If you can’t communicate without insults and fighting words, you’re part of the problem / it’s time to move on.
I’ll admit that it’s very difficult to adopt such a stance when “they” seemingly don’t. Their bad behavior doesn’t provide cover your behaving badly. The situation’s only going to deteriorate further unless enough people step up and move away from the brink.
(At the very least, I’d like to see the spiral slowed enough to get me and mine out of harm’s way, and properly situated to profit from the emerging chaos.)
[*] - Note that I’m using the terms “we” and “them” in the abstract. The problem exists among both red and blue people, and while it’s tempting to say that one group is worse than the other in this regard, that doesn’t address the fact that it’s a problem with both groups. Also, while I’m repulsed by the red-hat crowd, I’m not terribly happy with the blues either.
Ok fine. You are free to be offended by whatever you choose.
I’ll just leave it at this: MAGA is not generally considered a slur. It is certainly not considered a slur by the people it describes, which is the very definition of a slur. Their leader is the one who came up with it. (Or one of his staffers, more likely.)
Magat is both intended and taken as a slur.
They are not in the same category.
To add to this: my feelings towards the former president are such that I consider his name to be an expletive, to the extent that I try to avoid using it in certain venues. Think of it as attempting to practice what I preached in my prior post.
(And yes, I’m not always successful at such practice.)
The fact that I find the former president’s name on its own insulting doesn’t make it the most appropriate term to use in certain contexts, while certain derivations of the name or certain nicknames fall over the line.
When was america last great? Why was it great? It entirely ignores how marginalized groups were treated back then. It was only great for white Christian males and maybe some females who liked being 2nd class citizens. A lot of those out there. It wasnt great for everyone else. It was considered perfectly acceptable to not hire a person because they were black or jewish or even female.
Maga is an offensive term. Hispanic is not. It isnt comparable. Those people have their slogan as an offensive term. Of course they dont find their language offensive. Im sure nazis dont either.
“MAGA” is a succinct label to describe a political premise based on an offensive foundation. In certain contexts, it’s the best way to communicate the philosophy, and the most succinct adjective to use when discussing the people associated with the philosophy. Arguably, the label is neutral even if the philosophy described is not.
“Magat” is an intentionally derogative play on the MAGA label. It’s understandable why a person might wish to invoke it. However, if the term is in play, it’s likely that useful discourse has ended.
Ok, Nazi is a reasonable comparison. The word “Nazi” was not considered offensive by Nazis. Obviously their actions were hugely offensive… there’s not even words to adequately describe.
But if I said “he’s a Nazi” about someone who was, in fact, a proud member of the Nazi party I haven’t said anything that person would find offensive.
There are other things I could say about him that he would find offensive though.
Now, I wouldn’t exactly lose sleep feeling guilty over insulting a Nazi. And you probably will not lose sleep over insulting a MAGA follower either. And that’s fine too.
We’re talking about the difference between whether the word is offensive to the person it describes.
Nazis are offensive but the word nazi isnt comparable to “make america great again” which means lets go back to slavery. Yay!
I actually don’t think that’s what Trump means by it. I think he means go back to an era where high school graduates could get good jobs in factories.
Their slogan is an insult to me. Im not sure turning their slogan back on them is so awful here
The term is offensive. You cant have it mean just one aspect of the past.
It’s neither of those, and both. MAGA has become a Rorschach test.
Yeah, maybe. He certainly didn’t campaign on a “bring back slavery” platform though.
Agree that Magat is a bad term, akin to “libtard”.
We need a slur that refers to people who viscerally despise Nancy Pelosi for no reason. MAGA(t) doesn’t do that justice.
Leftaphobe? Partisanist?
Yeah, that’s a really good comparison, actually.
We could just use psychopath or lunatic like we used to. Don’t know why we need a new word.
There’s at least hundreds of thousands of people who regularly talk about how much they viscerally despise Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, AOC, etc.
Presumably we can’t call them all psychopath. It lacks distinction, and confuses psychopath.
We have already reversed roe v wade but the factory jobs arent back. Is that how we are maga’ing?
I’ve interpreted it to mean “let’s go back to the glory days of the 1950’s, when white American men dominated the world (and the problems of Americans who weren’t white men were generally ignored in public discourse).”