As the political winds fill Democrats’ sails and they are picking up momentum, MAGA is doubling down on what has worked in the past: a false narrative undergirded by cruelty.
asserted
what → fill → cruelty
But that false narrative is now so out of sync with reality that it does not seem to be attracting voters.
asserted
it → seem → voters
Trump and his allies keep saying they are digging the United States economy out of a hole dug by former president Joe Biden, but on October 19, 2024, The Economist called the U.S. economy “The Envy of the World.”
asserted
Economist → keep → World
Trump disagreed, insisting that Biden’s economy was horrible.
asserted
economy → disagree → ?
He promised the new tariffs he intended to impose would create an economic miracle.
asserted
he → promise → miracle
Just hours after his second inauguration, he said that tariffs were “the most beautiful word to me in the dictionary,” because “tariffs are going to make us rich as hell.
asserted
us → say → hell
It’s going to bring our country’s businesses back that left us.”
asserted
that → go → us
Now Republicans are studiously avoiding the word “tariffs” except when someone like Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), who is facing a strong challenge to her reelection from Democrat Troy Jackson, tries to attract voters by announcing she persuaded Trump to take off some of the tariffs he had placed just two months ago on goods from Canada.
asserted
he → avoid → Canada
In Michigan, Republican Mike Rogers, struggling to pull out a win against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in a race for the U.S. Senate, ran an ad holding a Canadian beer and saying “end this tariff war now.”
asserted
Rogers → struggle → war
On Friday, Greg Ip of the Wall Street Journal noted that while Republicans spent more than $2.2 million in 2024 on ads promoting tariffs, in 2026 they have spent zero.
asserted
they → note → zero
At rallies and in appearances before the media—including calling in to the Fox News Channel—Trump insists the economy is booming.
asserted
economy → include → Channel
One of his main examples, though, is that the country is making trillions of dollars because his war on Iran has created oil shortages.
asserted
war → make → shortages
At a rally yesterday, he told the audience: “We’re making a freaking fortune.”
asserted
We → tell → fortune
But “we” is doing a lot of work in that statement.
asserted
we → do → statement
Oil companies and their investors—like Trump—are indeed making a fortune, but the rest of the country is suffering under climbing gasoline prices and record high diesel costs, which have driven up the prices of food and anything that travels by train or truck.
asserted
that → make → train
At a rally today, Trump said the great things he and the Republicans have done will “kick in later.”
asserted
he → say → rally
Trump insisted tariffs and his war on Iran were his policies and his alone, intended to take credit for the prosperity he believed they would usher in.
asserted
they → insist → prosperity
Having claimed the policies for his own, he now cannot deflect blame for the crises they have caused.
asserted
they → claim → crises
So MAGA candidates are trying to attract votes by warning that Democrats will be even worse, and doubling down on culture wars.
asserted
Democrats → try → wars
Although Trump has embraced the Muslims from Qatar who gave him the luxury plane he now uses as Air Force One, as well as Muslim leaders from Saudi Arabia, and appointed Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is Muslim, to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, he and his allies have tried to attract voters by attacking Muslim Democrats El-Sayed, a medical doctor like Oz, and Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) as dangerous radicals.
asserted
he → embrace → radicals
Early in the morning of October 12, as many as 25 agents from the Department of Homeland Security raided the home of Representative Omar, searching it for four to five hours in what Jake Tapper of CNN reported is an attempt to prove that her late father lied about her age in the family’s citizenship papers.
asserted
father → raid → papers
Ted Hesson, Jeremy Roebuck, Perry Stein, and Salvador Rizzo of the Washington Post reported that political appointees in the first Trump administration had tried to find something on Omar in 2019, but had not been able to find any issues with her immigration paperwork.
asserted
appointees → report → paperwork
After Omar talked to Chris Hayes of MS NOW, Allison Detzel reported that Omar had said the agents left with her phone, two old phones, “her husband’s notebooks and a camera he had received from his uncle,” and “a Somali phrase book for children, which her husband was using to learn the language.”
asserted
husband → talk → language
“To walk away with 17 items, of, like, 10 that were just notebooks and like old phones, was such a bizarre, bizarre thing,” Omar said, and suggested the raid was simply fodder for right-wing media.
uncertain
raid → walk → media
It has also revealed where she lived, forcing her and her family to move for their safety.
asserted
she → reveal → safety
After the raid, Trump demanded first that Omar resign, and then on Friday told a rally that she had “conceded” her congressional seat.
asserted
she → demand → seat
Trump is also trying to demonize Dr. El-Sayed, posting today that the doctor, who was born in the United States and thus is a natural-born citizen, is “a Jihadist Member of the Muslim Brotherhood,” an organization founded in Egypt in 1928.
asserted
who → try → 1928
Under Trump, the U.S. government has designated some of the branches of the movement as terrorist organizations.
asserted
government → designate → organizations
Trump appears to believe the words are frightening and wants to tie them to the Democrat as his popularity surges against incumbent Republican senator Mike Rogers in Michigan.
asserted
popularity → appear → Michigan
That attempt hasn’t gone well.
asserted
attempt → go → ?
When a man challenged him at a town hall to disavow the Muslim Brotherhood, El-Sayed answered, “Sure, yeah, absolutely,” and then suggested “Tommy,” as the man identified himself, was accusing El-Sayed of dual loyalties, likening those accusations to those John F. Kennedy faced during his 1960 presidential campaign.
uncertain
Kennedy → challenge → campaign
El-Sayed reminded the man that the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion and then turned the tables, asking the man if he would disavow the attempt to push religion into American law.
asserted
he → remind → law
Tommy said he would not disavow that effort.
asserted
he → say → effort
El-Sayed then told Tommy that he, not El-Sayed, was the man who needed to understand the Constitution.
asserted
who → tell → Constitution
Tommy left the room, and days later Marisa Kabas of The Handbasket reported that Tommy was Thomas Teepell, a Republican operative with ties to Christian nationalists.
asserted
Tommy → leave → nationalists
Today, in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Mike Rogers tried again to tie El-Sayed to the Muslim Brotherhood, only to have host Kristen Welker point out that he, Rogers, had called for talks with the Muslim Brotherhood in 2012.
asserted
he → try → 2012
Rogers appeared flustered, trying to turn the conversation back to what he insisted was El-Sayed’s radicalism.
asserted
he → appear → conversation
And then there is Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s ad featuring Democratic candidate Amy Acton’s homeless biological mother, who called Acton a liar for saying she had lived in a tent as a child.
asserted
she → be → child
The ad didn’t tell the full story: officials removed 12-year-old Acton and her younger brother from their mother after a grand jury indicted her stepfather for raping her.
asserted
jury → tell → her
Court records bear out both that story and that they lived in a tent.
asserted
they → bear → tent
…and 31 more, not listed.
The Aporia
