Trump governs from safety while his apparatus delivers violence to people who pose him no actual danger all to protect him from his own fear of irrelevance. From talk-show hosts to presidents, protection flows upward, and violence flows down.

Full analysis: takeastand.substack.com/p/maga-stron...

Trump is terrified of losing wealth to regulation, power to voters in cities, status to a changing America. He manufactures an "invasion from within" to justify deploying his security apparatus to the cities and demographics that threaten his power. Just look at the NG deployments and ICE raids.

Right-wing media spreads this fear for profit AND provides the ideological infrastructure for authoritarians to act on it. When leaders are terrified of losing power to changing demographics, they help manufacture the crises that to justify the use of state violence.

MAGA "Tough guys" like Tabacco manufacture fear for profit. Fear of trans people. Fear of Immigrants. Fear of "urban" violence. They're terrified of a changing world that puts their status and wealth in jeopardy. To them, the rational thing to do is attack every group with which they don't identify.

Tabacco's tough guy act dissolved the moment fear became real for him. A man who profits from manufacturing threats demanded institutional protection when someone threatened him back. Their interaction made me realize that fear drives the MAGA strongman.

Weinstein sent Tabacco a threatening messages when Tabacco failed to air their interview. Tabacco, who has spent years manufacturing fear on Newsmax, immediately responded: "Please cease and desist from messaging me... Your messages are unwanted unwelcome and beginning to make me feel threatened."