MAGA has made a deal with Donald Trump, and the deal is that “the humiliation is the point,” argues Republican former U.S. Congressman Adam Kinzinger. In short, he says, “humiliating the MAGA faithful only binds them more tightly to Trump.”

Kinzinger, a never-Trump Republican who acknowledged last year that his politics are now probably closer to the Democrats, says that to “understand what Trump is doing, you have to stop thinking about each outrage as a separate event and start seeing them as a sequence.”

He walks through a timeline of humiliations.

Trump asked MAGA to believe the 2020 election was stolen, so they did, “including many who knew better.”

Trump asked MAGA to excuse the January 6 attack on the Capitol as a mere tourist visit, and they did.

“He asked them to accept that his 91 criminal indictments were a political witch hunt — and they did, turning his mugshot into a fundraising image,” he writes. “Each ask was larger than the last. Each capitulation required more of them — more willingness to contradict their own eyes, their own values, their own stated beliefs.”

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Kinzinger reveals the psychology of what he believes is actually happening here.

“Every time MAGA accepts something they previously would have considered unacceptable, Trump’s hold on them gets stronger, not weaker. Because now they’ve paid a price. They’ve told their neighbors, their families, their coworkers, that they believe this. Walking it back would mean admitting they were wrong. And the movement doesn’t allow that.”

What does this mean for the future?

“Don’t expect a wholesale collapse in Trump’s support,” he predicts. “Some will leave, others have tied their conscience to his success. Those will double down, again and again.”

Kinzinger expects that MAGA is not breaking apart. “I don’t think there’s some dramatic rupture coming where the movement looks in the mirror and decides enough is enough. That’s not how this works,” he writes. Because Trump has trained his movement to accept humiliation as “proof of loyalty.”

“The more outrageous the thing he asks them to believe, the more committed they become,” he explains, “because disbelief now would mean admitting everything they’ve already accepted was wrong. It’s a trap that gets harder to escape the longer you’re in it.”

But, he says, “the humiliation ritual works until the day it doesn’t.”

“Until the day enough people decide that the price of belonging is higher than the price of leaving. We’re not there yet,” he explains. “But we’re closer than Trump wants you to think.”

READ MORE: Conservative Christian Broadcaster Slams Franklin Graham’s ‘Embarrassing’ Defense of Trump

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The Trump regime has an “erratic” and “theologically incomprehensible” preferred religion, a “bellicose, nationalist Christianity,” that is organized along various “fiefdoms,” argues Sarah Posner at Talking Points Memo. Those spheres of control and influence are “aimed at protecting, and even justifying, the regime’s impunity.”

Posner writes that the “goal of the Christian nationalist project is to subvert democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.”

She posits that during Trump’s second term, the White House and federal agencies “have been bludgeoning federal employees, the press, and the public with religious pronouncements of moral superiority to perceived enemies.”

On Easter Sunday, several administration agencies posted social media messages “heralding Christ’s resurrection,” the Associated Press reported.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote: “The tomb is empty. The promise is fulfilled. Through His sacrifice, we are redeemed. We stand firm in faith, courage, and truth.”

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“He is risen,” was the message from both the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department.

The Department of Justice went even further.

“Today, as millions of Christians gather in their churches across the nation to celebrate the resurrection of Christ, this Department —- is proud to protect and defend religious liberty,” the message read.

Posner argues how various administration officials use religion.

JD Vance “starts fights with the pope over his anti-war statements (even as Vance leaks to the press, with an eye to 2028, that he was against the war).”

Through his prayer meetings and press conferences, Secretary Hegseth “aims to compel Americans to embrace his Christian nationalist bloodlust and war crimes, and this week compared reporters to Pharisees for insufficiently cheerleading for the military.”

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer “has promoted her Catholicism in prayer meetings modeled on the ones Hegseth hosts at the Pentagon.”

“All these moves,” Posner writes, “are designed to crush dissent, marginalize other Christianities and religions, and empower government officials to violate the law. The fiefdoms, in different ways, prop up the would-be king’s corruption, and that of his allies.”

READ MORE: Conservative Christian Broadcaster Slams Franklin Graham’s ‘Embarrassing’ Defense of Trump

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Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and his Special Envoy for Peace, is being investigated by House Judiciary Democrats who allege a “glaring and incurable conflict of interest.” The probe is led by Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, MS NOW reports.

In their six-page letter dated April 16, they charge that Kushner’s clients, Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, “have unique and significant strategic, economic and political interests that are certain to diverge sharply from the strategic, economic and political interests of the American people.”

“To whom do your professional obligations and fiduciary duties belong?” asks the letter, signed by Ranking Member Raskin.

“You cannot both be a diplomat and a financial pawn of the Saudi monarchy at the same time; you cannot faithfully represent the United States with billions of dollars in Saudi and Emirati cash burning a hole in every pocket of every suit you own,” Raskin writes.

READ MORE: Conservative Christian Broadcaster Slams Franklin Graham’s ‘Embarrassing’ Defense of Trump

Calling it “an outrageous betrayal of the American people,” Raskin notes that were Kushner a government employee, “these conflicts of interest would be disqualifying, not only preventing you from conducting your current duties but from receiving security clearance.” He says that Kushner has “taken advantage” of his non-government position, “with all the trappings of government authority and power to insist that the normal rules do not apply to you.”

MS NOW reports that “Kushner, who is married to Trump’s eldest daughter Ivanka, founded the investment firm Affinity Partners in 2021 after serving as a senior adviser during Trump’s first administration,” and notes that “Affinity’s largest and earliest investor, according to The New York Times, is Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which is led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.”

“The fund invested roughly $2 billion after the first Trump White House ended. Sovereign wealth funds tied to other Gulf nations, such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, have also invested.”

Raskin also included a fifteen-point list of requests for records from Kushner. Among them, “All communications with the White House and Trump campaign, including your father-in-law, regarding your role within the government from July 1, 2024, to the present day.”

Also, “All communications received or sent by you relating to the Board of Peace,” and, “All communications received or sent by you relating to financial investments or the economy in Gaza, Ukraine, Iran or any other area in which you have negotiated.”

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