The MAGA Fealty Spiral: When Women and Minorities Forget They're Not Allowed to Think

Kristoffer Ealy

I was at home, half-watching the news while piecing together my fall syllabi, when a chyron flashed across the screen about Marjorie Taylor Greene and Laura Loomer going nuclear on each other. Two of MAGA’s loudest hype-women clawing at each other like rival contestants on a reality show where the grand prize is Trump’s approval. I looked up from my laptop and just started laughing — not because the feud itself was funny (although, my God, it was) — but because I was watching one of my favorite recurring political phenomena in action.

I call it The MAGA Fealty Spiral — because once you break orbit and dare to have an independent thought, the gravitational pull of Trumpworld drags you right back in. It’s never a straight line back to obedience; it’s a dizzy, looping descent. You start with a criticism, then get hit with backlash, then couch it in praise, then overcompensate until you’re publicly worshipping harder than before. By the time you’ve landed, you’re even deeper in the devotion hole than when you started.

And the spiral isn’t just about policy disagreements — it’s about identity. If you’re a woman in MAGA and a man says something sexist about you, you can’t push back. You can’t call it out. You have to smile through it, maybe even laugh, because anything else would look “woke.” You might even have to offer to bake him some Rice Krispies treats, fetch him a fresh sweet tea, or nod politely while he explains why women are “naturally too emotional” to lead. If you’re Black in MAGA and another MAGA figure claims that Black people are “genetically prone to commit more crimes than whites,” you can’t challenge it. You can’t even hint that maybe that’s untrue. Your only acceptable response is silence, or worse, a nod that says, “I hear you, brother.” The MAGA Fealty Spiral demands not just obedience to Trump, but complicity with every toxic thing that keeps the movement’s ecosystem intact.

I’ve seen the MAGA Fealty Spiral enough times to map out its life cycle in plain English. It always starts with Stage One — the Initial Divergence, where somebody dares to express mild disagreement, usually wrapped in politeness so it doesn’t sound like open rebellion. Then comes Stage Two — the Immediate Backlash, when the MAGA ecosystem pounces with accusations of disloyalty, betrayal, or “going woke.” That leads to Stage Three — Loyalty Reaffirmation, where the offender delivers some grand pledge of devotion to Trump to offset the criticism, like Loomer’s “I’d take a bullet for him.” But the spiral doesn’t stop there. Stage Four is Overcompensation, when they start performing their loyalty louder than ever—booking more fawning interviews, dropping merch, and picking fights with mutual enemies. By the time they reach Stage Five, Deeper Submission, they’re even more dependent on MAGA approval than they were before they slipped, and any hint of their original criticism is gone like it never happened.

https://www.lincolnsquare.media/p/the-maga-fealty-spiral-when-women