Lyz Lenz went to a Trump rally in Iowa right after the "Bulging Barbarous Bill" passed. Being a leftist, she may have already been primed to notice people being pieces of crap. They did not disappoint.

I saw a group of 20-something men in “Gulf of America” shirts carrying chairs and setting them up. When I asked if I could snag one, one of the men said, “Get one yourself,” pointing in the direction of a section near the port-a-potties, where a stack of chairs sat. As I walked over, a security guard approached. “You can’t set up more chairs!” he yelled to the men.

It took me 45 minutes of hovering and searching, but I eventually found a seat near a family of three, around when the third-place finalist on the 8th season of American Idol began singing about how much he loved America. By the time I’d been sitting 20 minutes, I felt guilty. Around me were women in their 60s and 70s; surely they deserved this seat more. I looked up to offer the woman near me a chair, but her shirt said, “If you don’t like Trump, then you won’t like me.” And I should be better than that, but I wasn’t. So I turned back to listen to Sen. Chuck Grassley.

After another hour, the family near me asked me to watch their seats while they got corn dogs. I agreed and fended off other chair-seekers by lying and saying my aging grandmother, aunt, and mom had simply gone to the bathroom and would be back. When the family returned, I told them how I’d lied that we were family, just to protect their spots. Then I asked if they’d watch my one chair while I, too, got a corn dog.

When I returned 20 minutes later, my chair was gone. “What happened?” I asked. The husband shrugged. “Some guy took it, I didn’t even notice.”

Maybe it was the heat, or maybe I’d worked so hard just to sit, but I was furious. I could feel the rage in my chest. That was my chair. I’d worked hard for it, and some guy had just stolen it! MY CHAIR!

“I find that hard to believe,” I said. “I watched three seats for you and you all couldn’t watch one.”

The husband shrugged and sipped his lemonade. The wife turned to the screen. “Well, I hope you don’t have to pee,” I said. No one laughed, which was good, because I wasn’t kidding. Ten minutes later, when a single man three rows ahead laid his jacket across the two chairs he had been hoarding and left, I walked over, grabbed one, and sat down again. My pretend family smiled. “Glad you got a seat back,” the husband said. I glared.

At some point, Trump boasted about “protecting women” and making sure there were only two genders. All the people around me cheered. I turned around and saw my seat had been taken again.

I have zero idea why anyone with a brain would go to a Trump rally, and then I realize that these people don't have brains. The reptilian instinct to just take a chair without regard for their fellow human being encapsulates the MAGA movement in a single microcosm. "Screw everyone else as long as I got mine" is what these people say.

If anyone you know has a bunch of Trump branded merch, just write them off. The person you once knew is dead; they've been replaced with an empty husk that looks and acts human. But if you look closer, you'll see there's nothing inside. That's why MAGAs need this extreme level of grievance. They have no humanity; they feel nothing inside for anyone. The only thing that makes them experience a semblance of feeling is trolling and being hateful to the people around them. The dopamine received is a facsimile of what most people would say is feeling.

If I meet someone who's a former MAGA, then I will always regard them with some suspicion. They've shown that they have a darkness within that can transgress normal human boundaries. There is so much hatred and grievance there that it can blow at any time. It's like one of those old Vietnam era mines that need to be handled carefully when they're found after being buried for decades. A MAGA is the human version of that. They may say that they've learned their lesson and that Trump fooled them. They may say they've changed. But never trust them. The fact that they once held the ability to be a MAGA means that they're susceptible to the next, even more terrible iteration. I'm not saying hurt them or anything like that. But never let your guard fully down around them.

I'm also tired of having to be the bigger person. MAGAs have thrown a decade long tantrum about their diminishing relevance in society. They hate the country and society that we all live in. I don't need to try to explain to them why they should care about people. It's not my job to teach old people that not everything they hear on TV is real. I shouldn't have to coddle loser young men who listen to alpha male influencers and play act being manly because they lack the courage and integrity to actually live an upstanding life. They need to be able to look themselves in the mirror and make an honest decision to do the hard work of being a good person.

I was alienated from the rest of the world for my entire youth. There were times I was a toxic person. I had no job when I graduated from college, and the economy had just begun the dotcom crash. Then I went to law school and graduated into another bad economy. I spent the days sitting at the computer, not knowing what to do. Once, I remember sitting on my laptop for several hours setting up a profile on a gaming site called Kongregate just because I didn't feel like there was anything better to do. I'd spend the days surfing the Web and saving links that might be useful later. But I had a crippling anxiety that kept from looking for a job. I might look at a job listing here and there. The first thing that would stand out to me was how I didn't meet the qualifications. I didn't have hope that anything was really going to get better. But after about 3 years of living this way, I'd had enough.

I decided to see if I could change how things were going. I had been play acting at having my own law firm. Again, I spent tons of time doing things that didn't actually help me make money or build my skills. But, I was with a woman who I thought I had a future with. She had rheumatoid arthritis, so I knew I'd have to be the bread winner. I decided to hell with looking for a legal job; I began looking for any job that seemed like it might be OK. I was discouraged from taking jobs that were 'beneath me' by my dad. But then I also decided to get psychiatric help. It wasn't enough to do things on my own anymore. I needed help, I looked for it and I took it.

These loser guys who are sitting around listening to podcasts about toxic alpha male culture is what I could have fallen into had I not made the decision to help myself. It's easy for them to do nothing. But the mental toll is where you pay the price.

Deep down, I think MAGAs know they are bad people. They know in their hearts that they've turned rotten. But it's hard to live with, knowing that you've chosen to be a bad person. So they worship Trump. They yell his slogans, and cheer his every action. But they aren't happy people. No MAGA got there because their life was going well or they were loved. All of those people have something they're hiding from themselves. And it's not my job to nurture them and let them know it's OK. The world is a harsh place. They've chosen the easy path of outsourcing their souls. They don't deserve any acclaim for that choice.

I say to hell with the MAGAs. I want them to change, but then also retreat. I don't want to hear their redemption stories. They don't deserve to be rewarded for waking up from intentional blindness. Waking up doesn't deserve an award, it's what you're expected to do. So they need to put down their hats, rejoin society, shut up, and live in a way that doesn't hurt those around them anymore.