Trump’s legacy is that he is teaching his millions of followers to ignore laws, disrespect Court authority, local and federal laws, cheat on taxes, and tolerate adultery as acceptable behaviors in the Trump MAGA new America.
At first, she looked like any other older woman leaving the beach in Palm Beach County, Florida, except for her “Make America Great Again” sequined hat and worn beach bag. I was sitting on a bench next to where she locked her bicycle. We looked at each other, and despite the hat, I said it was an excellent day for the beach. She nodded. I asked how far she had to peddle home, and she responded that it was only a mile or so over the low intercoastal bridge and down the road.
She unlocked her bicycle and sat down to drink water from her thermos. Then, she asked me what type of work I was doing. I told her I was retired. She responded that she was looking for work as a blood technician, but it was difficult since many of the jobs were entry-level, and she had over 20 years of experience. Then, she asked me if I had received the COVID-19 vaccinations. I told her, “Yes,” and she shook her head.
“There’ll be a lot of cancer in a few years from those vaccinations,” she said. I asked why, and she said the vaccines were all untested and had cancer-causing agents in them.
I thought this was odd for a woman who worked in the medical field, including some big hospitals, but she insisted that cancer rates were going to rise in the next few years.
She told me she was applying to hospitals but had no luck. One big problem was that a major hospital chain in South Florida blackballed her for failing to follow standard protocols when working on blood samples. I said that was pretty severe, but she only nodded.
Then, she took out her phone and wanted to show me some COVID-19 statistics. But when her phone went to stories about the war in Gaza between Hamas and Israel, she paused.
“You may not know the Israelis killed a lot of people at that music festival, don’t you? Israeli soldiers gunned them down in a helicopter.”
I had never heard this before, and the statement was ridiculous. Why would Israeli soldiers kill their fellow citizens when the Hamas attack was already underway? It was nonsense. 
I asked where she heard that. She said it was from The Telegraph, a new site I had never heard about. I later saw it was a conservative site in the UK that had a story on Israelis killing their citizens.
I told her that was impossible since it made no sense, nor did any other legitimate news site ever report it.
Oddly, she prefaced her wild claim with “You may not know about…” Her claim that I did not know about this critical news was odd. It made her sound like she had information that I would never discover. It gave her a supposed intellectual leg-up on me, even though it was a lie. She needed to say she had more information than me to propose her wild claim and bolster her ridiculous statement.
When I repeated that this news was wild and insulting to Israelis, she shrugged. The claim that COVID-19 vaccinations cause cancer also made her feel intellectually superior. She was not interested in why these were absurd things to offer to a stranger, but it showed that the MAGA crowd takes great comfort in knowing that they “know” more than non-MAGA Americans. This little bench discussion on a beach in South Florida was a microcosm of two American worlds. On one side, it showed that MAGA Zombies are uncompromising in their ignorance.
However, this discussion could have quickly happened across America on any bench before the Civil War, World War I, World War II, or any other major civic issue began. What was different today?
MAGA Zombies on LinkedIn
The woman on the bench was not alone. On LinkedIn, a site that offers a forum for professionals looking for jobs and professional development, the Newsmax site is also where the MAGA Zombies post their enthusiastic support about the slanted Newsmax news. Their news focuses on the latest thing from the Republicans in Congress who are pushing impeachments (Biden and Mayorkas), anti-Ukain aid stories, the unfounded legal pursuit of Trump’s many court cases, and, of course, the Hunter Biden “scandals” about receiving money from criminal gangs.
You would think that people on LinkedIn who are still working would be retrospective about posting pro-insurrectionist, anti-Federal government views that are a part of their LinkedIn history, but these MAGA Zombies are not embarrassed. They bet that no prospective employer or hiring agency would bother to look at their posts that endorse criminals, insurrectionists, and anti-Federal government messages.
That’s a big bet, but hiring managers don’t check these LinkedIn posts to see if they are hiring a new employee who wants to skirt federal or local laws.
That’s no way to build a company, but these hiring managers have a different take.
In the case of the MAGA Zombie at the beach and the aspiring professionals on LinkedIn, the common denominator is that they both refuse to listen to facts. Trump’s numerous indictments in federal and state court, tax fraud convictions, plus his 50 years of being a scofflaw have no meaning for the MAGA Zombies.
Trump University was a fraud and a financial failure, and it did not fulfill its educational goal. But Trump’s legacy is that he is teaching his millions of followers to ignore laws, disrespect the authority of the courts and any local and federal laws, cheat on their taxes, and tolerate adultery as acceptable behaviors in the Trump MAGA new America.
This is Trump’s real legacy: He is educating followers to be petty and, in some cases, major white-collar criminals. Teaching people to skirt or break the law is the real MAGA message.
