re: #55 ckkatz

During the Trump years, I’ve received countless email messages from distraught readers that echo a similar theme: My father (or mother or uncle or cousin) is lost to MAGA. They can seem normal, but they’re not, at least not any longer. It’s hard for me to know what to say in response, but one thing is clear: You can’t replace something with nothing. And until we fully understand what that “something” is — and that it includes not only passionate anger but also very real joy and a deep sense of belonging — then our efforts to persuade are doomed to fail.

MAGA is definitely a personality cult centered specifically around Donald Trump. And that bolded bit reminds me of the ending of Ari Aster’s 2019 film Midsommar and the story arc of the main character, Dani (a bravura performance by Florence Pugh, BTW).

There’s a ton of analysis out there, but in my opinion, the reason for her broken-minded smile in the final shot of the film is that after all of her character’s personal trauma, she’s at last found a happy home in the Hårga cult, regardless of the fact that her new surrogate family is utterly insane.