Tim Walz’s “Lost American” Brother

Embracing Tim Walz’s MAGA brother isn’t the flex the right wing thinks it is

How many of my readers have lost friends and family members to the Trump cult? I’ve lost at least three. One of them has completely lost her mind and lives in a sick, dark paranoid world where everyone is out to steal her ever so valuable Trump coins. Every bad thing that happens in the country is the result of some “deep state” conspiracy. At one point, she thought Black Lives Matter was spying on her through her smoke detectors. She couch surfs among our other relatives, and she’s one fed-up nephew away from ending up as one of those unhoused mentally ill folks ranting about fluoride poisoning on the streets of Los Angeles.

I’ve referred to those we love in the MAGA cult as the “lost Americans” in prior articles because I truly do believe that many of them are lost for good. I think it’s no different than losing a family member to Scientology or a white supremacist group. Cults all brainwash their followers to look at their loved ones as the enemy and therefore force constant conflict or an estrangement. Often times, the non-cult family member has to enforce a separation for their own mental health, as I myself have done.

If I’m truly honest with myself, though, Trump didn’t “turn” my siblings and really can’t be blamed for how toxic they’ve become. They…