With the fourth installment of the House hearing on the January 6 insurrection airing this week, we are being inundated with new information about last year’s attack on the Capitol. Since the hearings began earlier this month, testimonies have filtered through social media and cable news analysis and we still don’t have a clear sense of what it will all lead to. This is our new culture of confusion.

The insurrection was the culmination of Donald Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” which gave birth to the “MAGA” movement — marked by a bigoted, racist and misogynistic political ideology that privileged white men, deceit, greed, and power, most of all.

“MAGA,” bolstered by its aggressive presence on social media, has become a way of life that values lies and distrust, rejects science and education, and belittles and dismisses victims. It has become something that gives people permission to be pointlessly cruel. We don’t simply dislike or debate anymore. We detest and destroy.

And nowhere has this been more on display than in the coverage of the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamation trial, which continues today with the announcement that attorneys for the defendant and plaintiff are scheduled to meet with the hopes of reaching a settlement which would set aside the jury’s verdict which awarded Depp $10 million and Heard $2 million..

Here’s how it works. In order for the MAGA culture to be sustained, confusion must reign. Why? Because confusion keeps people in a constant state of uncertainty and distrust—a state that makes us susceptible to manipulation about things that actually matter like the efficacy of masks or Covid vaccines, say. Or the value of reasonable gun laws. Or whether or not an election was free and fair.

The strategy is unfolding in real time with Los Angeles county officials providing details on the historic transfer of Bruce’s Beach to the descendants of the Black couple who lost land a century ago. Although it is fair to consider other communities who have unfairly lost land throughout history, it is quite another thing to create a confusing narrative that pits one historically exploited community against another.

But the confusion is not just about issues with real import—Covid protocols, mass shootings, civil liberties. There must also be confusion about things that couldn’t matter less to our daily lives: enter the Depp-Heard circus.

This suit, in which the jury ultimately found overwhelmingly for Depp, although they did also find on one count that he defamed Heard, is hardly relevant to our public discourse. Its only use is as an opportunity to analyze the influence that fame, wealth, power and gender has over people who claim to be victims of abuse. We now know that when alleged perpetrators of abuse—especially rich and famous and male ones—sow enough confusion about the credibility of their victims, and when they and their followers spew enough vitriol about those victims too, cruelty will win the day. It is the MAGA ethos and it has become dangerously pervasive.

It is not necessarily that there shouldn’t have been cameras in that courtroom enabling the damaging voyeurism that ensued. Access to court proceedings and our judicial system, whether it’s a case between celebrity exes or about criminal cops like Derek Chauvin, is important. It’s vital to our democracy. The problem isn’t even the many points of view and opinions people have about the cases we do get to watch as they unfold.

The problem is rather simple. It’s that we now have this MAGA culture that infiltrates every public discussion not with facts, or well-reasoned and thoughtful arguments. It infiltrates with a kind of frenzied salaciousness that is always louder and angrier than reasonable and responsible debate. And, in fact, the coarser and crasser the debate becomes, the more airtime it gets.

All of which reinforces the MAGA culture in which it is cool to be cruel. This, in turn, fuels efforts by its proponents to maintain power and control over a significant, although minority, portion of the American population and one political party.

When mass confusion gets this loud, it drowns out rational, considerate and constructive voices. It effectively stalls serious conversations about domestic abuse, preventing gun violence, and reasonable debates about our democracy. However, this is not an endorsement for the “snowflake” mentality, moreso a warning that if we continue to allow the most diminutive minds among us and their 280 characters to steer critical discussions, conspiracy theories, misogyny, racism and xenophobia will continue to wreak havoc.

What we end up with is a high-profile trial about domestic abuse that begets memes in lieu of critical analysis, and upholding this culture of confusion pushes other victims into silence, pushes us further into silos where we can’t engage with each other, and ultimately, pushes our democracy toward another insurrection.

With Heard’s intent to appeal the jury’s finding, assuming a settlement is not reached today, the chaos surrounding Depp v. Heard will continue. But let’s not be fooled into believing that the misogynistic and vile tweets directed toward her are solely for the purpose of derailing and disgracing her efforts. There’s a more sinister plot afoot that goes far beyond celebrity trials and has real implications for Black Americans as we work to address highly nuanced and complicated matters that are barriers to equity.

We cannot keep normalizing this culture of confusion because, of course, there is nothing normal about it. MAGA and the confusion it sows, even in its most trivial forms, does nothing to make America great. It makes America vulnerable. We must call it out for what it is at every opportunity. That is our work. It starts now.

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Jessica McCall is a Principal at the Raben Group.

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Amber Heard

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