Identity Fusion: Gravity for MAGA

How QAnon, MAGA and Christian supremacy have psychologically hijacked America and what to do about it.

The question of one’s identity, Who am I?, is one of the most important in human experience. Nearly every major belief system, be it religious, philosophical, metaphysical or scientific, has to deal with the subject.

Descartes’s famous saying “I think, therefore I am” starts with the question of whether “I” really exists at all, and makes the reasonable, if tautological, observation that yes, he (Descartes) must exist because he’s asking the question. However, as I remember from reading his work, or trying to, nearly 40 years ago, at this point in his philosophy Descartes took a turn towards the magical and invoked a divine God as necessary to his project of recreating the world—and a moral framework for it. For a particular atheist reading it for freshman philosophy class, that was the point it didn’t make sense anymore.

Identity Fusion

There is a psychological phenomenon called identity fusion that internalizes a group, a cause, or a leader into becoming deeply merged with the self. So, instead of a follower of a movement thinking “I support this movement” they believe “I am this movement.” This means that any threat to the merged entity becomes a threat to the self.

In extremist, cultic movements like jihadist terrorist groups, MAGA, QAnon and Christian Nationalism, identity fusion becomes a way to create radical loyalty, resistance to outside influence, and sometimes willingness to commit illegal, immoral or violent acts.

I AM Activity

Perhaps the most illustrative example of this, because of the name if nothing else, may be the “I AM Activity”—a theosophical, occult religion founded in the 1920s which literally transferred the concept of the divine God into the self—“I AM (God)”—eliminating the need to adhere to any moral or reality framework outside of whatever the cult leader (the “messenger”) provided.

Flynn’s “I AM” Cult Based on Pelley’s “Silver Shirts”

The “I Am Activity” rose alongside anti-communist, pro-Hitler movements like the Silver Shirts in pre-WWII America. It was broken up in 1940 by Hoover’s FBI and a contemporaneous book was written about it called “Psychic Dictatorship in America.”

If that book title, or the political orientation of the movement towards “Nazi-Fascism” feels weirdly relevant, it’s for a reason. MAGA is identity fusion on steroids.

MAGA

One of the great mysteries of modern civilization is how so many people can possibly admire Donald Trump, or believe he is in any way capable of running anything, much less the most powerful country in the history of the world. Well, they don’t. What they see in him is quite literally themselves.

This is why when people say anything negative about Donald Trump to someone who has merged him into their own identity, they react in such an ugly way. When you insult Trump in their presence, you are, in a very literal way, insulting them.

But far more important than Trump himself is the group experience of worshipping Trump, in spite of, or to spite, the enemy, which are just a mass of dehumanized, homogenized others composed of “shitlibs,” “Demonrats,” “woketards” and so on.

That’s why MAGA is so strange to “normies”—the (slimming) majority of people who have not yet merged Donald Trump, or some other toxic entity, into their own identities. The MAGA cult of Trump makes no sense until you realize that they aren’t worshipping Trump at all, they’re worshipping themselves through him.

It’s not Donald Trump. It’s the group experience of worshipping him against the wishes of the infidels.

Identity fusion is also why MAGA has such a strong internal gravity. Once you give up part of yourself for a movement, it’s very, very hard to take it back, so people who have this shared identity gravitate to each other. It’s also why the performative part of it—the trolling, the antagonism, and in many ways, the cruelty—is so important. It is the othering that validates their own identity. If the out-group dissipates as a threat, the in-group loses its entire meaning, its whole being.

QAnon

But if MAGA is identity fusion on steroids, QAnon is identity fusion on heroin.

QAnon is not a “conspiracy theory,” it is a messiahless messianic movement and a textbook example of identity fusion being used to radicalize and retain followers. It takes ordinary individuals and fuses their personal identity, moral purpose, and spirituality into a messianic void—a totalizing identity where to doubt it is to lose oneself entirely.

Consider QAnon slogans like “We are Q,” “Where We Go One We Go All,” or “We are the Storm” which were all in heavy use on January 6th. All of them are an expression of the fusion of the self with the group. That’s why both Mike Flynn and Donald Trump’s increasingly open embrace of QAnon is so dangerous. All of the assumptions built into their shared identity as Q believers have been, to them, validated beyond their wildest expectations.

QAnon: State Religion of the Fourth Reich

Those who can make you believe absurdities, are those who can make you commit atrocities. —Voltaire, 1768

Christian Nationalism

To complicate the psychological minefield, religion is a venerable tool for inducing identity fusion—and authoritarian leaders and movements exploit it not to deepen faith or achieve enlightenment, but to hijack the sacred and wrap themselves in its authority. This forges a bond between (false) spirituality, the group, and the self that is nearly unbreakable, where loyalty to the leader becomes a religious duty, dissent becomes heresy, and the leader’s words are indistinguishable from God’s will.

Donald Trump, and a massive part of the religious right have completely transformed the worship of a loving Jesus Christ into worship of a conman and a hatred of his opponents. MAGA, QAnon and Christian Nationalism have, in many ways, fused into a single identity. It is no accident that all of the groups that propelled Donald Trump to power exploit this one dirty trick to attract and retain followers.

Identity fusion is gravity for MAGA.

Reclaiming the Self

The rise of parasitic, dangerous movements like MAGA, QAnon, and Christian Nationalism is not a political crisis—it’s a psychological occupation of America, a “psychic dictatorship.” These belief systems use identity fusion to hijack the most fundamental question in human experience, Who am I? And they answer it not with truth or growth, but with submission to a group, a leader, or a fabricated moral order.

When people fuse their identity to Donald Trump, Q, or a Christian supremacist, they don’t join a cause—they become it. Every attack on the movement becomes an attack on the self. Every doubt becomes betrayal. And because the fused identity provides purpose, belonging, and moral clarity, giving it up feels like psychological death.

To reverse this—to help people recover their individual agency—we must do more than argue or ridicule. We must offer a pathway back to the self.

Here are a few big picture concepts:

Create Identity-Safe Exit Ramps

People rarely leave cultic movements if it means losing their sense of purpose, community, or dignity. We need narratives and spaces that say:

“You weren’t stupid. You were loyal. And now you’re brave enough to walk away.”

Build Alternative Communities

Identity fusion thrives in isolation and siege mentality.

We must replace toxic group belonging with healthy community:

• Online forums, recovery groups, podcasts, and local meetups for those leaving MAGA/QAnon.

• Faith-based spaces that reclaim spiritual language from nationalist abuse.

Artistic or civic groups where people can be seen as individuals again.

Foster Identity Reconstruction, Not “Deprogramming”

Help people rebuild a positive, stable self-concept:

• Encourage reflection on who they were before the fusion.

• Ask empowering questions:
  “What do you believe in, without the movement?”
  “What matters to you, not to the group?”

• Offer tools like therapy, journaling, storytelling, and mentorship.

Interrupt the Fusion Cycle with Moral Disruption

Facts don’t break fusion—but moral contradiction does.

• Spotlight hypocrisies: how Trump betrayed veterans, Christians, or workers.

• Use values-based appeals:
  “Does cruelty to migrants really reflect Christ’s teachings?”
  “If the system is rigged, why are the elites still getting richer?”

Moral dissonance can crack the illusion of righteousness, making room for doubt.

Reinforce Independent Meaning-Making

The fused self depends on external authority to define truth. Break this by reawakening critical thinking and curiosity:

• Teach media literacy and disinformation awareness.

• Encourage people to ask questions of their own side.

• Reward nuance and complexity, not binary thinking.

The way out of identity fusion isn’t escape—it’s recovery. It’s learning to say “I am” again, not for a cult, a slogan, or a savior, but in the voice of a person reclaiming themselves. Until we help people rebuild who they are, people like Donald Trump will continue offering the answer for them.

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