@SrRochardBunson @AdmiralFrosty As for breaking the hold of the cult of MAGA, if there is a way, I sure haven't found it. But I have a bit of a unique perspective on it. If you believe that Jesus actually existed (and it does not matter to me if you do or don't, because thery do or say they do), then the thing you should be asking is what's up with the so called "Apostle" Paul? I mean, if you look at the whole story behind him, you might conclude that he could have been the George Santos of his day. Jesus had warned his followers that "false christs" would come after him, but then when Paul shoed up with a wild story about having a vision in the desert, Peter accepted him and it was all over. I mean, Paul could have been a grifter for all we know.

But the thing is that his writings are what the far right bases a lot of their theology on. Jesus' "sermon on the mount"? If you are really lucky you might hear bits and pieces of it at Easter in a MAGA-type church, otherwise it's primarily all Paul, all the time. Jesus got four books in ther bible, how many did Paul get (I actually don't know because some are disputed as to authorship, but it is way more than four). Paul was supposedly a "reformed" Pharisee, but if you read his writings, they sure don't sound like the writings of someone who had left their Pharisee beliefs behind. And which two groups did Jesus despise the most? The Scribes and the Pharisees! I don't know what he had against the Scribes (possibly they edited the scriptures in ways that oppressed the people?) but his hatred of the Pharisees was that they put oppressive burdens on all the "little people" but would not lift a finger to help them in their time of need or distress. And Paul's writing are so legalistic that the probable reason they were included in the scriptural canon by the early Catholic church was to be able to control and oppress people.

Virtually all the verses that MAGA types commonly use to justify their terrible behavior and beliefs come from either the old testament or more often, the writings of Paul. They are not doing what Jesus commanded on the Sermon on the Mount or in most of his other teachings. But the problem is that if they go to church they are sitting under preachers who are willing to twist the scriptures any way they can to keep people in the church, but of course the fatal flaw in Christianity is that they never question whether the writings of Paul hould have been included in Biblical canon in the first place. If those books were removed from the Bible it would take all the steam out of most of their hate (or at least the biblical justification thereof).

I mean you could ask them whether they are following Jesus or they are following Paul, but they'd probably just think you a smartass, or try to convince you that the teachings/writings of the two are not incompatible (if nothing else, Christians are great at coming up with justifications for Bible inconsistencies and horrbile doctrines). So I honestly have no idea how you reach them.