Left-Wing Salon Likens MAGA to ISIS, Blames ‘Toxic Masculinity’ for Recent Terrorism

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MAGA and ISIS share roots in “toxic masculinity,” according to a recent Salon piece which, on the heels of the New Orleans terror attack, likened the conservative pro-America movement to radical Islamic terrorists, portraying supporters of both as men drawn to “hateful online propaganda.”

The Monday essay, titled “Toxic masculinity links the New Orleans attacker and the Las Vegas bomber,” was penned by Salon senior writer Amanda Marcotte, who blames “toxic masculinity” for acts of violence, including last week’s mass killing in New Orleans and the explosion of a cybertruck outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas. 

Comparing “so-called incels who commit mass shootings” to “Trump fans who attack government buildings” and “terrorists imbibing ISIS propaganda,” Marcotte blames “toxic masculinity” for radicalizing men struggling with personal issues. 

“Rather than taking responsibility for their personal failures and striving to do better, men of all stripes turn to the internet, where they’re greeted by a sea of influencers, ready to tell them that it’s other people — women, people of different races or religions, the ‘woke mob’ — that is to blame,” she writes.

The essay examines the lives of Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who murdered 15 people in New Orleans on New Year’s, and Matthew Livelsberger, a 37-year-old active duty Army servicemember who targeted a Trump hotel in Las Vegas, and who Marcotte claims was “using his death to call on fellow MAGA believers to commit acts of terrorism.” 

Both men, she suggests, were driven by personal failures and a twisted worldview fostered by online echo chambers. 

Comparing MAGA followers to radical ISIS terrorists, she accuses both of selling men “more of the same poison that led to their problems in the first place: toxic masculinity.”

“Whether it’s radical Islam or MAGA vitriol, the appeal is obvious,” she writes. “They allow the troubled man to blame others, especially women and ‘woke’ culture, rather than look to themselves.”

Slamming “online incel communities” and “Christian nationalist churches,” she goes on to claim both ISIS and MAGA thrive by recruiting “lost men,” offering them identity and purpose through “masculinity.”

“In the U.S., groups like the Proud Boys offer a similar tactic: Join them, and you’ll be transformed from a nobody to a warrior fighting for the supposedly noble MAGA cause,” she writes.

Sharing the essay, Marcotte insists that “MAGA and ISIS terrorism have more in common than not.”

Critics accused Marcotte of vilifying traditional masculinity while ignoring the broader societal factors that create disconnection and radicalization.

One user called the essay a “divisive narrative spin,” while another referred to it as “drivel.”

“Imagine the pure, unadulterated stupidity of any person who would ever try to compare ‘MAGA’ to a deranged, ISIS lunatic & murderer,” another wrote. 

The matter comes as the threat of radical Islam persists, while the left continues to demonize conservatives by equating traditional values and right-wing movements with extremism.

In September, Salon claimed Trump’s immigration plans and rhetoric are similar to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s, warning that the former President “plans to turn America into a type of Fourth Reich,” targeting immigrants and minorities with “white supremacy” and “racism.”