When I teach Global History, we do a unit on Mao’s China.

Mao’s vicious incompetence led to the deaths of some 22 million people (at the lowest estimate). He turned the Republic of China (a somewhat democratic state established by Sun Yat-sen) into “The People’s Republic of China,” which is ironically named (footnote here about ironic naming); it is neither the people’s nor a republic.

Mao’s use of childish opposite-day language didn’t end there. His so-called Great Leap Forward was an epic fail backward. He was determined to turn China into a significant industrial and military power. He took land and resources from a primarily agrarian populace, forcing them into communes where they were instructed to manufacture steel in backyard furnaces. If you have even elementary knowledge of the Bessemer process and steelmaking, you know how absurd this is. With all the resources shifted at the whim of a capricious dictator, people starved to death. It turns out that pig iron is less nutritious than rice, wheat, and livestock.

Seeing the PR disaster that was the Great Leap Forward, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution. Another misleadingly named disaster, the CR was a reign of terror that Mao launched against people he deemed to be “enemies of the state.” Since Chairman Mao was the state, anyone who questioned him or his tactics was automatically in his crosshairs. Intellectuals, teachers, dissidents–anyone who threatened Mao’s power–was persecuted, tortured, and/or killed.

History is interesting that way. We can look at horrible atrocities and think, “Gee, ain’t it great that we know that this horrible thing happened? Surely we can avoid such future calamity.”

One could say that Mao set out with a mission to make China great again. One could say that Mao had a perfect storm of incompetence, entitlement, and self-centered cruelty that fueled a path of destruction China is still recovering from. The banality of incompetent evil led to tens, if not hundreds, of millions of deaths.

Great Leap Forward

Cultural Revolution

MAGA

DOGE

Are they really that different?

Mao, the mass murderer, the grossly, catastrophically, cruelly incompetent, died an old man of natural causes. His closest confidants, including his wife, were known as the Gang of Four and held accountable for the carnage; fascists have accomplices. But the damage had been done.

Who will be America’s Gang of Four?

Tariffs are America’s Great Leap Forward. Make America Healthy Again, featuring RFK Jr’s brainworm? The DUI hire in charge of the Pentagon? The billionaire ketamine sociopath in charge of DOGE? Pope-killing couch enthusiast JD Vance? MAGA Mike Johnson in Congress? Marjorie Taylor Green? They’re gonna need a bigger clown car for the MAGA Gang.

All the while, Chairman Trump wages a Cultural Revolution against woke. As his approval rating plummets, he becomes even more outrageous. An April 30th missive supporting Columbus Day… picking fights with journalists… banning news outlets.

The People’s Republic of America is taking shape. Time to send these clowns on a long march off a short pier.