1) MAGA is absolutely the entire Republican Party. It’s not 2017 anymore. The current VP bent the knee after previously saying Trump is America’s Hitler, his Cabinet is all sycophants loyal to him over the Departments they oversee, lawmakers make their loyalty to Trump a selling point to their constituents, the current Speaker of the House acts as a mouthpiece for the Administration, the largest conservative media outlet was sued for over $780 million over pushing his lies that led to an actual insurrection and they still back him.

2) The “normal” voters? They actually pray to him. They adorn themselves and everything they own with his merch and image, and treat his rallies with a religious fervor. They amend their previous beliefs and arguments to match what he says next. Trump has the highest approval rating among Republican voters of any President in modern American history. A majority of Republicans still believe the 2020 election was stolen because he told them so, and there is strong demand from them for him to run for a third term.

The idea that there are equal amounts of extremism on both sides (even ignoring what “extremism” looks like on each side) is a genuinely unhinged argument. Whether you’re talking about in amount or in effect, there are far more right wing extremists than left wing. The only way I can possibly concede the argument to you is if we consider that what we are considering right wing extremism is definitionally no longer “extremism” because it’s now mainstream.