For people outside of Donald Trump‘s MAGA coalition, the renewed Republican harassment campaign of Dr. Anthony Fauci makes no sense. MAGA, though, has a reason to feel nostalgia for a pandemic that killed millions. Echoing Trump’s “hoax” language about the pandemic, MAGA decided the whole thing was being exaggerated — or even made up altogether — by Democrats for hazy but nefarious purposes. Fascist movements have historically thrived in times of great social stress that leave people vulnerable to misinformation and eager for scapegoats to blame, and the pandemic era was no different. MAGA media is fracturing, and their audiences are a small fraction of what they had during the pandemic.