I Thought A MAGA Bot Was Trolling Me. Then He Asked Me To Lunch — And I Was Surprised By Who Showed Up.

This article is obviously written by a lunatic that is more brainwashed than most! This woman should be ashamed of herself! She is a race baiting bullshitter! It’s Fake News by a Fake Hater! Trump supporters are great people that help others. We are what America needs! MAGA

I was pretty sure this tweet, sent in response to a recent essay I published on HuffPost detailing my summer interviewing people at Donald Trump rallies, was written by a bot. It had all the telltale signs: mudslinging; a username consisting of a first name followed by a bunch of numbers; and the “MAGA” sign-off.

“Thank you for your comment, name bunchanumbers!” I replied ― to which the account responded: “You are welcome. I have lived in MD a long time and have never seen anyone as biased and full of shit as you are. MAGA.”

We continued to tweet back and forth at each other a few times. I asked for croissant recipes and answers to math questions in hopes of getting the AI I believed to be running the bot to reveal itself. Instead, I eventually got a reply I never saw coming: “Let me take you to lunch next week and discuss how you can help Make America Great Again! My treat. MAGA.”

This was a first for me. As a journalist and researcher who has spent much of the past decade studying the psychology of far-right movements, I’d interacted with countless MAGA die-hards, but none of them had ever invited me to a meal. I was intrigued, so I agreed, and within an hour we had exchanged cell numbers and made a date.

We met on a late Tuesday morning just outside D.C. at Parkway Deli in Silver Spring, Maryland, a beloved institution tucked into a strip mall that is almost always packed with a cross-section of society — lawyers and construction workers having