MAGA

For over a decade, MAGA—the movement, led by President Trump, to “Make America Great Again”—has dominated American politics. MAGA has reshaped the Republican Party and transformed American rhetoric on issues like immigration, foreign intervention, elections, race, and gender. Since President Trump’s first inauguration in 2016, the movement has withstood the fallout from the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol and enabled Trump’s reelection in 2024. However, after the “blue-nami” which swept last week’s midterm elections and resulted in the GOP’s worst electoral defeat in decades, the nation is grappling with a new question: Is MAGA dead?

As the overwhelming winner of both the House and the Senate, Democrats flipped deep-red Senate seats in Texas, Georgia, Kansas, and Alaska, as well as key districts in Iowa, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Appalachian North Carolina. Additionally, the midterms reversed Trump’s 2024 popularity among Latinos and young voters, which had been central to the GOP’s revamped image as a multiracial, multigenerational party for the working class. Politicians, pundits, and scholars from all sides of the political spectrum have collectively agreed that these results were a thorough repudiation of the Republican Party’s policies since 2024. The war in Iran, ICE deployments, high fuel prices, and elite corruption were shown to be deeply unpopular among voters, especially the Republican Party’s working-class base. In an interview with Fox News on November 4, Trump himself said that it was “largely true” that the Iran war had cost Republicans the election because “it drove the gasoline up,” but that he would do it again.

Proponents of the resolution view Democrats’ overwhelming wins as a sign that voters across states, races, and economic backgrounds have rejected MAGA once and for all. According to a New York Times/Siena poll, Democrats won voters from all ages and racial categories besides white (where the GOP had a slim 51–47 advantage). Moreover, the Democratic staggering victory subdued the election denial movement, which has been a key facet of MAGA politics since Trump’s 2020 defeat. Not only did denialist candidates lose heavily, but Trump himself congratulated the Democrats and expressed his willingness to work with Democrats for the remainder of his tenure. Proponents may also argue that Democratic legislators can now begin investigations and impeachment processes for high-ranking Trump administration officials, thus further weakening MAGA’s power.

Opponents of the resolution remind us that the leader of MAGA still has the nuclear codes. Even as a lame-duck president, Trump retains the full range of his executive authority, including war powers—especially relevant given the war in Iran. Additionally, a NYT survey of the most competitive Senate races found that the GOP retained its core base of non-college-educated white men over 45, indicating that the movement is alive and well in these circles. Even white women, who were pivotal for Trump’s 2024 victory, only barely leaned Democrat; with a worthy candidate under different circumstances, a 52–47 Democratic split can easily return to the right. Finally, though it has been less than a week since the elections, we may look at Trump’s promotion of Stephen Miller, the architect of the administration’s immigration crackdown, to chief of staff as a return to the MAGA movement’s anti-immigration roots.

Come join our debate this Monday at 7pm in Scott Hall!

“President-elect Donald Trump in 2016” by Michael Vadon is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.