I think I have somewhat of a handle on what Trump’s supporters mean by MAGA. What does Trump mean by the motto?
I look at Trump and I see a guy who has never once in his life done anything that didn’t benefit himself or his immediate family. After all, this is the guy who responded to the accusation by a Gold Star father that he didn’t know what sacrifice is by saying that he has sacrificed by working hard and hiring lots of people. If he had worked hard at something that benefited others and not himself and if he kept people on the payroll by cutting his own pay at times, I’d buy this rationale. But I’ve never heard of any instance of him doing either.
But I want to be fair to the guy. When if ever in his lifetime has he ever done anything that benefited other people that did not also benefit himself or his family?
What does he mean by MAGA? If he makes things better for billionaires but not for the middle and lower class, will he think he has kept his promise? If making America better for his supporters means making it worse for the upper class and himself (by say raising their taxes) will he do so? If you think he would, are there any examples in what he’s proposed that would do just that?
It means Trump is xenophobic. Everyone else but true blue Americans – i.e., the ones who came from Western Europe a century ago – are no fucking good, so get out.
Like many political slogans, it’s vague enough that different people can hear different things. Many people have a sense that America is not the country it once was, and Trump is telling all those people that he will restore that past glory, whatever it was.
So if you’re a guy who works in manufacturing and your father worked in manufacturing and your grandfather and so on, and you get the sense that it’s a lot tougher for you than it was for your father and grandfather, then you hear that Trump is going to make America that great place where you could earn a good living with a blue collar job.
And so on for people who feel the country has declined in other ways.
Bringing back blue collar manufacturing and fossil fuel jobs
Protecting Americans from terrorists and illegal immigrants
Reasserting American exceptionalism and dominance on the world stage
Halting attacks on traditional American culture and values by extreme Political Correctness
Or another way to think of it - it’s about making a white guy with a high school education living in rural Pennsylvania feel like the entire world revolves around him and conforms to his world view.
He never really explained what it meant, and the media totally failed to try to get him to.
my best guess is that it appealed to people who think the 1950s were somehow the pinnacle of American society, and something we should aspire to return to. They’re either:
people who were kids back then, and their rose-tinted specs are making them think things were rosier than they were, or
people who weren’t alive back then who buy into the ideas from 1) and think Leave it to Beaver is a documentary.
unfortunately, what we were was a direct result of WWII and us emerging from it mostly unscathed. It was an anomaly and won’t likely ever happen to any country again.
“Make America Great Again” is a Rorschach Blot; people see what they want to see it to mean.
For many of his supporters, it means more jobs, less deficit, a whiter America, less crime, 1950s America, being the world’s lone superpower again, crackdown on political correctness, a booming economy, enforcement of laws, the media being given its comeuppance, etc.
ETA: ninja’d by Velocity with the same metaphor no less.
This. As other said, the slogan is a Rorschach and means to supporters whatever they each individually want it to mean.
To Trump himself it means (IMO) nothing at all. It’s a means to the end of stroking his ego and filling his family’s wealth unto overflowing with, ideally, near eternal power over the USA and … Soon the World!!. Or is that ze Vorld??
An America with a Trump at the helm is Great. One without is not. Certainly no less than that and also probably no more.
I think I worded my question wrong. While you all gave good answers, they were to the question “What do Trump’s supporters mean by MAGA” or “What does Trump want his supporters to think he means by MAGA?”
What I want to know is what Trump thinks would make America great again. (I have this feeling he thinks he’s accomplished that – Trump as POTUS = America Great!!!)
But kidding aside, is there anything he would do that would help his supporters and cause harm to him or his holdings? If it could be shown to him, for example, that eliminating some of the tax loopholes that have saved him lots of money would help make the lives of his supporters better, would he do it? I seem to remember him saying in the campaign that “no one knows more” than him about those tax loopholes so no one else can close them. But now he has that chance – will he do it? Will he make healthcare better and more affordable (I seem to remember him promising that, too) even if the only way that can be accomplished is by raising taxes on the wealthy?
In other words, is there any action he would take that wouldn’t benefit him or at least not hurt him?
I know that politicians are human and many strive to not hurt themselves or their cronies in the least, but I think there are a lot of examples of presidents doing things that hurt them and their friends but were for the good of the country.
I don’t think Trump has any idea how to return the US and the world to 1950. Trump is not a smart man, he just knows how to present emotionally appealing narratives and sell them to buyers, which is what he did to get elected.
His voters think Maga means what other posters have said. A whiter America with white males as the unquestioned leaders. Tougher cops, simple foreign policy (good guys vs evil guys). Good jobs for high school graduates. A retreat from multiculturalism and globalization.
How can he achieve this? He can’t. What plans does he have to achieve it? I don’t think he has plans.
Will he make health care more affordable or change tax laws? I Doubt it. Trump has also said nobody respects women more than him, nobody is less anti semetic, nobody is less racist, etc. So his statement that nobody knows tax law more than him is just hyperbole.
“Mean”? What makes you think it means anything to him. It just sounded good so he ran with it. Since when did anything he said mean anything? He’s got what I call diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of the brain.
I believe Trump has stated the following goals to MAGA. Stop illegal immigration. Make better trade deals. Keep jobs here. Just don’t get hung up on the details!
I think Obama ran on being an anti-establishment candidate who would stand up to the plutocrats. How effective he was at that is questionable though, but there was a meaning to Obama’s slogans just like there is a meaning to Trump’s.
It was so broad i- - to someone else - it could mean we’re going to land 4 giraffe’s on Mars and have them dance like Michael Flatley. That’s the whole point of these campaign slogans.
He doesn’t mean anything specific by it. It is a bumper sticker/front of a hat slogan that encapsulates whatever particular meaning a Trump supporter gives it.
