Understanding MAGA Voters
I have long wondered why so many working-class Republicans seem to vote against their own economic interests (see, “Understanding Trump’s Voter Appeal”). Since World War II the nation’s economy has grown faster under Democratic presidents than Republican presidents (see, “The Myth of Republican Economic Managerial Superiority”); and the last two Republican presidents have left office with the nation’s economy in free-fall. In addition, Democratic administrations have consistently supported working class Americans with a panoply of laws protecting workers and retired individuals as well as laws making healthcare and childcare more affordable and readily available. By contrast, Republican administrations have concentrated their legislative efforts on passing tax cuts for corporations and wealthy individuals, leaving in their wake mammoth fiscal deficits which will place a financial burden on future generations of Americans. Republican legislators have even demanded cuts in the IRS’s budget, impairing that agency’s ability to simply collect taxes owed by business entities and wealthy individuals.
Some simply attribute the current unhappiness of these working class Americans, not to the policies of the nation’s political parties, but rather to the havoc cause by globalization. To be sure, working class Americans of all political persuasions have been adversely affected by globalization, but that doesn’t fully explain their thinking. While manufacturing jobs have been lost to globalization, economic growth in this country has remained robust and unemployment has been near historic lows for the past ten years. In reality, their economic plight appears to be more the result of our nation’s growing wealth having been systematically channeled to those at the upper end of the income scale through a tilted tax code and laws impairing worker’s ability to bargain collectively. The thinking of MAGA voters, as recorded in polling data, seems more reflective of the notions planted in their heads by Republican politicians, like Donald Trump, who have promised to protect them from people they claim are the cause of their supporters’ unhappiness; namely, immigrants, people with dark skin and those with differing sexual orientations.
It’s not that I have been oblivious to the multitude of efforts of Republican politicians to distract their supporters from the economic realities affecting their lives. For example, as I have previously reported, Republican politicians at both the state and federal levels have been waging war on LGBTQ individuals who pose no threat to them (or the nation) simply to fuel their supporters animosity against individuals they deem alien to their way of life. Similarly, those politicians have also sought to eliminate abortions, claiming that they are “pro-life” while at the same time opposing a wide spectrum of legislation to shelter and nourish those children whose lives they claim to have saved. Such campaigns promoting hate, of course, do nothing to actually improve the lives of their supporters.
In addition, Congressional Republicans have been conducting frivolous investigations designed to convey the impression that they are protecting their supporters against Democratic politicians whom they portray as antithetical to the interests of working-class Americans. Most notably, they conducted no less than seven investigations relating to the attack on our Benghazi consulate for the sole purpose (as admitted by former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy) of diminishing Hillary Clinton’s public approval rating in advance of her anticipated run for president in 2016. Now they are conducting another politically motivated investigation (“witch hunt” in the parlance of their cult leader); this one in search of evidence that President Biden benefited from a criminal conspiracy centered around by his son, Hunter Biden. They even voted to hold the younger Biden in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify in a closed hearing even though he offered to testify in a hearing open to the public. Similarly, Republican legislators have vociferously complained that the Biden administration is not taking action to curb illegal immigration coming across our southern border while refusing to consider bipartisan legislation crafted to address that very problem.
Quite frankly, it’s totally mystifying how MAGA voters could be taken in by such political flim-flam to disregard their own economic interests especially when they profess to be intently concerned about the ever-increasing magnitude of the nation’s fiscal deficit. According to Jennifer Rubin, a columnist for The Washington Post, the problem isn’t that MAGA Republicans are economic casualties of globalization or are being hoodwinked by the political machinations of Donald Trump and his Congressional acolytes, it’s just that their economic well-being is simply less important to them than their “racial resentment” and “cultural panic.” These assertions are based upon the findings of several psychological studies recounted in an earlier article by Niraj Chokshi.
One cannot underestimate the power of hate and fear. It was succinctly summed up by Golda Meir’s in her explanation of why it is so difficult for Israel to achieve peace with its neighbors; to wit: “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.” Still, the question remains whether racial resentment and cultural panic are the root causes of MAGA voters’ willingness to disregard their economic well-being or merely a manifestation of their economic distress.
Chokshi’s article, relied upon by Rubin, points to surveys and analyses which have generally found that racial resentment and cultural panic, not economic distress, fueled the affinity of MAGA voters for a would-be strongman. While I don’t disagree with that conclusion, I’m still inclined to believe that economic factors caused the distress that made MAGA Republicans susceptible to messages promoting racial resentment and cultural panic. Polling data always raises an issue of causality because it is difficult to ascertain whether polling responses represent the cause of the problem or merely the perception of the problem. In short, while those being polled may truly be distressed by population shifts and their impact on governmental control, that perception may largely be attributable to what they are hearing on right-wing media which has been telling them that their jobs are being shipped abroad and that minority groups are causing rising crime, disorder and disease.
In an article I wrote in 2020 entitled “Trumpism” I discussed how a clever sales person can utilize adverse circumstances to ignite the hates and fears of the afflicted. In that piece I analogized Donald Trump’s efforts to alarm MAGA voters to those of the fictional character, Professor Harold Hill, in “The Music Man.” In both cases the hates and fears pre-existed the individual who ignited them. In the case of the inhabitants of River City their hates were directed at the young men who grew up “on the other side of the tracks” and their fears related to changes that would alter their cherished way of life. In the case of the MAGA voters their hates relate to people of color and their fears are that white Christian men would soon lose control of the levers of government.
Racial prejudice and xenophobia have long been present in America. Racial prejudice was the root cause of our Civil War and xenophobia has run rampant throughout our nation’s history as immigrants arrived from abroad whether they were Irish, Italians or eastern European Jews. Also recall during World War II citizens of Japanese ancestry were even placed into internment camps. Although racial prejudice gave rise the Dixiecrats, for the most part, prejudices relating to non-white non-Christians have not given rise to a major political movement in the absence of a triggering event. In the case of the MAGA movement, the triggering event was a toxic combination of economic despair and demagogic rhetoric amplified by a politically motivated segment of the public media.
The slogan “Make America Great Again” was not originated by Donald Trump. It was the centerpiece of Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign. At that time, there was significant economic anxiety as the nation had been experiencing slowing economic growth and historically high inflation. Reagan tapped into those concerns and used them as a springboard to defeat the re-election efforts of a sitting president. Although Reagan was highly popular and obliquely elevated submerged racial prejudices, he did not become a cult leader capable of causing his supporters to believe assertions that had been repeatedly disproven and to elevate their hates and fears above their own economic interests.
At least two elements were missing at the time. middle class workers had not been made to endure 40 years of declining prosperity and there was no well-orchestrated right-wing media singing his praises and echoing his lies. Thus, there is some doubt as to whether the MAGA phenomenon was caused solely by hates and fears rather than economic dissatisfaction. Even though some studies apparently indicate that elevating hates and fear is based upon concerns for the future (rather than distress over past events), the later still seems to be a necessary element for that to happen. Moreover, it would thus appear that still other elements must be present to cause voters to accept lies and sacrifice their own well-being.
There can be little doubt that Trump has elevated the hates and fears of his followers far beyond what Ronald Reagan did. In her article Jennifer Rubin explains:
“Trump rallies are designed to instill anger and cultivate his hold on people who believe whatever hooey he spouts. . . . The appeals to emotion, the specter of a malicious enemy, the fear of societal decline, the fascination with violence and the elation just to be in the presence of the leader are telltale signs of frenetic fascist gatherings. Trump’s language (“poisoning the blood”) even mimics Hitler’s calls for racial purity.”
Trump’s rhetoric is further explained as follows by historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an NYU History Professor who has written extensively about authoritarian regimes:
“Trump is a cult leader, rather than a conventional politician, and his speech and behavior cannot be assessed using democratic metrics or models of leadership. The “traditions” he continues as a candidate —insulting and threatening journalists, boasting about violence— belong to the history of authoritarianism, as do the goals he has for his rallies and other campaign events. . . . [Those goals] are not to advance policy proposals but rather to prop up his personality cult, circulate his lies, and emotionally retrain Americans to see violence as positive and even patriotic.”
Ben-Ghiat goes on to discuss how Trump seeks to project an image of success:
“Maintaining personality cults requires a stream of images of the leader being supported and adored by those followers. That is one reason the optics-obsessed Trump held more than 150 rallies during his presidency. By limiting the crowd(s) at [town hall meetings] to Republicans and GOP-leaning independents, and reportedly requesting that people not boo (but allowing positive reactions), [they are designed to reinforce his] grandiosity.”
She also explains his efforts to cement the loyalty of his supporters:
“Keeping the personality cult robust is particularly important when the leader faces setbacks, since he needs a receptive audience for his favorite narrative: the idea that he is a victim. His victimhood is key to his followers accepting the line that his repressive and brutal actions are taken in self-defense. His aggression is always marketed as necessary for his survival and that of his followers as well. This strongman scam . . . works on people because the victimhood stories make followers feel protective of the leader, no matter how many crimes he has committed or deaths he has caused.”
In summary, it appears to take a certain amount of economic distress to prime voters to buy into messages of hate and fear and even more stagecraft to cause them to blindly reject reality and set aside their own economic interests. It’s not only that MAGA voters think that Trump will manage the nation’s economy better than President Biden even though the economy collapsed while he was president and is performing better than all other developed nations under Biden’s administration. As Rubin points out, they even believe that Trump will do a better job in managing healthcare even though in his four years as president he failed to even offer a plan to do so and his handling on the COVID pandemic was far worse than almost all other developed nations. Even more astounding, they believe the 2020 election was tainted by fraud even though Trump’s Attorney General and Director of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security, as well as over 60 court cases, concluded such allegations were false. Such feats of persuasion make it understandable why MAGA voters are willing to vote against their own economic interests.