Democrats Keep Saying "MAGA," But I Hate It And Think It's Shortsighted

MAGA MAGA MAGA

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries Loves To Say “MAGA” More Than He Likes To Breathe

To paraphrase President Joe Biden’s excellent zinger that he used about about Rudy Giuliani during the 2008 presidential campaign, for the last few months the most consistent message from Democrats has been a noun, a verb, and “MAGA.”

On paper, I completely understand why they keep doing this. The MAGA brand — derived from Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan — is in the toilet. Trump is a loser and nearly every election he touches ends up being a loss for Republicans.

Focus groups tell Democrats that they don’t like to hear “MAGA,” so the logical thing for Democrats to do is to beat that drum, eternally making the GOP associated with a toxic brand. Election results appear to validate this approach, with Democrats winning in 2020, holding off the “red wave” in 2022, and surging to the polls multiple time this year to deliver victories for abortion rights.

So am I just being my usual nitpicky self when I say I don’t like “MAGA”? Possibly. But I think the branding is one of those short-term solutions that in the long run will turn out to be a mistake.

The problem with America in 2023 isn’t just Trump’s brand of conservatism. After all, three of the Supreme Court justices that overturned Roe (John Roberts, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas) were not Trump picks. They were chosen by George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, the men who are supposedly anathema to the MAGA movement.

Furthermore, the underlying policy of Trump’s presidency, cutting taxes for the super wealthy, restricting immigration, embracing bigotry, and upholding ignorance, are not exclusive to “MAGA” Republicanism. The party has held these beliefs close to their hearts since Barry Goldwater spearheaded the conservative takeover of Republicans in the mid-1960s.

There is no clear dividing line between traditional Republican conservatism and Trump’s “MAGA” conservatism, no matter how much the media and nostalgic Democrats (like President Biden) want to say there is. Even the in-your-face brash rhetoric of Trump and the embrace of crackpot conspiracy theories is not a MAGA development. It wasn’t “MAGA Republicans” who accused Bill and Hillary Clinton of committing a murder spree in Arkansas in the 1980s. It wasn’t “extreme MAGA” who accused President Barack Obama of a socialist takeover of health care, enacting left-wing “death panels” to kill the elderly.

It was just boring old Republicans.

Turn back the clock to the Democratic Party following the disastrous 2010 midterms, and the party was locked in on denigrating “Tea Party Republicans,” who used purported complaints about “out of control spending” as cover for racist demagoguery of Obama. A lot of capital was invested in that effort but after Obama was reelected, the Tea Party rather rapidly dissipated into the ether.

The bottom line is the problem at hand isn’t “MAGA” or “Tea Party” or whatever comes along when Trump is off the main stage (the sooner the better, please). The problem is the Republican Party and the conservative ideology that motivates the party. The bigotry of the GOP, the ignorance of the GOP, that is the problem and that is what the rhetorical fire of Democrats and the larger liberal movement should be aimed at.

The right makes very few delineations between the different sorts of liberals that are out there. To them, and most importantly the people who vote for them, the problem isn’t just President Biden, but also anyone allied with the Democratic Party or liberalism. It is ridiculous for Republicans to refer to Democratic ideas as “socialist” but that has never been a limiter on their behavior before. But what this does is it communicates clearly to core Republican voters, and unfortunately to many in the public at large, that the problem is Democrats and liberals. The distinctions between - for instance - Biden and figures like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or pundits like Rachael Maddow and even figures like Cornel West (depending on how much of a willing dupe he is being at the moment) are effectively nonexistent.

This broad brush prevents the right from having to recalibrate every two to four years. Lines of attack against Bill Clinton can be reused against John Kerry can be reused against Obama and Biden. It is a constant drumbeat that marches on for decades, played by members of Congress in concert with propaganda outlets like Fox News and figures like Rush Limbaugh (reminder: he’s dead).

Instead of following the focus groups and polling and zeroing in on “MAGA” in a vain attempt to create some kind of “permission structure” for nonexistent “good” Republicans to break away from the bulk of the party, Democrats should be pointing out that Republicans and conservatives are the problem.

It wasn’t MAGA that invaded Iraq under Bush, cut the safety net under Reagan or engaged in dirty tricks and criminality under Nixon. It was just Republicans, motivated by conservative ideas and twisted by a conservative world view that is way out of the mainstream of American thought.

Invoking MAGA feels good and it feels right for the moment. It stimulates that reward center of the brain as a good rhetorical punch at Trump and his cronies, and it seems to work by delivering election results. But the calories are empty. The short-term boost does not sufficiently advance the case that a liberal outlook is not only superior to a conservative one, but ultimately far more beneficial for the United States and the world at large.

The Democrats would be far better off to throw out their rhetorical playbook and level with the public that Republicans are the problem. The problem extends from Donald Trump to Mitch McConnell to Sean Hannity to that crank posting xenophobic conspiracies on Twitter. All of them.

Give up on “MAGA” and really engage this fight.

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— Oliver

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