Increasing MAGA Identity Bodes Well for the Future

by Kenneth Schmidt

Kenneth Schmidt argues that the dramatic rise in Republican identification with MAGA reflects a historic realignment in American right-wing politics, initiated by Trump’s populist insurgency and sustained only if the movement evolves beyond the man himself.

NBC News commissioned a poll in mid-March, the results of which may point to what may be some deep changes in American political culture. 36% of registered voters now identify as supporters of MAGA. A similar poll conducted in 2024 put that figure at a mere 27%. What may be much more significant is that a total of 71% of registered Republicans think of themselves as MAGA.

That 71% figure is highly significant because 14 months earlier only 40% of Republicans called themselves MAGA. People have a tendency to forget that the Republican Party has always been a deeply divided political organization, at least in post-World War Two America. In the late forties and early fifties, the party establishment was opposed by the strong anti-New Dealers who were led by Sen Robert A. Taft. As the late fifties and early sixties approached, William F. Buckley and Barry Goldwater trumpeted a fusion of Cold War toughness and big business libertarianism at home, developed by the political thinker Frank S. Meyer. This eventually brought us the Reagan years. Reagan was opposed by the so-called “moderate Republicans.” Although there was a minor revolt in the form of the three presidential campaigns (1992,1996 and 2000) of Pat Buchanan, the “moderate” establishment Republicans reigned supreme, but then came the age of Trump, who, while a pragmatic businessman and not a believer in any ideology per se, stole some (but not all) of the mildly nationalistic ideas of the 90s paleoconservatives and rode them to power.

It is truly amazing how, at least as far as the common Republican man on the street goes, the party turned on a dime. In 2015, the Bush family, the Romney clan and warmongering crazies like Dick Cheney and his daughter, owned the GOP, lock, stock and barrel and then, suddenly, they didn’t. Make no mistake, the party apparatus is still controlled by the establishment; the big business wing and most state and local Republican leaders are really not MAGA, but all but a few are keeping their mouths shut in refraining from direct criticism of the “Orange Man” due to his popularity.

I think the breakthrough issue for MAGA was certainly immigration. Going back to the 1980s, the majority of Republicans told pollsters that something needed to be done about immigration and the festering sore of the porous Mexican border. The party worthies simply ignored them. Well, an ambitious New York businessman just so happened to read an Ann Coulter book on immigration and had either a road to Damascus experience or made a pragmatic judgment based on ambition, but either way, he gained power on the idea of “a big beautiful wall.” The rest, as they say, is history.

Nationalists and other members of what has come to be known as the Dissident Right would be wise to keep a couple of things in mind. MAGA is, as currently constituted, a very imperfect instrument. There are many in our ranks who are dissatisfied with various aspects of Trump’s reign: the Israeli exception to America First principles, the, not so great, deportation numbers and a few other things, most of them perfectly valid criticisms. However, when I see memes from the Right on the internet showing Red hat-wearing MAGA supporters as drooling idiots, I worry a bit. Younger activists, God bless them, forget what political life was like in America pre-2015. It was the Trump-supporting plain folk that brought Trump to power, significantly shifting, nay shattering, the Overton window of legitimate political discourse.

Six years ago, I put out a poor quality YouTube video stating that Donald Trump was a transitional figure. I thought it likely that, due to a combination of resistance to new ideas on the part of the Deep State and the political establishment and Trump’s idiosyncrasies, some progress would be made policy-wise, but not the giant strides that nationalistically inclined folks were expecting. America was ready for national-conservatism, but certainly not a more militant form of palingenetic nationalism. President Trump has shifted the political debate in a big way, but while I admire the man, I don’t see him as some kind of national savior.

It’s up to activists and writers to make sure that MAGA doesn’t die with Mr. Trump, who is, despite his current high energy, an old man. Pat Buchanan was an inspiring figure, but when he stopped running for president, his movement faded. If we can keep the MAGA movement alive post-Trump, perhaps crowning JD Vance (or someone else) as his successor, then we can turn MAGA more militant than it currently is and bring some real, lasting change to the political culture of this country.