Readings
- Michael Podhorzer, “There’s Nothing Funny About MAGA’s Clown Car,” Weekend Reading on Substack, January 29, 2023 and “The Emerging Anti-MAGA Majority,” Weekend Reading on Substack, June 8, 2023.
- Calvin Cheung-Miaw, “The Pivot of US Politics: Racial Justice and Democracy,” Convergence, November 20, 2020.
- Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage and Maggie Haberman, “Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025,” New York Times, July 18, 2023.
- Sandra Hinson, “The Role of Anti-Abortion Forces in the Rise of the MAGA Right,” Convergence, June 13, 2022.
- Sarah Churchwell, “American Fascism: It Has Happened Here,” New York Review of Books, June 22, 2020.
Key Points
- Today’s MAGA bloc is the US manifestation of a global rise in right-wing authoritarian movements. The MAGA bloc is anchored in two of the most deeply rooted sectors of US society: (1) a wing of the capitalist class centered in the fossil fuel industry and a set of reactionary billionaires, and (2) the large layer of people of many classes who are invested in a society ordered by racial and gender hierarchies. MAGA is thus the current manifestation of a white Christian Nationalist trend that is deeply intertwined with capitalism and has existed in the US since its origins. The invention and re-invention of "white" identity has historically been used by the US ruling classes to tamp down pressure from the working class during periods of economic crisis and popular uprising. The current resurgence of white Christian Nationalism relates to both the changing demographics of the country (including the election of its first Black president) and the crisis of the neoliberal model following the 2008 financial crash.
- This MAGA bloc has captured the Republican Party and is intent on imposing authoritarian rule that would roll back the democratic gains won by Black people, women, LGBTQ people, and others over the last two centuries. The MAGA bloc openly boasts about its detailed plan (Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, issued by the Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Presidential Transition Project) to transform the US government into a right-wing dictatorship if any Republican wins election to the presidency. Within the authoritarian MAGA Bloc, there is an openly fascist current that normalizes the use of extra-judicial violence, a trend that likewise dates back to the origins of the country.
- Stopping MAGA’s drive for power and pushing this trend back to the margins is the main task of the US Left and all those who believe in democracy and fairness.
- Though the majority of US people oppose the MAGA agenda, no single tendency in the opposition is strong enough to defeat MAGA on its own. It requires a common front of all anti-MAGA tendencies to accomplish that task. The anti-MAGA front is cross-class and seeks to include all individuals, groups and sectors that advocate debating and settling political differences via democratic means.
- Defeating MAGA candidates in elections at all levels is the bottom-line unity of the anti-MAGA front. Fighting against MAGA’s repressive moves in states where it holds power and its general hate-mongering (restrictions on abortion, voter suppression, weaponization of transphobia, crusade against teaching history under the banner of “fighting CRT,” etc.) is also imperative.
Competing View
The main alternative view on this point is that leftists should not vote for Democrats to beat MAGA candidates. For an example of this argument as it applies to 2024, see “Cornel West and the Campaign to End Political Apartheid” by Chris Hedges writing on Substack.
Questions for Discussion
- What do you think will be the result if the Republican Party captures the White House and majorities in both houses of Congress in 2024? For specific sectors of the population, for the areas of politics that you work in or pay attention to? For people and the planet outside the US?
- How much power do you think MAGA has already achieved? Think about ways the MAGA bloc’s rise has affected the psychology (including hopes and fears) of people that you are connected to as well as changes in laws, living conditions, and the character of political debate.
- How broad of an alliance of political and social forces will it take to stop MAGA’s drive to rule the country?
- What is the role of electoral engagement in stopping MAGA? What kind of relationship do you think is needed between electoral and non-electoral work?