What Maga means for Americans

A decade ago Donald Trump rose the golden escalator within the Trump Tower in New York City and ignited a political movement that has Remodeled American politics. In an unforgettable turn, Trump promised the followers of his 2016 presidential campaign that “we’ll make our country great again”.

Since then, the Make America Great Again movement has dominated the US political conversation. the Republican party changes And Become a lucrative brand Decorate hats, T-shirts and automobile stickers.

When asked what Maga means for him, Trump, in a single 2017 interview with the Washington Post said: “It meant jobs for me. It meant industry and meant military strength. It meant that it meant care about our veterans. It meant a lot.”

But democratic leaders have a special interpretation of the slogan.

Former President Bill Clinton in 2016 About Maga said: “This message through which I will provide you with America again is great, for those who are a white southern state, exactly what it means not? What it means is:” I will provide you with an economy that you simply had 50 years ago and I’ll pull you down on the social dead pole and other people. “

While Maga is omnipresent, little is understood about what it means for the American public. What do the Americans think in the event that they hear or read this sentence?

Based on the evaluation of the reasons of the Americans, what “America is doing great again” means for them, we found indications that the general public views about Maga reflect the perspectives offered by Trump and Clinton.

The Republicans interpret this sentence as a call for the renewal of the US economy and military power in addition to a return to “traditional” values, particularly to those who relate to gender roles and gender identities. The Democrats, as we’ve got found, see Maga as a call to return to white dominance and growing authoritarianism.

What Maga means

We are Political scientist Who uses Public opinion polls To Study the role from Partisan In American politics. In order to raised understand the American views of Maga, we asked 1,000 respondents in a single in April 2025 National representative online survey Briefly write what “make America great again” for them.

The survey query was open, in order that the respondents could define this sentence as they thought it is correct. We used the thematic evaluation on AI and qualitative reading of the answers to raised understand how Democrats and Republicans define the slogan.

For our AI-based thematic evaluation, we’ve got instructed Chatgpt to offer three comprehensive topics that were most touched by democratic and republican respondents. This approach follows the recent investigations that show that within the event of proper instructions, Chatgpt reliably identifies broad topics In collections of texts.

Republican interpretation of Maga

Our evaluation shows that the Republicans see the slogan as a “American dream”. In some cases, Maga is about restoring the nation's pride and economic strength. A Republican surveyed reflected these topics and wrote that Maga “encouraged the manufacturers to rent Americans and strengthen the economy.

Maga can also be closely related to a Republican.America first“Politics. This is partly about having a powerful military – a standard topic amongst republican respondents – and” making America again “, wrote an interviewee.

The Republicans also wrote that the initial translation of America means to emphasise the strict enforcement of immigration laws against “illegal” and cut off foreign help. For example, a Republican respondent said that Maga “stopped illegals on the border, gifted gifts for illegal ending, added more police and have built up a powerful military”.

After all, the Republicans see the slogan as a return to “traditional” values. They expressed the strong desire to reverse cultural changes that the Republican respondents perceive as a threat.

As a Republican put it, Maga means “returning to the boys, women were at home to coach healthy children, and it was easy to achieve success, the crime rate was extremely low and it was certain that children with other children hang on the road and even walk themselves.”

Another Republican made the connection between Maga and traditional gender roles much more explicitly and emphasized the connection between Maga and opposition to transgender rights: “Maga people know that there are only 2 genders and a person can never be a lady. If they consider that they otherwise destroy America.”

Democratic Maga views

Democrats have a totally different understanding of the Maga slogan. Many Democrats see Maga as a white supremacist movement that’s speculated to protect the status of the white protect and undermine the civil rights of marginalized groups.

A democrat argued that “” making America great again “is a normal that was borne by individuals who have seen a withdrawal within the potency of their privilege (see: cisgendered white men) and see how their privilege is restored or strengthened. Essentially, it’s a singing for all racist, fascist and otherwise bigoted actors to mix with one another. ”

Another Democrat wrote that Maga was a call “to take us backwards as an organization in relation to women, minority and LGBTQ vols rights … it could bring us at a time when only white men ruled.”

Democrats also consider Maga as a type of nostalgia for a strongly mythologized past. Many democratic respondents described the past of Republicans as “myth” or “fairy tales”. Others argued that this mythologized past was repressive for a lot of Americans, though it appealed to the surface.

A democrat said that Maga had “returned to a fantasy version of the past to advertise the success of the white, straight, wealthy men with all means which might be crucial and almost all the time crucial to the drawback of other segments of the population”. “

After all, many Democrats interpret the slogan as an authoritarian cult of personality. In this sense, a democratic survey about Maga said: “It is a call to the weapons for Maga cult members who consider that Trump and the Republicans' party will one way or the other improve their lives by aiming people and guidelines they don't like, even then against their best interests and each rational means of thought.”

While some Republicans expressed racist, xenophobic or anti-trans-trans feelings of their understanding of Maga, some Democrats unveiled an in depth conduct to Maga believers.

“The Magas are brainwashing, idiotic members of society who know nothing greater than to follow the leadership of an idiotic president who has the vocabulary of a 3rd grader,” wrote a Democrat. “It is nonsense -idioten -parrots,” said one other respondent.

Overall within the 10 years since Donald Trump broke into the political scene, It was written lots About the contradictory visions of past, present and future in the guts of the partisan departments of America.

With the announced commitment of the Trump government to bring the USA back into its “back”golden age” And A robust resistance to his effortsOnly the time will recognize which vision of America will prevail.