How 'Make America Great Again' Became MAGA

Photo: Roberto Schmidt Agence France-Presse The history of MAGA ideology goes back well before Donald Trump.

Who was the first candidate for the presidency of the United States to use the phrase “Make America Great Again” ? Make America Great Again. Donald Trump ? No! Ronald Reagan. In 1980.

His slogan is “Let's Make America Great Again“. He is elected for two terms.

In 2015, Donald Trump descended the golden escalator of Trump Tower in New York. He declared himself a candidate: “Unfortunately, the American dream is dead… I’m going to make America great again.” Make America Great Again.

He would say that he didn’t know that Ronald Reagan had used this phrase. He made it a registered trademark. Today, merchandise bearing his slogan is sold everywhere: on his campaign website, on Amazon… On his Trump Store website, the iconic red cap sells for $55. How much money does he make from it ? Mystery.

The « Make America Great Again » has become MAGA: the movement of Trump’s diehard supporters. Like its slogan, MAGA’s populist ideology was not born with him.

The Gingrich Revolution

Do you remember Newt Gingrich ? He was named “Man of the Year” in 1995 by Time magazine.

He is 81 years old. He is still influential. And his political ideology is triumphant.

He was elected as a Republican to the House of Representatives in 1978. His party was still suffering from the resignation of President Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal four years earlier. The president, Jimmy Carter, was a Democrat, and both houses of Congress had a Democratic majority. The Republicans occupied the backbench of power.

Newt Gingrich described himself as a “genuine revolutionary.” He wants to make a “republican revolution”, push the party to the right and seize power.

Politics were much less polarized than they are today. In 1976, only half of the electorate thought the Republican Party was more conservative than the Democratic Party.

Photo: Yuki Iwamura Associated Press Donald Trump won the 2016 election, supported by the MAGA movement, which has its roots in the Tea Party, according to Newt Gingrich.

For Newt Gingrich, Republicans are not mean enough, “ nasty.” The next generation must understand that politics is a cut-throat war. During the 1990 campaign, one document encouraged candidates to “speak like Newt” by using vindictive words against Democrats: “anti-child,” “sick,” “destroy,” “radical.”

A vocabulary now in the mouths of MAGA leaders: Donald Trump tirelessly repeats that the Democrats have “destroyed” the country. J.D. Vance, his biting running mate for vice president, claimed in 2021 that the Democrats were led by a bunch of “childless catwomen” and still says that the Democratic Party is “anti-children.”

Newt Gingrich’s strategy succeeded in the midterm elections in 1994, under President Bill Clinton. The Republicans won the majority in the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years.

Gingrich becomes House leader and a vocal proponent of the impeachment of President Clinton following the Monica Lewinsky affair. He himself has a secret extramarital affair with a congressional staffer, Callista Bisek, 23. She will become his third wife, with whom he still lives.

Newt Gingrich's confrontational mentality will guide the Tea Party, a right-wing movement created in response to the election of Barack Obama.

Birth of the Tea Party

“How many of you want to pay the mortgage of your neighbors who have an extra bathroom and can't pay their bills? President Obama, are you listening! ? »

This tirade was launched by Rick Santelli, a commentator on CNBC, live from the Chicago Stock Exchange in February 2009.

Barack Obama, newly elected, has just announced aid of 75 billion to help 9 million homeowners who are victims of the housing bubble.

These families bought homes they couldn’t afford, deceived by American banks that speculated on their mortgages. Lehman Brothers Holdings went bankrupt. The stock market plummeted. President George W. Bush adopted a $700 billion plan to save the banks. Obama, who succeeded him, passed a budget of nearly $800 billion to stem the worst crisis since 1929.

Photo: Kevin Dietsch Agence France-Presse Elon Musk at a Donald Trump campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in October

Santelli’s call for revolt goes viral. Demonstrations are organized all over the country. This is the beginning of the Tea Party, which means “Tax Enough Already” or “taxed enough as it is.” The name also refers to the Boston Tea Party of 1773, when American colonists threw a cargo of tea overboard to protest British taxes.

Fox News, a conservative news channel, became the voice of the Tea Party: 63% of its supporters drank from it.

A CBS poll paints a striking portrait of the Tea Party:

– 18% of Americans support it.

– 89% are white.

– 59% are men.

– 58% own weapons.

– 39% are evangelical.

– 92% think Obama is moving the country toward socialism.

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They talk about creating a third political party, but prefer to infiltrate the Republican Party. In 2010, in the midterm elections, the Tea Party supported 138 candidates. About fifty of them were elected. The Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives.

Tea Party elected officials do not hesitate to oppose the Republican establishment, which they consider too soft on the Democrats. In 2013, they paralyzed the federal government in the hope of blocking funds for Obamacare, the hated health insurance plan for all. Tea Party activists don't want to pay for others, period.

The Tea Party, created in reaction to the decisions of Obama, the first black president, has always denied being racist. However, in 2010, according to the CBS poll, 30% of its supporters believe that Obama was not born in the United States, that his birth certificate is a fake, and that he is therefore not legally president. Some claim that he is Muslim. This is “ birtherism“. One of the main proponents of this baseless theory is… Donald Trump.

The Tea Party, without a party and without a leader, is gradually weakening. It rises from the ashes with the arrival of a billionaire.

The MAGA revolution

Newt Gingrich loves to tell the story of how in 2015, Donald Trump invited him to lunch and asked him “very intelligent” questions about his political experience. At the end, Trump asked how much it would cost him to launch a test campaign for the presidency. Between 70 and 80 million, Gingrich estimates. And Trump said: “70 or 80 million, that’s the price of a yacht. And it would be a lot more exciting than a yacht.” Newt Gingrich became a close adviser.

Donald Trump won the 2016 election, supported by the MAGA movement, which he said had its roots in the Tea Party. In journalist Tim Alberta's book American Carnage, Trump says: “These people are still there. They haven't changed their minds. The Tea Party is still there, except now it's called Make America Great Again.” »

In his inauguration speech as president, he spoke of “the rusting factories scattered like tombstones across our nation's landscape… the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives… We have enriched foreign industries at the expense of American industry… This American carnage ends here… Together, we will make America great again.”

The Guardianquotes Richard Pease, 53, a sales manager at a printing company in New Hampshire, who was in the crowd: “People want their lives back… I’m a white guy who owns guns. At least for the next four years, I’m going to get to keep my guns and my balls.”

One in five Republicans identify as members of the MAGA movement, according to a Morning Consult poll conducted last June. They are in the minority but entirely loyal to Donald Trump, more than to the Republican Party.

The typical portrait of MAGA activists is almost exactly like that of the Tea Party.

They feel dispossessed of their country, their identity, their traditional values ​​that they believe are threatened by immigration, feminism, plural sexuality. They want to find “their” America again.

Photo: Michael Wyke Associated Press One in five Republicans identify as members of the MAGA movement, according to a Morning Consult poll conducted last June.

They want an end to illegal immigration, are against abortion and gun restrictions. They believe that American jobs have been sold abroad. They see Donald Trump as a president capable of dethroning the establishment that has betrayed them. They applaud his brashness, his confrontational instinct.

During his term, President Trump has defied the rules of American politics and the country's institutions. The Washington Posthas counted 30,573 false or misleading statements in four years. He denounces massive electoral fraud without proof when he loses the 2020 elections.

Trump's party

Without being in power, Donald Trump takes over the Republican Party, using his influence to have the party select candidates who are loyal to him. Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and adviser, speaks of a “hostile takeover.”

At the convention last August, the Republican Party is that of Trump and the MAGA movement. Its slogan “ Make America Great Again” is everywhere. The Republicans who dared to challenge him—Mitt ​​Romney, Liz Cheney, Mike Pence—are absent.

After the attack on him and his spectacular gesture of defiance “Fight, Fight, Fight”, Trump is seen by his supporters as a man whom God has protected to make America great again.

At the end of the campaign, he is pushing the boundaries of political language again. In an interview with Fox News, he uses the expression “enemy within” when naming a Democrat. He talks about controlling “sick, crazy radical leftists” if there are disruptions on election day, with the National Guard or the army. In a rally, he calls Kamala Harris a “shitty vice president” to the applause of the crowd.

Newt Gingrich’s dream of making the Republican Party an uncompromising opponent of the Democratic Party has come true. His strategies of merciless confrontation, vindictive language, and inflammatory statements that attract media coverage are triumphant.

In his book Trump’s America, Gingrich writes: “Trump’s America and post-American society cannot coexist. One will simply defeat the other. There is no room for compromise. Trump understood this perfectly from day one.”