On Election Day, I volunteered as a student judge at a local polling place. Over the course of 15 hours, I helped nine other volunteers move furniture, set up machines and process nearly 1,000 voters. I learned a lot that day, both about United States politics and the American people, but the most valuable thing I took away was the importance of being humble.
One of my co-workers was an electrician, a MAGA Republican. Short for “Make America Great Again,” MAGA Republicans are characterized by an extreme loyalty to President-elect Donald Trump and a distrust for mainstream political institutions. A disillusioned veteran, he served a tour of duty in Iraq and three in Afghanistan. During one of our breaks, we chatted about our daily lives. The conversation quickly shifted to politics, and what he said was eye-opening. He told me about how “global banking” had colonized the world; about the “three-letter agencies” (the CIA, FBI, etc.) and how they monitor and suppress the American people and about how the “deep state,” secretive parts of the government that interfere behind the scenes, had thrown him into Iraq and are now running this country into the ground.
Liberals are trained to see people like him as “conspiracy theorists,” “misinformed” or even “weird.” These labels are great for shutting down arguments, but they almost never change minds. What’s more, they’re quickly becoming powerless.
Trust in the mainstream media has plummeted to an all-time low. In an October poll by Gallup, only 31% of Americans said they trusted the media “a great deal.” And as the popularity of the neoliberal establishment wanes, faith in the media will only keep shrinking with it.
Especially as the U.S. deindustrialized after the Cold War and the costs of living have skyrocketed, many working Americans feel betrayed by the new status quo. And why shouldn’t they? The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation reports that American students are falling behind those of other developed countries in international tests. The Kaiser Foundation found that over 100 million Americans are in debt from healthcare costs. But even as our education system falls behind and our healthcare system falls apart, successive presidencies have prioritized unleashing bestial carnage across Africa and the Middle East. Taxpayer dollars that could have gone to building new infrastructure or creating jobs for our homeless population have instead been squandered to “defend democracy” in other continents, which is usually just code for “we’re gonna steal your money to bomb foreigners for natural resources.”
To be clear, this mess obviously wasn’t caused by Democrats alone, and many resisted every step of the way. But in an age defined by anger and distrust, the figureheads will take the blame.
Populism is here to stay, and MAGA isn’t going anywhere. Lashing out, however satisfying, isn’t going to change that.
Will Gonsior • Apr 1, 2025 at 3:48 pm
“Bestial carnage across Africa?”
And when the African countries can’t get antiterrorism services from the US, they turn to Russia’s far more brutal troops that charge extortionate prices, don’t work, and do in fact actually unleash bestial carnage on them to do the work they desperately need to get done because… US antiterrorism is bestial carnage?
We do not want to live in a world without programs like PEPFAR or the Millennium Challenge Corporation that have saved countless African lives. That’s worth more per dollar than any program thought up by a populist. It might not be helpful to maintain that populists are misinformed, but what we absolutely cannot lose sight of is the unavoidable truth that… they are. Because when the global hegemon loses sight of the truth, people die. We are already seeing that with the closing of USAID. I agree that a more conciliatory tone might help us get there, but the goal has to be making sure that populism is not “here to stay” and that MAGA does go anywhere. We can’t settle for less.
Frank Chen • Apr 7, 2025 at 8:17 am
Dear Will, you seem to be having some misconceptions about my views and my work. I am not urging support for Trump’s policy positions, many of which were obviously erratic from the outset. Nor am I saying that we should unconditionally adopt “a more conciliatory tone” towards him or even his base. What I am saying is that we should understand that the bulk of his voters (many of whom in my opinion are inherently left-wing) are guided by historical forces that wealthy suburban “leftists” often refuse to accept. The deindustrialization and globalization pushed that saw wealthy capitalists ship jobs overseas left tens of millions of workers behind as a festering wound. The wars we waged drained our national budget and destroyed the illusion that our government is moral or even competent. And the financial system we set up after the Cold War — where we were the international reserve currency and everyone sent us goods because they needed dollars — led to massive trade deficits by design and is now being undone by increasing regional integration and the rise of multipolar trading blocs. By understanding the driving forces behind recent history, it should be clear that the status quo Biden devoted his entire administration to maintaining was both internationally and domestically unsustainable and anything that sticks by it is marked for death.