{"id":39834,"date":"2025-07-03T12:45:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T12:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=39834"},"modified":"2025-07-04T06:03:40","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T06:03:40","slug":"what-maga-means-to-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/what-maga-means-to-americans\/","title":{"rendered":"What MAGA means to Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jesse Rhodes<\/a>, UMass Amherst<\/a><\/em>; Adam Eichen<\/a>, UMass Amherst<\/a><\/em>; Douglas Rice<\/a>, UMass Amherst<\/a><\/em>; Gregory Wall<\/a>, UMass Amherst<\/a><\/em>, and Tatishe Nteta<\/a>, UMass Amherst<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A decade ago, Donald Trump descended the golden escalator at Trump Tower<\/a> in New York City and ignited a political movement that has reshaped American politics<\/a>. In a memorable turn of phrase, Trump promised supporters of his 2016 presidential campaign that \u201cwe are going to make our country great again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, the Make America Great Again movement has dominated the U.S. political conversation, reshaped the Republican Party<\/a> and become a lucrative brand<\/a> adorning hats, T-shirts and bumper stickers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked what MAGA means to him, Trump, in a 2017 interview with The Washington Post<\/a> said, \u201cTo me, it meant jobs. It meant industry, and meant military strength. It meant taking care of our veterans. It meant so much.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Democratic leaders have a different interpretation of the slogan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former President Bill Clinton in 2016<\/a> said of MAGA: \u201cThat message where \u2018I\u2019ll give you America great again\u2019 is if you\u2019re a white Southerner, you know exactly what it means, don\u2019t you? What it means is \u2018I\u2019ll give you an economy you had 50 years ago, and I\u2019ll move you back up on the social totem pole and other people down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While MAGA is ubiquitous, little is known about what it means to the American public. Ten years on, what do Americans think when they hear or read this phrase?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on the analysis of Americans\u2019 explanations of what \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d means to them, we found evidence suggesting that the public\u2019s views of MAGA mirror the perspectives offered by both Trump and Clinton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republicans interpret this phrase as a call for the renewal of the U.S. economy and military might, as well as a return to \u201ctraditional\u201d values, especially those relating to gender roles and gender identities. Democrats, we found, view MAGA as a call for a return to white supremacy and growing authoritarianism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Donald Trump rides an escalator to a press event to announce his candidacy for the U.S. presidency at Trump Tower on June 16, 2015, in New York City. Christopher Gregory\/Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What MAGA means<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We are political scientists<\/a> who use public opinion polls<\/a> to study the role<\/a> of partisanship<\/a> in American politics<\/a>. To better understand American views about MAGA, in April 2025 we asked 1,000 respondents in a nationally representative online survey<\/a> to briefly write what \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d meant to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The survey question was open-ended, allowing respondents to define this phrase in any way they saw fit. We used AI-based thematic analysis and qualitative reading of the responses to better understand how Democrats and Republicans define the slogan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For our AI-based thematic analysis, we instructed ChatGPT to provide three overarching themes most touched upon by Democratic and Republican respondents. This approach follows recent research demonstrating that, when properly instructed, ChatGPT reliably identifies broad themes<\/a> in collections of texts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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