POLITICS
MAGA: An Honest Analysis of the Acronym
The who, what, why, where, and when
In trying to understand Trumpy Republicans, I’ve given some thought to what each of the four letters of the MAGA acronym refer to. I’ve had to do some guessing, but that seems warranted, since the Republicans themselves seem so uncommunicative about what Make America Great Again entails. I’ll start from the back of the acronym, the letter A (the word Again) and work forward.
The Again part of the MAGA acronym gives me trouble, but it’s key because it provides the historical context for the slogan. It assumes that there is a time in the past when America was better than it is now. And maybe that’s true. I can’t dismiss the possibility out of hand.
In my view, for example, the time when America might have been greatest was during the Roosevelt New Deal years. This also coincides with the early years of the period when the so-called Greatest Generation came of age and showed its stuff. This was the population that as adults survived the Great Depression, coped with the Dust Bowl, fought and won the Second World War, created and populated the suburbs. It was a time when the country met its problems head on, a time of cooperation, and growing recognition of people’s worth.
I recognize that this would not be the preferred Again time for everyone who wasn’t white or Christian or who was gay or lesbian. Nor would it have been so for Republicans generally, whether they’re of the Trumpian variety or otherwise.
So where would the Republicans pin the timeline to be greatest? It’s obvious that it can’t be a time of Democratic party power, especially the New Deal, which the Republicans are still attacking 80 years later. Also, the years before the New Deal don’t work well either. Those years comprised a period of social unrest and upheaval — World War I, mass migration internally and internationally, prohibition and organized crime, the stock market collapse, moral laxness. I’ll eliminate the 19th century entirely because there was no radio or tv. I wouldn’t think any modern Americans would want to go back before there was mass media.
So the location of MAGA Again has to begin somewhere around the 1950’s when the so-called Silent Generation was procreating the Boomers. These were the years predating the turbulent 60’s with the Beatles, Beatniks, and Hippies; Civil Rights and the Great Society. So since the 50’s obviously turned into the 60’s, Republicans would probably want to peg the Again years somewhat later, like in the 1980’s, maybe with the ascendancy of the Reagan reorientation of the Republican party.
Ironically, though, the 1980’s also witnessed the growth of greater income inequality, industrial decay, decimation of organized labor, rural depopulation, greedy capitalism, emptying of the churches, and the steady growth of urbanization. Maybe it’s just that the MAGA Again years didn’t actually last that long. Maybe, in fact, it was just the first year of the Reagan presidency, 1981, when things still looked a little rosier.
Of course, the MAGA ideal is really not wrapped up so much in a time period, as it is in an ideology. This is the Great part. It’s supposed to invoke the old motherhood and apple pie vision of a time when “those kinds of people” (you know who they are!) were not as visible and not as insistent on being seen. When everyone knew their place and, if they didn’t, the Great people would arrest you, declare you defective in some way, isolate you, or just neglect you. Oh, for the good old ways! That in essence is what the Make in the acronym seems to come down to: make America a more exclusive club. Details below.
Even the America in the acronym is now up for reinterpretation. Instead of America as a democracy with liberty and justice for all, the MAGA America instead seems to prefer a plutocracy with liberty and justice for rich, white, Christian men, or those who will do what it takes to become so. Admittedly, the “white” part will be somewhat hard for certain people to achieve, but if you aspire hard enough (knock your heels together three times), you can wish yourself so, and maybe pass sufficiently so as to be acceptable. You do need to be wealthy and male though, and, of course, male by birth, definitely not trans male.
To the MAGAtty mind it’s been too long since America has been great, so the movement needs a guidebook for people to know how to reinvent themselves as true MAGAts. Fortunately we have to look no further than the Christian Bible, with the caveat that it be properly interpreted by religious adherents to the Republican party.
It’s a sad statement about contemporary, not-so-Great America that there have been put forth interpretations of the Bible that just don’t work well for Republicans. For instance, the part “Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you,” Luke 6:3 (Full disclosure: I had to look up the reference.)
But fortunately for the Republicans they have Evangelical Christian preachers who have been groomed to follow the Prophet Trump, so they are not without guides. These same preachers are not at all averse to declaring that certain of those “others” Luke was talking about don’t include all others. In effect then, the Golden Rule for them really comes down to just the first part, “Do unto others.” Period. Half a Golden Rule.
Embracing this interpretation we now have more and more Republican politicians and judges who will mandate the necessary and appropriate changes to school and university curricula, so children and young adults will not again be led astray by woke historians, woke journalists and writers, woke educators, woke social scientists, woke doctors, and woke racial, feminist, and LGBTQ activists. Diversity, equity, and inclusion will become dirty words!
All this will take a while, of course, but it’s important to the MAGAtty believers that they don’t become complaisant or let down their guard. The movement toward a Great Again America will only happen if they Make continual tweaks toward the ultimate goal. That means rescinding laws from the dark days of Democratic misrule, instituting book bans, redefining the First Amendment to exclude certain political speech, locking up those who rebel, restricting voting rights in areas that lean Democratic, jerrymandering to favor rural Republican voters, and, naturally, invoking God to justify it all.
It’s obvious that certain people (you know who they are!) are not going to like this plan, and the Republicans, of course, are sensitive to this disfavor, because at least for now they can’t deny the vote to all of these people. That’s where the education plan becomes important. Eventually all those who do think the New Deal years were our Great years will have died off and properly educated youngsters will have taken their place. And then it can truly be said America has recreated itself as Great as it was in 1981.
