A decade in the past, Donald Trump descended the golden escalator at Trump Tower in New York Metropolis and ignited a political motion that has reshaped American politics. In a memorable flip of phrase, Trump promised supporters of his 2016 presidential marketing campaign that “we are going to make our country great again.”
Since then, the Make America Nice Once more motion has dominated the U.S. political dialog, reshaped the Republican Get together and change into a profitable model adorning hats, T-shirts and bumper stickers.
When requested what MAGA means to him, Trump, in a 2017 interview with The Washington Put up stated, “To me, it meant jobs. It meant industry, and meant military strength. It meant taking care of our veterans. It meant so much.”
However Democratic leaders have a special interpretation of the slogan.
Former President Invoice Clinton in 2016 stated of MAGA: “That message where ‘I’ll give you America great again’ is if you’re a white Southerner, you know exactly what it means, don’t you? What it means is ‘I’ll give you an economy you had 50 years ago, and I’ll move you back up on the social totem pole and other people down.”
Whereas MAGA is ubiquitous, little is thought about what it means to the American public. Ten years on, what do People suppose once they hear or learn this phrase?
Primarily based on the evaluation of People’ explanations of what “Make America Great Again” means to them, we discovered proof suggesting that the general public’s views of MAGA mirror the views provided by each Trump and Clinton.
Republicans interpret this phrase as a name for the renewal of the U.S. economic system and navy would possibly, in addition to a return to “traditional” values, particularly these referring to gender roles and gender identities. Democrats, we discovered, view MAGA as a name for a return to white supremacy and rising authoritarianism.
Donald Trump rides an escalator to a press occasion to announce his candidacy for the U.S. presidency at Trump Tower on June 16, 2015, in New York Metropolis.
Christopher Gregory/Getty Photos
What MAGA means
We’re political scientists who use public opinion polls to check the function of partisanship in American politics. To higher perceive American views about MAGA, in April 2025 we requested 1,000 respondents in a nationally consultant on-line survey to briefly write what “Make America Great Again” meant to them.
The survey query was open-ended, permitting respondents to outline this phrase in any method they noticed match. We used AI-based thematic evaluation and qualitative studying of the responses to higher perceive how Democrats and Republicans outline the slogan.
For our AI-based thematic evaluation, we instructed ChatGPT to supply three overarching themes most touched upon by Democratic and Republican respondents. This strategy follows current analysis demonstrating that, when correctly instructed, ChatGPT reliably identifies broad themes in collections of texts.
Republican interpretation of MAGA
Our evaluation exhibits that Republicans view the slogan as representing the “American dream.” Partly, MAGA is about restoring the nation’s delight and financial power. Reflecting these themes, one Republican respondent wrote that MAGA means “encouraging manufacturers to hire Americans and strengthen the economy. Making the USA self-sufficient as it once was.”
MAGA can also be carefully associated amongst Republicans with an “America First” coverage. That is partly about having a powerful navy – a typical theme amongst Republican respondents – and “making America the superpower” once more, one respondent wrote.
Republicans additionally wrote that placing America first means emphasizing strict enforcement of immigration legal guidelines in opposition to “illegals” and chopping off international help. For instance, one Republican respondent stated that MAGA meant “stopping illegals at the border, ending freebies for illegals, adding more police and building a strong military.”
Lastly, Republicans see the slogan as calling for a return to “traditional” values. They expressed a powerful want to reverse cultural shifts that Republican respondents understand as a risk.
As one Republican put it, MAGA “means going back to where men would join the military, women were home raising healthy minded children and it was easy to be successful, the crime rate was extremely low and it used to be safe for kids to hang out on the streets with other kids and even walk themselves places.”
One other Republican made the connection between MAGA and conventional gender roles much more express, highlighting the hyperlink between MAGA and opposition to transgender rights: “MAGA people know there are only 2 sexes and a man can never be a woman. If you believe otherwise you are destroying AMERICA.”
A banner displaying an image of President Donald Trump is displayed outdoors of the U.S. Division of Agriculture constructing on June 3, 2025, in Washington, D.C.
Kevin Carter/Getty Photos
Democratic MAGA views
Democrats have a really completely different understanding of the MAGA slogan. Many Democrats view MAGA as a white supremacist motion designed to guard the standing of white individuals and undermine the civil rights of marginalized teams.
One Democrat argued that “‘Make America Great Again’ is a standard borne by people who’ve seen a decrease in the potency of their privilege (see: cisgendered white men) and wish to see their privilege restored or strengthened. In essence, it’s a chant for all racist, fascist and otherwise bigoted actors to unite under.”
One other Democrat wrote that MAGA was a name to “take us backwards as a society in regards to women’s, minority’s, and LGBTQ people’s rights … It would take us to a time when only White men ruled.”
Democrats additionally view MAGA as a type of nostalgia for a closely mythologized previous. Many Democratic respondents described the previous longed for by Republicans as a “myth” or “fairytale.” Others argued that this mythologized previous, although interesting on the floor, was repressive for a lot of People.
One Democrat stated that MAGA meant “returning America to a fantasy version of the past with the goal of advancing the success of white, straight, wealthy men by any means necessary and almost always to the detriment of other segments of the population.”
An individual holds a ‘Trump won’t erase us’ signal whereas strolling within the WorldPride Parade on June 7, 2025, in Washington, D.C.
Kevin Carter/Getty Photos
Lastly, many Democrats interpret the slogan as reflecting an authoritarian cult of character. On this vein, a Democratic respondent stated of MAGA, “It’s a call to arms for MAGA cult members, who believe that Trump and the Republicans party will somehow improve their lives by targeting people and policies they don’t like, even when it is against their best interests and any rational thought process.”
Whereas some Republicans expressed racist, xenophobic or anti-trans sentiments of their understanding of MAGA, some Democrats revealed outright condescension towards MAGA believers.
“The MAGA’s are brainwashed, idiotic members of society who know nothing more than to follow the lead of an idiotic president who has the vocabulary of a 3rd grader,” one Democrat wrote. “It is nonsense idiots parrot,” one other respondent stated.
In all, within the 10 years since Donald Trump burst onto the political scene, a lot has been written in regards to the conflicting visions of previous, current and future on the coronary heart of America’s partisan divisions.
With the Trump administration’s proclaimed dedication to return the U.S. to its “golden age” and a powerful resistance to his efforts, solely time will inform which imaginative and prescient of America will prevail.
