The Maga Republicans – Trump’s Loyal Warriors

Red baseball caps, Trump flags and an undying loyalty to the former president. The Trump-loyal so-called Maga Republicans are a rewritten phalanx.

But how much of the party do they make up – and what do they believe in beyond their leader?

“Make America Great Again” (approximately Make America great again). Donald Trump’s slogan became world-famous during the US election campaign in 2016. During his presidency, and especially at the dramatic change of power in January 2021, so-called Maga Republicans and their red caps became synonymous with deeply loyal Trump supporters.

– They are prepared to support him until the earth sinks or the sun sets, says Dennis Goldford, professor of political science at Drake University in Iowa, for TT.

The term Maga Republican is heard again and again in the ongoing primary election campaign. Incumbent President Joe Biden singles out the group as a threat to democracy, citing the deadly storming of the 2021 convention where Maga banners abounded.

Donald Trump, for his part, calls them “fantastic patriots”. He has promised to pardon the majority of Maga followers convicted of the Capitol attack.

Loud minority

Maga republicans that TT met are often open to debate and open with their beliefs. Many have gardens filled with Trump flags, cars with decals and clothes from the ex-president’s online shop.

But despite being perhaps the most visible, Maga supporters do not constitute a majority of Republicans: A total of between 40 and 50 percent of the party’s voters identify themselves as Maga sympathizers, writes The Washington Post with reference to several opinion polls. Dennis Goldford estimates that they are slightly fewer, around 35 percent nationally, but loud.

– Trump has exploited and capitalized on the enormous amount of anger and fear bubbling in the United States. Here there have always been tensions between, for example, the big city and the countryside, but during his time they have become worse, says Goldford.

Many Maga supporters are literal Trump supporters. They believe relatively blindly in Donald Trump’s policies and schemes, among them the false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election. A large percentage are angry white workers in sparsely populated areas who feel left out by globalization. Surveys show that Maga Republicans are more Christian revivalists, conservatives and vaccine skeptics than other Republicans. 61 percent of them say they are “not at all” worried about the criminal charges against Trump, according to a survey conducted by Monmouth University last year.

Aligning in ranks?

The remaining Republicans then? Goldford divides them into three groups:

– On the one hand, there are “Never Trumpers”, Republicans like (House of Representatives member) Liz Cheney who detest Trump and would never vote for him. They only make up about 10-12 percent of the party, he says.

The others are either people like Mitch McConnell, the minority leader in the Senate, who does not like Trump but puts up with him because of promises about, for example, tax cuts or appointments of conservative judges. And then there are voters who, like Texas Senator Ted Cruz, don’t like the former president but fear going against him.

– Either they are afraid of him or they like something he delivers, Goldford sums up.

The latter two groups are likely to support Trump if he is named presidential candidate at the convention this summer – albeit with some reluctance. Even now, 62 percent of Republican voters say they want to see the former president as a candidate, according to the Real Clear Politics compilation.

However, the Maga base is Trump’s capital and security, it protects him from overly harsh attacks from party comrades and colleagues. Critics often point out that the former president has made no effort to expand his voter base, but at this point it is doubtful that he needs to.

Changed fundamentally

The Republicans were a divided party even before Donald Trump entered the political arena. There was then talk of three phalanxes: the value conservatives, for whom issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage are important; the constitutionalists, with strong ties to the Tea Party movement; as well as the “Rockefeller Republicans” who strive for low taxes and deregulation. What they all had in common was that they advocated a small state apparatus and great individual freedom.

With the entrance of TV personality and businessman Trump, the party fundamentally changed, both in terms of rhetoric and the more isolationist, America-first approach. Republicans from all three phalanxes were drawn to Trump, attracted by his agenda or persona. Compromise-minded, centrist Republicans like Senators John McCain and Mitt Romney became a rarity – which also came to characterize the voter base.

In a USA where the sympathies of the population are fairly evenly distributed between the Republicans and the Democrats, however, support from one’s own camp is not enough to win a presidential election. The independent center voters in the wave master states are a must. Donald Trump knows that. Yet his campaign echoes Maga rhetoric as it asks for contributions to take on the “dishonorable” Joe Biden who is allegedly destroying America with “socialism and open borders.”

Attract Democrats?

The question is whether it helps or brings down Trump. Could the Democrats actually win over hesitant Republican voters this fall?

– Well, says Dennis Goldford.

– The Democrats have become a party associated with women’s issues and sexual minorities. They haven’t figured out how to bring back the white workers, the ones the Republicans are luring with a culture war strategy.

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