To the Editor:

Yard signs supporting the Trump-Vance ticket and Elise Stefanik are everywhere. And, they have forced me to consider questions about MAGA and most importantly, who goes MAGA and why? I ask this as a lifelong Republican who’s not MAGA.

Demographically we know who comprises MAGA. It’s overwhelmingly white, male, Christian, over 65, and without a college degree. Supporters believe they are losing their freedoms and their way of life. On immigration, they believe it is changing American culture for the worse and that immigrants are not law abiding. MAGA supporters’ views on race suggest that blacks don’t work as hard as other minorities or whites, and are dependent on welfare programs.

But MAGA is more than a slogan, it’s inseparable from the Trump brand. Decades of sustained attacks from the woke left require policy choices that only Trump is willing to fight for. To name a few this means rejecting free trade, forcibly deporting migrants, an America first – isolationist- foreign policy, and confronting cultural elites in our government, universities, and media. I understand how someone, or millions, can buy this, but I see things differently.

In 1941, Dorothy Thompson wrote an article titled "Who Goes Nazi?” In it she describes a game of examining the lives of her neighbors and predicts who would, and would not, go Nazi. Going Nazi, she argued, has nothing to do with one’s class, race, or profession. She suggests that kind, happy, and secure people never go Nazi. It’s for those who are frustrated, humiliated, scared, and spoiled. Nazism is for those who haven’t anything in them to tell them what they like or don’t like.

It’s difficult not to see the parallels with going MAGA. To be clear, MAGA supporters are not Nazi’s, they do, however, share psychological characteristics that predispose them to support authoritarian rule. Adults who support authoritarianism favor order and conformity most. But this authoritarian temperament alone doesn’t explain going MAGA.

What’s missing is a sense of fear that allows one to voice their preference for authoritarianism. These include threats of social change (e.g. legality of same sex marriage) or from the outside, like terrorism or an invasion of illegal immigrants. These threats are expressed by Trump and delivered by media outlets and social media platforms. It is no wonder then that even those who are unreceptive to authoritarian appeals can go MAGA. This is what makes a large-scale movement like MAGA possible.

I’m on the outside of MAGA looking in because my sense of justice, decency, and good government are incompatible with the MAGA brand. Instead of a nostalgic appeal to make America great again, perhaps we can all try to create a more perfect union. This is infinitely more preferable to this non-MAGA Republican.

Jack McGuire
Hannawa Falls