by C J Waldron
Like many of you, I am cautiously counting the days until Donald Trump is no longer in office. But does that mean MAGA will also die with him? Not likely. While Trump may claim he originated the MAGA movement, its origins actually pre-date our nation’s founding.
Trump’s penchant for hyperbole is as well-known as his propensity to lie. He will make an outrageous statement and follow it up with “Everybody knows”, or he will take a common word or phrase and claim to have invented it himself. The same is true with the principles of MAGA. While Trump asserts that he invented it himself, there are far deeper origins.
Yes, there was MAGA even before we became a country. Prior to the Revolutionary War there was a schism between those who wanted to declare their freedom and those who wanted to remain part of the British Empire. These Loyalists wanted an authoritarian ruler, namely King George III, to continue to serve as their leader. They viewed loyalty to the king as being greater than any perceived allegiance to other forms of government.
In similar fashion, the MAGA movement sees loyalty to Trump as being more patriotic than following the Constitution. It was seen during the January 6th insurrection when they tried to halt the verification of Joe Biden’s win over Trump to unconstitutionally allow him to remain in power.
It continues even today as Democratic members of Congress, who fear Trump will order the military to attack its own citizens, put out a video reminding our troops of their Constitutional obligation to refuse to follow illegal orders.
While this may seem an obvious reference to the Uniform Military Code of Justice, the administration is trying to spin it as declaring that those who created the video are guilty of sedition and should be put to death. They falsely assert that the video is urging members of the armed forces to ignore LEGAL orders from the White House and have even opened an investigation into one of its participants, Senator Mark Kelly.
Yet, there are several reasons why these members of Congress saw it necessary to release this video. First, there is the illegal bombing of boats in international waters. The administration has justified this by accusing the passengers of bringing illegal drugs into America. Of course, since the evidence is obliterated, there is no proof to back up these claims. So, while those who conducted these operations can state they were just “following orders”, the question remains: Were those orders legal?
Second is the occasion where Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth assembled the nation’s military leaders to a meeting best conducted in private. During that highly publicized event, Trump told the military leaders that they had to be prepared to attack “the enemy within”. Namely, those American citizens who did not agree with his policies.
He was telling them to ignore their oath to defend the Constitution and instead do his bidding.
Finally, there is the threat that Trump will invoke the Insurrection Act and turn the military loose on its own citizenry. He could declare a national emergency over some perceived issue and order the military occupation of Democratic controlled cities. In fact, he is already doing this by using ICE and National Guard troops to terrorize cities in the name of cracking down on immigration.
Loyalists to the British crown urged the same type of action against those who were fighting for our independence. They saw loyalty to the king as being greater than their own personal liberty.
Following the British defeat at Yorktown, the Founding Fathers set themselves to the task of organizing a functioning government. It was a rocky beginning. The first attempt was to allow the individual states to maintain their independence under the Articles of Confederation. The principles outlined in this document gave power to the states and had a federal government that could not even levy taxes to pay off its debts. The impracticality of this form of government became obvious in a matter of years, leading to the creation of our present Constitution.
Now we have an administration that is seeking to return to the era where states’ rights overrule federal laws. COVID restrictions, abortion rights, voting and Civil Rights regulations, Education and a myriad of other issues are being pushed back onto the individual states to enact their own version of these laws or risk losing federal funding.
They are ignoring history and are seeking a return to the same failed policies of early America.
The history books tell us that the Civil War was the war to free the slaves. However, like so many things, there is a much more complicated story, and one that has definitive connections to the modern MAGA movement. Interwoven with the battle to free those in bondage were economic issues and even the issue that goes as far back as our nation’s founding: states’ rights.
One of the major issues dividing the soon to be warring factions was…wait for it…tariffs. Like today, tariffs were a sticking point in the battle between the Northern and Southern states. The industrialized North wanted higher tariffs to prevent competition from imported goods while the South sought lower tariffs both so that its goods could be more easily sold overseas and to limit their dependence on the North as it sought to purchase more goods from abroad.
Hardly America First.
Interpretations of the causes of the Civil War differ depending upon the area of the country you live in. History books on most of the country point to the battle over slavery while many of those in the Southern US paint it as a battle over states’ rights. Those states who took the side of the rebels will tell you that they didn’t actually support slavery, but that they wanted a government free from Federal intervention. They called themselves the Confederate States of America because they embraced the states’ rights policies proposed in the failed Articles of Confederation. Even today, that argument is still present in many Southern history books in states that still celebrate Confederate Memorial Day.
But of course, the primary reason for the Civil War was slavery. In the South, slaves were vital towards maintaining their Economy. To lose them would cause the Southern states to become almost entirely dependent upon assistance from Northern benefactors. So, it was to their advantage to ignore the phrase “All men are created equal” when it came to people of color.
MAGA also is capitalizing on this distinction. They are claiming that a person of color, no matter how qualified, is a DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) hire. White Christian Nationalists are demanding that they be replaced by a less qualified White male in a stark reversal of the Affirmative Action policies which were meant to offset the inequities of overlooking previously qualified Black choices when it came to hiring and college admission practices. It was a major issue in the2024 election as Kamala Harris had her immense qualifications overlooked because she was deemed a DEI hire.
The Civil War continues. Or perhaps there is another one on our horizon.
MAGA has adopted the phrase America First to highlight its push to buy American made products. They use it like they invented the saying, but it actually originated in the 1920s. Following the horrors of World War I, many Americans wished to return to the isolationist policies that characterized the country’s first 150 years. The slogan was used by Warren G. Harding in his 1920 quest for the White House, which he won. It was then adopted by the Ku Klux Klan who wanted to spread xenophobic and racist sentiments throughout the nation.
The movement gained such attention that an America First Committee was formed and included such notable figures as famed aviator Charles Lindberg. It adopted anti-Semitic and fascist platforms that it used to oppose American involvement in World War II.
So, when those on the left call MAGAs fascists, they are referring to this historic connection as well as shining a light on current notions.
Trump uses the phrase Make America Great Again as if he invented it. Like many of his boasts, he will say that no one had ever heard the saying until he started saying it. Many of his younger followers believe him, but the origins can be traced to the campaign slogan used by Ronald Reagan almost fifty years ago.
So, even the origins of MAGA are false. Like everything Trump has done, it isn’t original. He’s repackaged, rebranded and rehashed old ideas and used it to stir up the growing division in America. Like many of the buildings that bear his name, he had no part in creating the brand. He just slapped his name on it then claimed to have built it from the ground up, presumably with his tiny hands. Or so his followers would have you believe.
Trump will gradually fade into history. He has placed an indelible black mark on our nation’s Legacy. However, the movement he insists is his own creation will continue. It has a long and storied history. It will be rebranded, renamed and continue so long as there are those who share the twisted values they represent.
That is why we must continue to resist. In the streets or at the ballot box, our voices need to be heard loud and clear. Their vision of what makes America great cannot be allowed to remain our epitaph for Democracy.
C J (Chris) Waldron is a former public school educator in New York State and adjunct English professor in Conway, SC. He is co-author of Hijacked Nation, Donald Trump’s attack on America’s Greatness, published in three volumes and available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. He is a regular contributor to Lean to the Left and all of his articles are archived here.
