MAGA - What Exactly Does That Mean ?

[roamer_1]

I’m so happy to be living in the country. We have a fresh blanket of snow and if I told you all the wildlife I have seen today you’d think I was lying.

Oh no... Not me. That's my whole thing. I KNOW how that is. Just a few thousand feet higher up in the tall pines... But I can imagine the same thing.

One of the places I like to go in the winter bears my mark in the way of a blaze I cut in to find my way into a camp. I nearly couldn't find it the first time I tried to go in the summer, because those blazes were so high up in the trees that I wasn't looking way up there. Those marks are around 15 feet up. So when I cut those marks with my hatchet, I was standing on 10 feet of snow.

Under that much snow, the world is dead. Folks don't know what that is, out where the plows never ran...
It is such a secret thing. But that same place is a south-facing mountainside, and while the valley floor is still covered, that little oasis melts off. You snowshoe in from the north, where the road is. Up through a cut, camp for the night. Over the top, you come down into a hanging valley, and quite suddenly you're stepping down off the snow and there's flies buzzing and fiddleheads and wild onions everywhere



And full of life. Chock full. Everybody wants to be there in that beautiful little piece of spring.
Oh, I know that.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

Nice topic.

The literalist answer - the answer without regard to context - is that it means whatever the particular person making the statement believes it to mean.   It's kind of like when you see the (ironically enough...) MAGA types use the phrase "We The People" as if it was intended to apply just to people who think as they do. Then you see hardcore leftists also using that "We The People" assertion as if it clearly is meant to refer to them and their constituents.    So literally, "Make America Great Again" would be in the eye of the beholder.

But if you use that phrase in its current political context, I think you'd only really get agreement on 1) Support for Donald Trump, and 2) Much less immigration, both illegal (especially) and legal.

Other than that, there isn't really a consistently discernable and concrete meaning.

[HikerGuy83]

Other than that, there isn't really a consistently discernable and concrete meaning.

l

@Maj. Bill Martin

Thank you for the assessment.

I think you described what I think in many ways.

So far, my experience (and this thread is consistent with that) has been that MAGA is a rallying cry and sales pitch.

Nobody in politics defines meaningful objectives anymore (not sure they ever did).

As an example, I would love a good conversation around health care.

I am not a fan of the idea of a federal health care system.  But I would not rule it out.

But to really decided there is a lot of information needed and you don't get that.

You simply get the slogans of the day.

You recall....Republican Health Care ==> Die Quickly

Alan Grayson was just as much a jackass as the worst of our political hacks.

And I see MAGA in the same light.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

l

@Maj. Bill Martin

Thank you for the assessment.

I think you described what I think in many ways.

So far, my experience (and this thread is consistent with that) has been that MAGA is a rallying cry and sales pitch.

Nobody in politics defines meaningful objectives anymore (not sure they ever did).


@HikerGuy83

There are just too many examples of Trump doing a 180 without his supporters batting an eye to conclude there is much there besides a personal commitment to Trump (and immigration).  There's also the vague sloganeering of "America First", but exactly what that means seems to be highly malleable as well.

The most recent example of this was on support for Ukraine.  For more than a year now, he and the vast majority of his supporters have been loudly and proudly against providing a penny for Ukraine.  Instead, he promised to end the war within 24 hours, etc..

Then all of a sudden in mid-February, he says this:

“They want to give them $60 billion more,” Trump said Wednesday at a rally in North Charleston, as he campaigned before South Carolina’s Feb. 24 Republican presidential primary. “Do it this way. Loan them the money. If they can make it, they pay us back. If they can’t make it, they don’t have to pay us back.”

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-pushes-ukraine-aid-loan-014648755.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

And obviously, considering the wrecked state of the Ukrainian economy, and likely decades-long recovery period, they won't be able to pay it back.  Which means that Trump is now perfectly willing to give them $60B after saying "not another penny" for more than a year.

Now personally, I'm in favor of supporting Ukraine, but that's not the point.  The point is that the guy just pulled a massive 180 on an issue about which a lot of his supporters and allied politicians are very vocal, and none of them batted an eye.  Crickets.  So all those America-Firsters who were so vigorously cheering on Trump for not sending more American money overseas don't seem to care much that he's done this 180.

So again..."MAGA" seems to be more a slogan association with Trump than any clear set of principles or priorities for governing the country.

[HikerGuy83]

Well,

So far, no specifics from anyone.

The far left has also co-opted the term and use it as a perjorative to brand the opposition and solidify the base against them.

You can bet super whackjob Ruben Gallego will be using it a lot in the days, weeks and months to come.

[Right_in_Virginia]

Thanks.

I'll ignore the insult.

My compliment wasn't posted to you @HikerGuy83   

[Right_in_Virginia]

MAGA.  It has no formality, no structure, no platform that I can see.

No platform?  Seriously @Lando Lincoln ?

[roamer_1]

No platform?  Seriously @Lando Lincoln ?

Yes, seriously.
That's always the case with populism/pragmatism.
It is invariably ephemeral... Chasing after whatever the crowd demands.

[Right_in_Virginia]

So again..."MAGA" seems to be more a slogan association with Trump than any clear set of principles or priorities for governing the country.

"Make America Great Again" is clarion call to action for a nation in danger.  Reagan used this call successfully in 1980 to galvanize the electorate primarily on the economy and defeating communism.
 

Trump has issued the same clarion call, expanding the danger we are facing to include not only the impacts of an unbalanced global economy, but also our sovereignty and illegal immigration, the erasure of our individual feedoms by an overbearing Federal government and encroaching globalism, societal lawlessness growing exponentially, and the deletion of the American legacy and inheritance from government, education and the courts.

cc:
@HikerGuy83

[roamer_1]

Trump has issued the same clarion call, expanding the danger we are facing to include not only the impacts of an unbalanced global economy, but also our sovereignty and illegal immigration, the erasure of our individual feedoms by an overbearing Federal government and encroaching globalism, societal lawlessness growing exponentially, and the deletion of the American legacy and inheritance from government, education and the courts.

No he has not. It is not the same. Not at all.
Else me and mine would be with him.

[roamer_1]

It truly is only a stolen slogan - Convenient to his ascent, but only applied for that purpose.

[cato potatoe]

Well,

So far, no specifics from anyone.

It’s an acronym.  Making Attorneys Get Attorneys.

[Right_in_Virginia]

No he has not. It is not the same. Not at all.
Else me and mine would be with him.

Nonsense.

You're simply too obsessed with fiddling, losing and luxuriating in the virtue signaling you believe it affords you to think clearly.

[Right_in_Virginia]

It truly is only a stolen slogan - Convenient to his ascent, but only applied for that purpose.

I'll say it again:  Ronald Reagan was the opening act for Donald Trump; and a grateful nation thanks the 40th POTUS for his efforts 

[roamer_1]

Nonsense.

You're simply too obsessed with fiddling, losing and luxuriating in the virtue signaling you believe it affords you to think clearly.

I do none of the above. I have been very effective politically in this region.

Your claims are not true. Especially WRT stealing Reagan's legacy for your convenience.
After all, all I have to do to be on the 'winning' team is sacrifice every principle thing.
But that is and has always been 'all I have to do'.

I will never support big government from the Right.
That is not virtue signalling. That is a specific and worthy stance.
And I will rise to battle for it.
Ergo I am against you.

[roamer_1]

I'll say it again:  Ronald Reagan was the opening act for Donald Trump; and a grateful nation thanks the 40th POTUS for his efforts 

Bullshit.
And the funny part is that you probably do believe that.

Funny=odd... Not funny=ha-ha.
 

[Right_in_Virginia]

I do none of the above.

We'll agree to disagree agree .... 

[roamer_1]

We'll agree to disagree agree .... 

No, we won't.

[Right_in_Virginia]

For your Reagan collection @roamer_1

[roamer_1]

For your Reagan collection @roamer_1

Anyone who was present at the time knows Tumpy denounced Reagan, so... 

[corbe]

    If I recall correctly Trump took out a $20K ad in the New York Times denouncing Reagan's Tax Cuts.

[bigheadfred]

    If I recall correctly Trump took out a $20K ad in the New York Times denouncing Reagan's Tax Cuts.

$90,000 for ads in the NYT, Boston Globe, and WaPo.

[Hoodat]

I'll say it again:  Ronald Reagan was the opening act for Donald Trump; and a grateful nation thanks the 40th POTUS for his efforts 

But again, weren't you trashing Reagan earlier?  How do you reconcile that with your claim that someone you trashed was the opening act for Donald Trump?

[Hoodat]

For your Reagan collection @roamer_1

For your Trump collection, @Right_in_Virginia

[Lando Lincoln]

No platform?  Seriously @Lando Lincoln ?

@Right_in_Virginia

I am, actually. Oh, I know what the pundits have ascribed to it. I have heard the stump-type platitudes given it. I agree with the basics of much of it. I know the zealotry of its devoted adherents. But, there are no formally adopted principles that form a core platform for it. At least, I am unaware of any.