The Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement led by Donald Trump has gained more support from both the party establishment and the mainstream than its predecessors, the Tea Party and Bernie Sanders’ political revolution. It has proven to be much more successful. why? It depends on who you ask.
washington post Reporter Isaac Arnsdorf attempts to partially explain MAGA’s recent success. Finishing what we started: The MAGA movement’s ground war to end democracy. Mr. Arnsdorf’s book differs from most commentary on Mr. Trump in that it focuses squarely on the organized conspiracies and ideas of the broad spectrum of people who are attracted to Mr. Trump.
finish what you started They track a range of primarily low-level MAGA figures who understand what’s going on in American politics and seek to intervene to influence it. The focus here is on the school district strategy. This is a post-2020 blueprint to seize executive control of local Republican branches and then continue the process upwards. The ultimate goal is to ensure that Trump wins the 2024 election, no matter what happens that day.
Arnsdorf keeps editing to a minimum. He said at the outset that he chose to focus on relatively minor MAGA leaders “because they are representative of thousands, perhaps millions, of similar people, and in some ways exceptional.” It was also because it was a target.” Those looking for gossip about Trump’s inner circle will be disappointed. This is primarily a fundamental view of the party that has changed.
Arnsdorf’s book serves as a great companion volume to Ryan Grimm’s book. Team: AOC and the hope of political revolution (2023) or by Edward Isaac Dauber. Battle for the soul: Inside the Democratic campaign to defeat Trump (2021). All three center on the interaction between political newcomers and party bureaucrats. The significance of these encounters is that they have the power to promote or exclude certain broader political possibilities.
The branch strategy was the brainchild of Dan Schultz, an insurance lawyer from Wisconsin. It’s very simple. Strengthen your constituencies, elect a MAGA chair, control the government, purge those you don’t support, and then disallow non-MAGA candidates from winning.
Mr. Schultz’s origins in the scheme include interrogating KGB agents while working for Army Intelligence, where he was suspected at a military academy. Schultz said that at a meeting of the Minutemen Civil Defense, a neo-Nazi group terrorizing people on the U.S.-Mexico border, a young man stood up and declared that real power in the United States rests with Republican precinct chairmen. , he claims dubiously.
Steve Bannon happened to meet him in 2013, and Schulz began writing for him. Breitbart. However, it wasn’t until 2021 that Bannon started promoting him. operation room, that Schulz’s content began to spread online. Disillusioned MAGA supporters have emerged from the post-January 6 embarrassment and are open to new ideas. This school district strategy provided an excellent means for everyone involved to avoid embarrassment and feel productive while getting some bloodshed.
This district strategy spread throughout America. It soon becomes a carnival-like suburban cultural revolution. MAGA-Red Guards in their 60s denounce long-time precinct chairs as traitors. They begin their prosecutor’s speech as follows. merriam webster The definition of words like “support” excludes what is perceived as a reality for RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) with barely concealed lustful pleasures. Even nursing homes are unlikely to be venues for show trials.
finish what you started We ask a variety of MAGA enthusiasts to explain their views on the causes of modern polarization and what should be done about it. However, this is an unexpected situation. Most express vague fears and suspicions, and little enthusiasm for the Province’s strategy.
Bannon stands out among the truly famous MAGA figures, and he has outlined the only developed theory (partially stolen from Bernie Sanders supporter Thomas Frank). Bannon argues that the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis hurt the working class. The “haves” like the Koch brothers were once able to use culture war issues to manipulate the “have nots” into campaigning that actually made things worse, but now the trick is no longer works.
Bannon explains that the Republican Party is actually two parties in one right now: the party of the elites who care about the interests of big business, and the party of the working class who cares about the interests of society. These interests are mutually exclusive. According to Bannon, MAGA is a working-class majority that stands united against billionaires who support trade liberalization.
This is a generously focused summary: Arnsdorf also notes that Bannon’s views include repeated historical periods, clash of civilization nonsense, and pop psychology focused on the mass movements of the 1950s. He points out that it contains mystical ideas about fragments.
On the surface, Bannon’s “analysis” reads like a structural explanation rooted in social conflict. This is intentional. Bannon delights in shocking his conservative brethren by calling himself a Leninist, and is familiar with enough key terminology to emulate class analysis. This is a pretty obvious strategy. He fully admits here that he thinks he can recruit former Sanders supporters to the MAGA movement.
Arnsdorf’s approach finish what you started It is mainly about letting the subjects speak for themselves. This could be a problem, especially if they were all as smooth as Bannon. It is completely foolish to take such self-assessments at face value.
Fortunately, the rest of the cast inadvertently pokes holes in Bannon’s explanation of MAGA’s superiority. The sketches here are certainly people who consider themselves the little guy, or at least on his side. But it would be a stretch to call any of them working class. Every other character starts some strange business (of somewhat unclear purpose) in the course of their activities. They are not capitalist gravediggers trying to break the chains of capitalism. It’s more like a funeral home owner offering a discount if you sign up today.
These isolated lawyers, real estate brokers, financial advisors, flag shirt salesmen, event planners, and advertising executives seem genuinely energized by the human connections involved in the MAGA movement experience. But they are not at all experiencing a political awakening as a workers’ revolt. And why do we do that? They are all general managers or proud owners of small businesses.
Their frequent discussions about how they were sent to concentration camps makes more sense the more you get to know them. They may not describe it exactly this way, but their worldview is a Taftian worldview, where freedom is clearly defined as unlimited freedom to do whatever you want as a business owner. means the privilege of They consider literally anything else to be totalitarian.
As the November election approaches, political pundits are preoccupied with predicting what President Donald Trump’s second term in office will look like. Some are trying to make sense of President Trump’s rambling speech.Some people comment on Trump’s remarks. apprentice-Looking for the windy vice president. Further searching occurs among Trump’s new, allegedly professionalized courtiers for clues as to the movements of the former and future MAGA king.
Arnsdorf tried something different: a narrative-based sociological study of organizational strategy. There are certainly many memorable episodes.one of finish what you started”s protagonists declare that she doesn’t need to be stressed and would rather be at home watching. yellowstone,
She never gave up on politics. Even if it means spending a long night in her windowless office at Cobb Republican headquarters, there’s a garden sign signed by Marjorie Taylor Greene and one between Karl Marx and Barack Obama. Holding up a poster depicting a web of connections, “Agenda to Shatter America.”
Unfortunately, the sociological focus and title are a bit contradictory. This campaign strategy should serve as a stepping stone to elect Trump and then “finish what he started.” But most of the parties involved in this story aren’t even speculating at all about what Trump would do if elected. Placing his creepy phrase in the title spot feels a bit cheesy.
Bannon offers the clearest suggestion of what the term means. “Economic nationalism. . . . The second term will be 10 times more aggressive in implementing policies than the first.” And if it just means additional tariffs aimed at multiplying quick wins, the daily efforts of some of the people profiled here could take on a slightly sadder side.
Once again, these “soldiers of the lumpen bourgeoisie” spend a great deal of their time deceiving each other in terms of their organizing efforts.characters of finish what you started They disappear mid-action, only to reappear later to say that they have withdrawn from politics because their comrades have swindled them out of money. Perhaps Mr. Bannon’s point is partially correct. Amid President Trump’s great dissatisfaction, store owners have found their rightful home.
