Belonging Over Reality: Why MAGA Stays Loyal to Trump

When Trump launched his first campaign back in 2015, I watched the whole thing live and laughed out loud when he said that Mexico is “bringing drugs, crime and rapists” to the U.S. I was certain that the conventional wisdom that foresaw his self-destruction on the campaign trail would prevail.

That conventional wisdom proved unwise. Yet, we—analysts, journalists, activists, political junkies—get giddy each time Trump seems to be on the verge of breaking MAGA apart and we are having another one of those moments.

It seems astonishing that the most fervent MAGA supporters cling to Trump despite his growing trail of broken campaign promises, but it makes sense when you think of this movement as the work of highly successful propaganda. Propaganda works when it creates identity and belonging in people who are craving it.

The true-believer MAGA-verse is made up of people whose identity is tied up with Trump. Expecting them to break away from this is unrealistic, even if Trump is directly showing them that he is not the person they thought they voted for.

Let’s start with the Epstein files, brought to the fore most recently by Melania Trump’s bizarre statement. They continue to remind us that Trump has reversed on his campaign promise to release them in full.

Former ardent Trumpist and Congresswoman Margorie Taylor Greene finally broke with Trump over the Epstein files. More recently, she told Politico that “the final phone call I had with President Trump on the issue [is] where he told me that his friends would get hurt and that was why he was against releasing the Epstein files.”

I can’t imagine how it could be more clear to the anti-establishment and anti-elitist MAGA base that both Trump and the U.S. justice system protect powerful men as they sexually prey on young girls.

Then there is Trump’s inexplicable and unexplained war with Iran. One thing that both the right and left could agree on during his campaign was Trump’s call for “no new wars.” He even went so far as to say that he would be the “peace president.” Yet, this post on Truth Social isn’t exactly the words of a peaceful president:

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

He followed it up with:

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”

Some high-profile Republicans and MAGA supporters have come out against his genocidal threats. Taylor Greene told CNN that this was “not tough rhetoric, it’s insanity” and called for his ouster on X, “25TH AMENDMENT!!! Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilization.”

Former Fox News host and right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson, who’s also known here in Spain for his support for Vox, went on a rant:

“On every level — it is vile on every level. It begins with a promise to use the U.S. military — our military — to destroy civilian infrastructure in another country. Which is to say, to commit a war crime. It is a moral crime against the people of a country whose welfare was supposedly one of the reasons we went into this war in the first place: They’re being killed by their government; we have to rescue them.”

Another former Fox News host and prominent right-wing voice, Megyn Kelly said:

“This is completely irresponsible and disgusting. This is wrong. It’s wrong. He should not be doing it. I don’t care that it’s a negotiation. His negotiation tactic is to kill an entire country full of civilians, men, women and children — an American president — so that the Strait of Hormuz will be opened. It’s just wrong.”

Conventional wisdom exclaims, “holy crap, this man is really trying hard to piss off his base of voters!” Yet, the outrage I noted above comes from right-wing celebrity journalists and a former congresswoman. It’s attention grabbing but it seems to have hardly made a dent in the 25—29% of his supporters that identify as MAGA.

The hardcore MAGA-verse is composed of people whose identity has become interwoven with Trump. These people love him because they have found belonging in the MAGA movement.

Belonging is the key activating ingredient of propaganda which often appeals to groups of people who feel disaffected from society. This group is mostly—not exclusively—people without university degrees, often in working-class jobs in rural areas and deeply religious. They feel that the coastal elites look down on them and Trump was successful in making them feel seen and heard.

So, while other parts of the 2024 Trump coalition might be falling out with Trump, this core MAGA group will likely stand by their man, no matter how strange and illogical it might seem.

This is the English version of my column, La Globalista, in El Español.