The Social Forces Behind the MAGA Coalition
The glue that holds Donald Trump’s coalition together is not ideological coherence but a volatile compound of empire, spectacle, and grievance. Understanding these tensions helps explain both MAGA’s successes and its weaknesses.
Divisions in the MAGA coalition may not threaten the durability of Donald Trump’s image-driven politics. (Manaure Quintero / AFP via Getty Images)
Recent debates over war, imperialism, and domestic state violence have fueled speculation about fractures in the MAGA coalition. But MAGA’s divisions may not seriously threaten the durability of Donald Trump’s image-driven politics, which spans foreign adventurism and ICE deployments and is comfortable with coercive power. Still, these fractures merit close attention — especially insofar as they may point to political openings.
Jacobin recently spoke with John Ganz, author of When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s and the Unpopular Front, a newsletter about the social forces holding the MAGA coalition together and where its internal contradictions might matter.
Marshall Pierce
We’re here to talk about whether cracks may be forming within the contemporary right-wing bloc, and whether those cracks could create new political openings for the Left. There’s been a surge of commentary recently about an emerging rift within the Right’s coalition, with the most visible flash point being around foreign policy, particularly the recent invasion of Venezuela. This has unsettled certain prominent figures — Candace Owens, Marjorie Taylor Greene — and has led to speculation about burgeoning tensions within the broader MAGA movement.
John Ganz
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