When America Was Great - MAGAReport 5/5/25

A little bit of economic anxiety, a lot of desire to restore a regressive social order

A question that lingers around the “Make America Great Again” slogan is, “When was America so great that you want to go back to it?” This post from about a month ago that now has over 500 replies captures a lot of the answer to that.

The comments are full of similar stories. Previous generations of men who had blue collar jobs that paid for a house, cars, kids, and a stay-at-home wife, unlike today. There is so much resentment about this, both for the current economic struggle and for the loss of their role in that patriarchal system.

Part of this scenario captures a real problem. Real wages have remained steady for a long time even as goods, especially housing, has become more expensive. Pew has a really nice analysis of this.

Why real wages aren’t growing is both complicated and not totally understood. The Pew article covers some of the main theories, which include rising benefits costs, the decline of unions, lower education levels, and other policy issues.

These kinds of discussions do not do well in MAGA spaces. They want more straightforward solutions, preferably with a minority group to blame. In this case, they blame immigrants and women in the job market.

women should be at home doing what they were born to do, birth children and help raise them. It is either that or the human race fails as a species.

The only way out is to kick out all the migrants with no exception. That's the start. Then the politicians and judges have to go. Not sure if we can ever have what our relatives had in their time.

I think this is an interesting example to consider. There are real concerns and legitimate problems under a lot of reactionary MAGA policies. Very smart people who have deep expertise on the problems know that the causes and solutions are large, complex, and systemic.

But MAGA typically wants quick, simple solutions that not only fix the problem, but that also restore a social order where they had more power. It’s a lens that explains a lot of their positions.

This is not an especially deep take, but it’s one I find myself coming back to over and over when trying to understand how they think about issues.