On Understanding the MAGA Voter

The default way that rank and file Democrats think of MAGA voters is that they are “stupid,” by which they mean low IQ.  While it is true that MAGA voters are typically poorly educated (Trump: “I love the poorly educated”) (2/3 of MAGA voters are NOT college educated, while half of Democratic voters are college educated), that does not make them stupid.  Intelligence may correlate with education but not in a causal way.  In addition, my own definition of stupidity is stupid by choice (“don’t bother me with facts, my mind is already made up”), not by low IQ.   And stupid by choice (let’s call is “operational stupidity”) is much more pernicious than stupid by low IQ.  A clinical word that describes this way of thinking is “confirmation bias” (“I will only listen to news sources that support my own beliefs”).  But does confirmation bias belong only to MAGA voters?  Hell, no!  A MAGA voter listens to Truth Social and Fox News, but a liberal voter listens to MSNBC and late night talk TV.  Not only is confirmation bias not restricted to MAGA voters, but it seems to be universal among humans.  So, maybe we are all kinda stupid, apparently no one likes admitting he was wrong!  Or likes to THINK, rather than react!

But more important than the educational divide is the Rural/Urban divide.  Cities vote Democratic, country votes Republican.  But there are tens of millions more city voters than country voters, so try to explain Trump’s winning elections.

I would suggest that the underlying trait of MAGA voters is that they are populists!  Whazzat?   A populist is someone who is disgusted with establishment politics.  Everyday Americans have a right to be disgusted with both parties (“a pox on both their houses”), as both parties have abandoned everyday Americans in favor of Big Money.  The rise of independent voters is proof of the power of populism.  Independents now make up 45% of the electorate!   Trump never claimed to be a classical Republican, but he surely appealed to populist Americans!

But so did Bernie Sanders.  Here is where things get interesting!

Number 1: Bernie Sanders is the most popular American politician today, leading Donald Trump by 18 favorability points.   Second only to Michelle and Barack Obama and Arnold (“I’ll be back!”), all inactive politicians.

Number 2: In 2016, before the Democratic National Convention anointed Hillary Clinton as its presidential candidate, polls comparing Clinton vs Trump and Sanders vs Trump showed Sanders outperforming Clinton by decisive 5-10 point margins.   You will have to dig into all the polls on RCP’s site to see meaningful (same dates, same states) comparisons.  In addition, there are those who are quite convinced that without Sanders’ supporters voting for Trump, Clinton would have won the presidency. 

Conclusion: populism in the form of independent voters is the biggest voting bloc in the country today, and Trump won by being an anti-establishment populist and by not having to compete against the much more popular populist, Bernie Sanders.

P.S., why did Biden beat the populist Trump in 2020, by seven million votes?  The nation had four years to feed on Trump’s toxicity.  Why then did Trump beat Harris in 2024 by two million votes (“a landslide”)?  Because a toxic candidate who campaigns effectively will always beat a non-campaigning candidate (Biden), and Harris only had 100 days to campaign and did a piss poor job of it (choosing “coach” Tim Walz showed a real lack of political judgment), and her polling popularity during her four years with Biden was worse than her boss’s.

What do Democrats have to look forward to for the presidency in 2028?  The only Democrat with real name recognition who may lay claim to populism is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  But she is too young and most of the country still sees her through the prism of Fox News; she would LOSE!  Given another four or eight years, she is the future of the Democratic Party.  Can J.D. Vance lay claim to populism?  NO!  He is a pure opportunist who would lose to any viable Democratic candidate.  Like whom?  Like Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania; like Wes Moore, governor of Maryland; like Pete Buttigieg, the best debater in politics; like Andy Beshear, governor of Kentucky.   Democrats have a really good shot at the presidency in 2028.  But what do Democrats do best?  They lose elections.  They need to read my book, Stop the Steal: The Handbook for Democrats who want to win their Elections,  the sooner the better.  Our future depends on it!