Here are two frameworks for analyzing Trump and MAGA. Although elements of both could be true, they are not fully compatible. More importantly, they suggest quite different responses.

1. MAGA is an ethnonationalist right-wing movement with considerable popular support (although less than a solid majority), a base of local organizations, and deep roots in American history (Smith 1999). Donald Trump is the current national leader of this movement, but it will outlast him. The movement uses many conventional methods, such as winning elections and passing legislation through the legislature. It also plays hardball and violates rules and norms, but that is not a definitive trait. In fact, the center-left has also used similar behavior at times. Ethnonationalist right-wing movements are common around the world today. Some are led by charismatic figures, but that is not especially true of AfD in Germany, for instance. Their common characteristic is their ideology.
2. Trump is a personalist or patrimonialist leader. Today’s personalists around the world include right-wing, left-wing, and technocratic leaders, and many are ideologically flexible. In essence, they are charismatic leaders whose followers owe their power to the leader and who trample rival power centers in the civil service, other branches and levels of government, the media, and civil society (Frantz et al.). In personalist parties, the grassroots is almost entirely passive; power is centralized. Insofar as today’s personalists share a philosophy, it is populist-authoritarianism, or perhaps Bonapartism–identifying the authentic people with a single “strong” leader.

If you apply the ideological framework, then your response to Trump will vary depending on your ideology. If you’re on the left, you’ll want to build a more popular and effective progressive alternative. You may welcome defectors from the right, but you will be suspicious of them if they remain conservative. If you’re conservative but not MAGA, you may see some value in some of Trump’s positions and suspect that liberal elites are biased against him. If your main concern is polarization, then you may recommend cross-partisan dialogue and favor a centrist response.

On the other hand, if you apply the personalist framework, then you may be attracted to the solution that seems to work in other countries–a broad-based coalition in defense of constitutional limits and against the charismatic leader. This coalition should have a modest economic and social agenda and focus instead on challenging the authoritarian leader.

I suppose my own view is that Trump is a personalist authoritarian who taps into a robust right-wing ethnonationalist movement, just as other personalists use locally popular ideologies (Hindtuva, Chavismo) in their respective countries. This means that I would endorse strategies that challenge Trump as a personalist as well as ideological opposition from the left and center-left. However, I am not sure the same people and organizations can do both at the same time.

See also: democracy’s crisis: a system map (a revised version to appear in Studies in Law, Politics and Society); what is the basis of a political judgment?. Citations: Smith, Rogers M. Civic ideals: Conflicting visions of citizenship in US history. Yale University Press, 1997; Frantz, E., Kendall-Taylor, A., Wright, “Why Trump’s control of the Republican Party is bad for democracy,” The Conversation, Jan 30, 2024.