Speaking on social media after dropping out of the 2024 presidential race and throwing his somewhat significant political support behind former President Donald Trump, former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. explained what he sees MAGA, or Making America Great Again, means to him now that he’s on Team Trump.
As a bit of a reminder, former President Donald Trump made the MAGA slogan iconic and an intrinsic part of his presidential campaign when he started running in 2015. To him, it mainly appeared to mean reestablishing American industrial might and bringing back blue-collar prosperity with tariffs and closing the border. Democrats have since used the slogan to attack Trump and his supporters, calling them things like “ultra-MAGA” Republicans or supporters of the “extreme MAGA agenda.”
Mr. Kennedy, commenting on the matter in a post titled “What “MAGA” really means,” said, “The phrase has troubled liberals who think it is a call for a return to an America before civil rights, gay rights, and women’s rights. But I have a more generous interpretation, one that is truer to my experience of Donald Trump as he is today.”
Continuing, he noted that the phrase conjures up a vision of an America that works, a country that succeeds and brims with spiritedness while accomplishing great feats. He said, “‘Make America Great Again’ recalls a nation brimming with vitality, with a can-do spirit, with hope and a belief in itself. It was an America that was beginning to confront its darker shadows, could acknowledge the injustice in its past and present, yet at the same time could celebrate its successes”
Next, Mr. Kennedy noted that integral to the vision of America conjured by “MAGA” is a nation where prosperity and freedom are general rather than concentrated in the hands of an oligarchic few, writing, “It was a nation of broad prosperity, the world’s most vibrant middle class, and a idealistic belief (though not consistently applied) in freedom, justice, and democracy.”
Concluding, he added, focusing on the innovation aspect and health aspect of what made America great, Mr. Kennedy said, “It was a nation that led the world in innovation, productivity, and technology. And it was the healthiest country in the world. I have talked to many Trump supporters. I have talked with his inner circle. I have talked to the man himself. This is the America they want to restore.”
Commenters largely agreed. For example, conservative X personality ALX, argued that part of American greatness was having other countries respect and fear us. He said, “America was looked at as a beacon of freedom and innovation and a country that shouldn’t be messed with. Now we are laughed at by allies and adversaries alike.”
Another noted that national pride and unity was a similarly powerful aspect of American greatness, saying, “We used to not be too embarrassed to take pride in our nation, and now there are those who want us to lose all belief that our own nation and our own people is in any way good or exceptional, which goes against the grain of the real spirit of this nation.”
