CASH MICHAELS
ANATOMY OF THE MAGA NATION
by Cash Michaels
The first rule of struggle against any opposition is to determine who they are. Then why they are (or what they believe), followed by how many there are. It’s also a good thing to know where they are, and how much power they have.
In this case, I’m talking about members of Donald Trump’s infamous Make America Great Again Movement or MAGA Nation, distinguishable by their bright red MAGA hats, and low-rent behaviors. In the most recent Republican primaries and runoff elections, these devout Trump followers, who, in my opinion, have seriously lost their way among other things, have proven to the world that no matter what their political deity says, what Trump has been accused of or what criminality he’s committed, they’re with him all the way, and are not changing no matter what nefarious scheme he’s up to, or how it hurts our nation.
Now if you've noticed, I called MAGA followers “the opposition” as opposed to the “enemy,” and for a very good reason. They are fellow citizens, no matter how obscene their collective fealty to Trump is. They believe that the man is GOD-sent. He makes no secret that he supports people who look just like them - white. Trump is even willing to stand up and speak out boldly for white rights, no matter what the rest of the country thinks. Thus, as a December 2025 article in The Conversation put it, MAGA followers unite around “a shared perception of threat of status." MAGA folks see themselves as good and “true Americans.” Everybody else is seen as evil and against the country...their country.
I don’t need A.I. to tell me MAGA folks, like their sinister leader, believe in strong nationalism and sovereignty, economic protectionism in trade policies, cultural conservatism (anti multi-culturalism), and government reform. If this were sheet music we were playing here, then thus far, Trump has hit every MAGA note perfectly.
There’s always the hope that many in the MAGA movement will wake up someday soon and realize this man is no one who should be respected, listened to or followed. But for now, MAGA folks are who they are, and the lion’s share of them aren’t changing for anybody.
So who are they again? What is the typical profile of the average MAGA follower? As we’ve seen, they are any age, size, race (though predominately white) and gender, and apparently have a huge chip of resentment on their shoulders against anything deemed “establishment.” “America First” is their clarion call, and they make that clear with no apologies. But whose America? And why does this particular group of American citizenry - who also tend to be white nationalists in many cases - deliberately set themselves apart from the rest of us?
Even more importantly, why is Donald Trump so important to them?
Amid the many questions, I’ve determined at least one glaring fact - MAGA folks aren’t interested in managers of good government; they’re interested in committed loyalists who are streetfighters who go against the grain, and exhibit ruthless strength and energy doing so! That determines how they vote, and who MAGA votes for! So when they vote, they’re choosing a candidate who has a reason to fight the very people or entity MAGA traditionally opposes.
Why? Because Donald Trump tells them who to oppose, and sometimes, even how.
That’s why something else jumped up at me from that December 2025 The Conversation piece about the mindset of MAGA. They feel that they have the GOD-given right to dominate other groups, even by force:
MAGA is also connected to what is known as “social dominance orientation”. This relates to belief in a hierarchy – the idea that one social group has the right to dominate other groups.
Research shows people who believe in hierarchy are more likely to disregard basic democratic principles. They see society as a “competitive jungle” where groups struggle for power and dominance.
As a result, they view groups that differ from them as inferior. This justifies any actions that maintain their in-group status. This holds true even if – as in the case of MAGA-followers – it means a belief in violence in response to unwelcome social and cultural changes.
MAGA folks also feel they have the right to lie to protect their status, or to change documented history in order to "prove" their version of events, even when confronted with undeniable proof and evidence that they are wrong.
Don’t forget, in MAGA Nation, competence means absolutely nothing. Unquestioned loyalty, on the other hand, means everything. Doesn’t matter if the Trump Administration job is Defense secretary, Homeland Security secretary, FBI director, Health and Human Services secretary, or the new director of National Intelligence, who wouldn’t know an intelligence briefing from a third-grade geography class. Loyalty to the singular authority is key.
For the record, Trump tells his followers to hate and oppose the rule of law; hate Democrats (or his preferred “Dumocrats”); hate any person of color who does not embrace MAGA; hate anything perceived to be “woke;” hate unapproved immigration (but love white South Afrikaners who he's bringing here by the thousands); hate the news media; hate comedians who perform political humor about him; hate civil rights activists; hate teaching civil rights history; hate feminists, and strong women who have accused him of sexual abuse; hate military officers who are women or Black; hate Christians who don’t subscribe to his belief in GOD; hate law enforcement that has held him account for past crime; hate liberals; hate transgender people; hate anyone named Biden or Obama; and hate disloyal Congressional Republicans.
It’s on that last one where Trump flexes his MAGA muscle the most in telling his followers who to vote for…or rather and more accurately, whom to vote against. True, a Trump endorsement is a certified stamp of approval from the MAGA-master, but it has also proven to be the definitive political kiss of death for any Republican who has defiantly been disloyal to the mighty ego-in-chief by thinking for himself.
Suffice it to say, such hateful power in the hands of one man is extremely dangerous, as proven by Trump's terrifying call-to-arms to thousands of MAGA followers to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, overthrow the United States government and stop certification of the 2020 presidential election (and ostensibly to kill his then Vice President Mike Pence for being disloyal).
Thus the subsequent public outrage over Trump pardoning hundreds of January 6th convicted participants who not only broke into our nation’s Capitol, but viciously attacked police officers in the process, injuring over 140 and causing the subsequent death of five.
Despite that, Trump schemed to setup that swarmy $1.776 billion “weaponization”slush fund with taxpayer dollars to award to those Jan. 6th rioters convicted in court, all because he felt they had been “treated badly” by the Biden Administration, just as he believes he was. On Monday, thanks to tremendous public outcry, pressure from his own party and a ticked off presiding federal judge awake at the wheel, Trump has now dropped the slush fund scheme.
All of this while at least one side of America is suffering under high gas prices and dramatic increases in our cost of living because of a stupid war the MAGA-master has started, and now can’t end.
Trump says he doesn’t care how much Americans have to suffer, and that the high costs we’re paying are “peanuts” to him. Apparently his MAGA followers could care less too, cause they're not saying anything. Talk about brainwashed!!!
Many of us have found that disgusting enough. But then came word that the Minnesota Republican Party last Saturday reportedly opened their annual GOP state convention with a moment of silence NOT to honor George Floyd, the unarmed Black victim of fatal and extraordinary deadly police abuse there back in May of 2020, but a moment of silence in tribute to Derek Chavin, the Minnesota police officer who was duly convicted of murdering Floyd in cold blood, and rightfully serving over 22 years in prison. Make America murderous again!
How’s that for MAGA sensitivity?
So the anatomy of MAGA folks is quite simple, really. People who strongly believe in an America that goes backward to a time when this country steadfastly refused to change and grow. People who staunchly believe that a white-ruled, wealth-dominated, isolationist America is the best America possible. People who, like spoiled children, want what they want when they want it, because they believe their God sanctions it, and gave them dominion over all.
It is by no accident that the MAGA Nation’s leader, Donald Trump, accurately embodies those arrogant and thoughtless behaviors. It is also no accident that MAGA stands for “Make America Great Again,” which means in Trump followers’ minds that America was “great” before the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, two landmark pieces of American legislation that expanded the meaning of citizenship and the U.S. Constitution to all who are born here.
Trump does not believe in the Constitution. In fact, it’s his ultimate goal to dismantle it, hoping his conservative-led US Supreme Court will knock a big chunk out of it by crippling the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship and equal protection under the law.
I’m seventy-years-old, and kinda like my U.S.Constitution the same way I like my steaks - rich in flavor (foundational principles), tender (adaptable to societal changes through amendments) and juicy (strong in giving meaning to its creed). America has been through too much, and has lost too much blood, for us to go backwards now, or at anytime.
Freedom is a sensitive and important word to me, as is the phrase “the rule of law.”
No, things weren’t perfect when Donald Trump returned to office after Biden, but most people understood that at 250 years-young, this is a growing, diverse nation of tremendous talent, achievements and potential. And it’s because we understand this, we strive to give our children the best education possible, so that they may learn and grow to make it an even better place to live.
It’s also why, we as a nation are slowly but surely, growing out of this notion that one so-called "race" is better than another, though there are occasions when you have to wonder whether we’re making any progress on that at all. We're all GOD's children. Don't forget that!
And that’s why, despite projections that at least 75 million people, 50% of this country's voters are MAGA (mostly in red states, though they can be anywhere) I have to believe in my heart that there are more of us willing to vote for our country back. More of us who want to see the rule of law and common decency return as the standard for every American.
I want our elected officials to at least try to respect their constituencies, instead of this “let them eat cake” attitude we see and hear coming from the White House and the halls of a Republican dominated Congress and NC General Assembly.
And while I’m all for global peace, I want it always to be clear who our enemies are on the world stage, and what our outreach should be to developing nations who need our assistance to fight disease, hunger and poverty.
I want America to return to being the Home of the Free, and not the Land of the Fleece as it is now.
To do that, we need to vote starting in November to claim every part of our country back from the tyranny we’re all under now. I say “start” because the 2026 midterms are only the beginning. When 2028 comes, we MUST replace the damn fool there in the White House who gives MAGA Nation all of its glory.
Let’s commit to MAKE AMERICA MAKE SENSE AGAIN, ok?
VOTE, PEOPLE, VOTE!!!
[By the way, please let me take this opportunity to alert you to an extraordinary documentary that North Carolina State University Professor Jason Miller, filmmaker Rebecca Cerese and myself have proudly produced titled, "Origins of the Dream." It is scheduled to air on PBS in the fall, but you can see a preview right now if you click this link. Enjoy!] https://www.pbs.org/show/origin-of-the-dream/
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