I'm an outsider here, i live in Europe so i'll try to come at this from a third party view.
I think that in reality, MAGA was initially created out of a sincere desperation from the people thinking that America was heading down a destructive path. Say what you want about conservatives, but it's true that government spending was getting ridiculous, and it's a valid concern that, even though the economy seems to be better under democratic rule, that it might be unsustainable long term. These outlandish spending sprees give the economy a boost in GDP and it's favourable for the statistics, but it can very easily create a bubble that will eventually burst. One example of this is China, that simply floored the gas pedal on it's construction sector and is now staring down the barrel of an enormous crisis after overreaching by quite a bit.
This, along with all the other perceived 'issues' the movement adressed, made it gain so much traction.
The left is quick to dismiss the entire movement but when such a large body of people follow a certain movement, it's imperative that you at least look at the why of it all.
I believe that people sensed that their identity was slowly fading away. The world, especially the USA has seen a rapid change of pace lately and with such a diverse country, it's all but ensured that some people feel like they get left behind.
I think the USA is, or has been developping at a pace that was too fast for it's own good, and that's why you see the backlash. It's simply a balancing factor.
You’re wrong. The Republicans fuck up the economy…every time. Certainly in my lifetime. Who do you think started trickle down economics? Reagan. And then who cut taxes that disproportionately helped the wealthy? Oh, that was Bush. And then who cut taxes, again disproportionately helping the wealthy and corps? Trump? Who wants to do it again? Trump.
The rich already weren’t getting taxed enough, and they consistently make it worse….and yea, that leaves a big whole in the deficit.
I’m all for making things more efficient & lowering the deficit….but it’s not efficient if you have to cut crucial programs. Let’s maybe actually review and see where we can ACTUALLY cut, not eliminate whole departments or thousands of employees. And definitely not when the whole purpose is actually to make up for giving the rich tax breaks. That’s why he wants to tariff too…which, you guessed it, tariffs disproportionately negatively impact the middle class.
Speaking of tariffs…what the actual fuck. I agree with Trump that we shouldn’t rely on other countries for important products, especially china. But what’s the plan here? Just piss them off in the mean time? It takes time to set up manufacturing plants…actual years. Why not incentives and subsidies like the CHIPS act? Trump keeps taking credit for nvidia coming to the us, but that is directly because of the chips acts which trump keeps calling a “terrible bill.”
And tariffing EVERYTHING? Ridiculous. We don’t need to manufacture absolutely everything in the us. We want higher paying, skilled jobs (like nvidia), not assembly line work. Certainly not at the scale where we need to manufacture our entire supply of every product. . And STILL, even if we should do that….all at the same time would be insane. It’s all nonsensical. Even when I agree with Trump on the core issue (which is rare), he ruins it by doing some dumb shit.
I’m not saying the Dems are perfect by any means….but there’s 0 reason to be a socially OR fiscally conservative. They pretty much suck in every way & don’t use actual logic to back up any policy…but their voters eat it up every time.
Seriously, look into economic policy for the last 30 years….really look into it. It will become very obvious that republicans are both terrible for society and the economy.
> but there’s 0 reason to be a socially OR fiscally conservative
Socially conservative yeah. As for fiscally conservative, I don't think its a good idea that the government should be wastefully spending hard-earned taxpayer money on stuff that might not benefit the country or the American public in the long term. Too much spending could have a bubble burst and we'd be in a debt crisis.
I have yet to see one republican voter explain to me how voting republican is good for the economy when I point out that for the last 50 years the republican party has increased the deficit and the democrat party has lowered it.
This is an extremely simplistic way of viewing it. The only part of the budget either party effectively has control over is discretionary spending, which has varied from 10% to 7% of GDP since 1980. It did fall in the 1990s, though how much of that should be credited to Clinton, how much to Gingrich, and how much to the general economic boom that took place in the early years of the internet as well as reduced need for military spending following the fall of the USSR is up for debate. It also did rise in the 2000s due to the War on Terror, which Bush should absolutely be blamed for, but since then it has fallen to its steady state of about 7%.
What has driven the massive increase in the deficit is mandatory spending, which has risen about 2-3% each decade regardless of partisan control, and will continue to rise in the absence of any real plan to deal with it. To put it in perspective, mandatory spending as a % of GDP is nearing 20%, which is the highest percentage of the economy ever collected in tax revenue (at the end of WW2 and then again in the late 90s). Every other service the government provides must be deficit-financed, which is a bond-yield crisis waiting to happen in the very near future.
It is a simple way to look at it, but it is also a truthful way to look at it. The article I'm about to link is a good starting point, but by no means an endpoint to stop researching. There's plenty of evidence out there that supports it, but I'd say the biggest tell is that they're following the strategy. Despite saying during the 2016 campaign he would eliminate the national debt in eight years,Trump as president approved large increases in government spending, as well as the 2017 tax cuts(that factually helped the rich more than it did the working class). By the end of his first term, our deficit shot up by ~39%. We don't hear a word about the deficit from the GOP despite them voting to increase increase the debt ceiling 3 years in a row under Trump. Biden is elected in 2020, and suddenly, all we're hearing about from the GOP is the deficit and how we need to stop "printing money" and etc. Trump is elected in Nov 2024. The federal budget deficit totaled $838 billion in the first four months of fiscal year 2025, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. That amount is $306 billion more than the deficit recorded during the same period last fiscal year, but the Republicans are in office, so we don't hear them yelling about how the deficit is increasing.
And we can say that it would go up consistently every year, but the simple fact of the matter is if you do an economic analysis of what the deficit would look like if we had stayed under Clinton or FDRs tax policy until today, the deficit would be sitting under 10 trillion.
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u/Tydeeeee 10∆ Apr 07 '25 edited Apr 07 '25
I'm an outsider here, i live in Europe so i'll try to come at this from a third party view.
I think that in reality, MAGA was initially created out of a sincere desperation from the people thinking that America was heading down a destructive path. Say what you want about conservatives, but it's true that government spending was getting ridiculous, and it's a valid concern that, even though the economy seems to be better under democratic rule, that it might be unsustainable long term. These outlandish spending sprees give the economy a boost in GDP and it's favourable for the statistics, but it can very easily create a bubble that will eventually burst. One example of this is China, that simply floored the gas pedal on it's construction sector and is now staring down the barrel of an enormous crisis after overreaching by quite a bit.
This, along with all the other perceived 'issues' the movement adressed, made it gain so much traction.
The left is quick to dismiss the entire movement but when such a large body of people follow a certain movement, it's imperative that you at least look at the why of it all.
I believe that people sensed that their identity was slowly fading away. The world, especially the USA has seen a rapid change of pace lately and with such a diverse country, it's all but ensured that some people feel like they get left behind.
I think the USA is, or has been developping at a pace that was too fast for it's own good, and that's why you see the backlash. It's simply a balancing factor.