By Jeffrey A. Rendall
Will 2026 revive the Make America Great Again brand?
Have you hugged your MAGA lately?
Not if the results of a before-Christmas survey were any indication. As we dive headfirst into what promises to be another fascinating and turbulent new year in the United States of America – the 250th one if you count 1776 as the starting point for all things Yankee Doodle – there are signs indicating President Donald Trump’s signature agenda has slipped with the voters. Trump himself isn’t losing measurable support; in fact, it appears as though he’s gained some popularity well into his second decade in American politics.
Nonetheless, there are troubling warnings that MAGA (Make America Great Again) is wearing (a bit) thin on the American public.
How can this be so? In an article titled, “MAGA falling out of favor, even among Republicans”, the inimitable Paul Bedard reported before Santa Claus made his rounds last month at the Washington Examiner:
“MAGA Republicans and the ‘Make America Great Again’ movement they and President Donald Trump represent appear to be going out of favor with voters, including among the president’s GOP supporters. In the latest Rasmussen Reports survey … likely voters overwhelmingly said that they would prefer a ‘regular Republican’ candidate than a ‘MAGA Republican,’ 58% to 26%. And they are split on the movement, with 49% disapproving compared to 46% that approve.
“Democrats, of course, expressed little support for MAGA, the 2016 Trump campaign theme that he brought back in 2024 after four years of former President Joe Biden.
“In the Rasmussen survey, 70% of Democrats said they would prefer a ‘regular’ Republican candidate to one associated with MAGA. And 79% said that they don’t approve of the movement.”
The Democrat numbers aren’t at all surprising here. They never appreciated MAGA to begin with. And what these MAGA bashers are actually saying is that a “regular Republican” is someone like the late John McCain or Mitt Romney or former Speaker Paul Ryan or Liz Cheney, a.k.a., plain and generic swamp acclimated politicians who identify with the GOP label but who openly defy Donald Trump.
Conservatives label them “establishment Republicans” because they instinctively side-with and represent the powerful status quo interests at the upper echelon of both parties. Or, the term “Big Government Republicans” works too, because they appear to love authoritative bureaucracy and top-down decision-making, just not the same way Democrats do.
In fairness, Donald Trump’s MAGA agenda means powerful government, too, though there are a good many conservative planks in the platform as well. The expansiveness of MAGA is the reason why Democrats hate it so much, in addition to their antipathy towards Trump himself. “Trump Derangement Syndrome” is real, hence the movement he instigated has fallen in folks’ estimation.
Few seek to be associated with something that isn’t trendy. Common experience shows nothing lasts forever, and when it comes to American politics, the lifespan of a movement is even shorter. Much shorter.
Like it or not, the term MAGA has become associated with all of Donald Trump’s negative stereotypes and very few of his positive ones. Further, Democrats and the establishment media have been waging a non-stop assault on “MAGA” for years, the term having been singled out as representing, for lack of a better way to put it, the “typical” Trump supporter.
Who would that be? In actuality, someone who doesn’t exist. But the popular misconception about those who support Donald Trump’s agenda might well have been stolen straight from Crooked Hillary Clinton’s basket of deplorables. You know, in Hill’s words: half of Trump’s backers are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic…” Does this describe anyone you know?
Are Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham from the “Basket of Deplorables”? Nope. But the longtime Fox News hosts would most certainly be lumped in with the “MAGA” crowd by the haters, and it seems as though the stigma has affixed the stank to the movement itself. For some.
“MAGA” means, of course, “Make America Great Again”, which shouldn’t offend anyone who believes in the American Exceptionalism concept and wishes for its perpetual manifestation. Such folks probably also think America’s post-World War II reputation took a major hit in prestige. The cultural changes the nation’s undergone in the most recent decades has caused a lot of Americans to wonder whether the country can endure a “House Divided” situation, the way it is now.
These significant alterations to the American Way have discouraged many of those who would’ve professed to believe in “MAGA” as a way of life. They’re not certain that America has been made great again by Trump’s movement, or that it (America) could even be made great again at all, period.
Trump himself hasn’t wavered on MAGA as a movement, though his insistence that we have “the greatest ever or the best ever” this and that hints that America has already been made great again and it’s time for a new focal point for his presidency. Politics followers recall how Trump used “Keep America Great” as a slogan for his 2020 campaign, and no one wants to relive those topsy-turvy days.
Though the recent revelations of vote counter misdeeds in Fulton County, Georgia, have lent credence to Trump’s – and the MAGA movement’s – claims that the 2020 election was stolen and ruling class Washington got away with the political theft of the ages.
That’s what “regular Republicanism” means. It’s not like the individual portions of the MAGA movement have fallen into disrepute with conservatives or Republican supporters, it’s the movement as a whole that’s been partially rejected. Here’s thinking, if survey questions were worded in such a way to identify specific policies, they’d enjoy wide backing from nearly all respondents.
So what explains the difference?
Crowd mentality takes over sometimes
Perhaps its crowd mentality that’s caused “regular Republicans” to turn away, albeit (likely) temporarily, from MAGA.
Even the most popular of spontaneous human movements endures down periods. Music fans will recall how the singing group The Bee Gees were the hottest entertainment commodity around in the late 1970’s, but as soon as the Australian crooners became synonymous with so-called disco music, the bottom fell out. Who can forget the “disco sucks” riot in Chicago in 1979? Shameful. But it was human nature.
Therefore, is MAGA destined to be the new “disco”?
No. What’s occurring now is simply a visceral reaction to a series of negative headline policy episodes and the accumulation of antagonistic establishment news reporting and Democrats feeling emboldened by fortunate elections events in the latter part of 2025. Conservatives and Republicans – some of them at least – had become complacent and overly hopeful that Trump and MAGA had permanently dispatched the Democrat threat and the good side had prevailed.
A MAGA movement wasn’t needed any longer because it already had made America “great” again.
Look at the plain facts. Within the span of a year since his second inauguration, Trump and his lieutenants had completely eradicated the plague of illegal immigration that had begun and continued under the hapless reign of senile Joe Biden. Further, Trump’s foreign policy had produced a series of victories and positive developments, even if the Russia/Ukraine war was still raging.
Inflation was steady; energy prices dropped as promised; “affordability” was receding as a signature political issue thanks to Trump’s more recent rally appearances and his Oval Office speech.
Democrats will try maintaining the ruse that Trump and MAGA are no longer trusted or accepted by the American people, and they’ll use “affordability” and healthcare demagoguery to get their candidates elected. But they’ll go too far, as they always do, and the more Americans see of Democrats on their TV screens and computers, the less they’ll like them.
Democrats don’t offer ideas to solve political issues. All they have is big government, more debt, demonization of decent Americans and promotion of woke notions like transgenderism.
2026 looks to have a promising future, since America is great again. MAGA, the movement, will sustain itself. Movements fizzle when the enthusiasm for them wanes. Just like disco did. But the Bee Gees didn’t go away, they just changed to meet the new realities.
President Donald Trump is too shrewd of a politician to allow public opinion to trail away from his movement. 2026 will provide numerous opportunities for Trump to demonstrate how “great” America has become again. The economy almost certainly will improve. And the “MAGA Republican” will be in demand, once more.
Back in time – The Bee Gees’ “How Deep is your love”
Jeff Rendall is editor and publisher of GolfintheUSA.com and has written about golf and politics for over a quarter of a century. A non-practicing attorney from California, he moved to the east coast three decades ago to pursue and combine his interests in all things American history and culture. Jeff has worked as an intern on Capitol Hill and in various capacities in grassroots organizing and conservative organizations and publications, including a nearly two-decade stint at ConservativeHQ.com. Column republishing or other inquiries: Rendall@msn.com .