Ten years of MAGA and America is nowhere close to being “great” again. The country has slipped backwards, and our national security position is clearly weaker today.
That’s what a cold-eyed realist would say, given compelling facts and irrefutable evidence and despite an unmatched and unrelenting Trump47 PR onslaught.
To get to the heart of the matter, recall candidate and President Trump’s public boasts, “I alone can fix it” and “I know better than anyone,” refrains heard for a decade. Let’s focus on the “I.”
Start with Iran and the president’s campaign promise that that he is all “peace/no wars”. This is deeply concerning from a national and international leadership perspective. The president crowed about the obliterating success of the June 2025 Midnight Hammer bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities. In November, his National Security Strategy asserted all was under control with respect to Iran and a new age of Middle East peace had dawned. Then late February presented the opportunity to join the Israelis in decimating the Iranian leadership in the hope/expectation of a quick win on the nuclear issue.
There are now serious global concerns about inflation, the disruptive economic miscalculations related to the Iran war, and the one-dimensional thinking that seemingly dismissed Iranian resistance and a Strait of Hormuz response. The war has slammed world energy markets; U.S. consumers and countries around the world are paying the price in higher costs and fears of economic dislocation.
MAGA voted for such an egotistical and naïve foreign policy; we now have a serious problem with no clear or easy resolution, the president’s unending protestations aside. He said it best on May 12 when he stated that he only thinks about Iran’s potential for a nuclear weapon and not Americans’ finances. What he didn’t and doesn’t admit is that his 2018 decision to pull the U.S. out of the JCPOA actually facilitated further Iranian nuclear development and brought Iran closer to having a nuclear weapon than it would have otherwise. He and MAGA own this one.
Presidential deflection on inflation seeks to focus attention on U.S. stock market gains, driven by investors enamored by the potential upside of AI. But those gains don’t benefit 40 percent of Americans, many MAGA, who own no stocks and often exist paycheck to paycheck. The president can dismiss (un)affordability, but then he doesn’t frequent Walmart, Aldi’s or Dollar General and never lived on a shoestring budget. Yes, MAGA, inflation is your problem to deal with; the president doesn’t think about your finances.
Inflation saps MAGA devotees’ purchasing power but not the incomes of prosperous MAGA power brokers and billionaires. The president and his family are doing just fine, hawking perfume and golden foreign made cell phones and maneuvering in crypto and international real estate despite obvious conflicts of interest. MAGA would do well to take a closer look at what the Trump family is doing. Some press analyses suggest financial gains as much as $1.4 billion since Trump 47 took office and first quarter active trading in tech stocks yielding millions. The Trumps are thriving, individual working MAGAs not so much.
Presidential intransigence in hammering those Republicans, MAGA or otherwise, for perceived lack of loyalty is matched by the intransigence of those who do not fear him, say the Chinese, Russians, Iranians and North Koreans, all of whom seem to operate as they wish in the face of unconvincing American bluster. Meanwhile, decades long allies, bullied by the president and his representatives, have lost trust in America. No MAGA, the U.S. is not great again internationally.
The president’s sense of absolute impunity was reinforced by the July 2024 Supreme Court on presidential immunity. But successful court challenges to the myriad of arbitrary, even authoritarian, Trump47 executive orders on tariffs, government firings, environmental regulation and others thankfully show that there are still some limits on a president who recognizes no limits on his behavior. Sadly, there has been no serious attempt to address immigration other than a heavy-handed, often legally challengeable, administration effort to vilify immigrants and stoke MAGA fears of the darker skinned other.
The integrity of the president, his cabinet and MAGA reps in state houses and legislatures around the country stands in question. All are hell bent to avert a MAGA loss in the November elections by perverting, indeed subverting, long-established Congressional districting structures and procedures. That Indiana and South Carolina Republicans stood up to White House authoritarian pressure to manipulate the states’ Congressional districting is encouraging, suggesting that the Trump/MAGA cult is being seen for what it truly is, a concerted attack on U.S. democratic institutions and practices. Put simply, it’s un-American, or perhaps best said —American in Name Only (AINO).
This journey through the day’s relevant “I” words necessarily includes the insolence of the president’s MAGA politics, the golden idolatry at Doral, and how his administration’s incompetence is wearing thin on American voters. His 49.8 percent popular electoral support has dwindled to perhaps a third of the electorate, the optimistic upper bound of MAGA and the so-called “silent majority” of the long-ago Nixon/Agnew era.
MAGA means America First, which means America Alone. Rather than serving as the beacon of democracy and freedom for the world, we are a country weakened and deliberately divided. Not great for a USA that should be confidently and sincerely celebrating 250 years of independence.
Sorry MAGA, but you really have been played.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Sorry, MAGA, you’ve been played | Opinion
Reporting by Mike Mozur, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Mike Mozur, Pensacola News Journal | USA TODAY Network
