A decade ago, Donald Trump descended by the golden mechanical staircase of the Trump Tower in New York City and promoted a political movement that transformed American politics. In a memorable phrase, Trump promised his followers of the 2016 presidential campaign: “We will make our country again big.”
Since then, the “Make America Great Again” movement dominated the American political debate, transformed the Republican party and became a lucrative brand that adorns caps, t -shirts and stickers for bumpers.
When asked what Maga means for him, Trump, in a 2017 interview with The Washington Post, said: “For me, it meant jobs. It meant industry and meant military force. It meant taking care of our veterans. It meant a lot.”
But Democratic leaders have a different interpretation of slogan.
In 2016, former President Bill Clinton said about Maga: “That message of ‘I will return the greatness of the United States’, if you are white southern, you know exactly what it means, right? It means ‘I will return the economy that you had 50 years ago and make you socially ascend and others descend’.”
While Maga is omnipresent, little is known about its meaning for the American public. Ten years later, what do Americans think when they listen or read this phrase?
Based on the analysis of Americans’s explanations about what “Make America Great Again” means, we find evidence that suggests that public opinion about Maga reflects Trump and Clinton’s perspectives.
Republicans interpret this phrase as a call to the renewal of the United States economy and military power, as well as a return to “traditional” values, especially those related to gender roles and identities. We discovered that Democrats see Maga as a call to the return of white supremacy and the growing authoritarianism.
What does Maga mean?
To better understand American opinion about Maga, in April 2025, 1,000 participants were requested in a national representative survey at the national level that briefly wrote what it meant for them “Make America Great Again”.
The survey question was open, which allowed the participants to define this phrase as they considered appropriate. A thematic analysis based on AI and a qualitative reading of the answers to better understand how Democrats and Republicans define the slogan were used.
For the thematic analysis based on AI, we ask Chatgpt to provide three general issues, the most addressed by Democratic and Republican respondents. This approach is based on recent research that shows that, with adequate instruction, ChatgPT reliably identifies general issues in text sets.
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Republican interpretation of Maga
The analysis shows that Republicans consider that the slogan represents the “American dream.” In part, Maga seeks to restore the pride and economic strength of the nation. Reflecting these issues, a republican respondent wrote that Maga means “encouraging manufacturers to hire Americans and strengthen the economy. Getting the United States as self -sufficient as it was in the past.”
Maga is also closely related among Republicans to the “United States first” policy. This is partly focused on having a strong army – a common issue among Republican respondents – and “turning the United States into a superpower,” wrote a respondent.
Republicans also wrote that prioritizing the United States means emphasizing the strict application of immigration laws against “illegal” and cutting foreign aid. For example, a republican respondent said that Maga meant “to stop illegal migrants on the border, eliminate free aid for illegal migrants, increase the police and build a strong army.”
Finally, Republicans consider that slogan demands a return to “traditional” values. They expressed a strong desire to reverse the cultural changes that Republican respondents perceive as a threat.
As a Republican said, Maga “means returning to when men joined the army, women were at home raising healthy children and it was easy to succeed, the crime rate was extremely low and before it was safe for children to walk down the street with other children and even go alone to the sites.”
Another Republican made the connection between magician and traditional gender roles even more explicit, highlighting the link between Maga and the opposition to the rights of transgender people: “Maga supporters know that there are only two sexes and that a man can never be a woman. If you believe otherwise, you are destroying the United States.”
Democratic perspectives
Democrats have a very different interpretation of the magnigue. Many Democrats come Maga as a white supremacist movement designed to protect the condition of white people and undermine the civil rights of marginalized groups.
A Democrat argued that “’Make America Great Again’ is a motto of those who have seen a decrease in the strength of their privileges (see: White Men Cisgenero) and wish that they are restored or strengthened. In essence, it is a song under which all racist, fascist and other intolerant actors must be joined”.
Another Democrat wrote that Maga was a call to “make us go back as a society in terms of women’s rights, minorities and LGBTQ people … would lead us to a time when only white men ruled.”
Democrats also come magic as a form of nostalgia for a deeply mythified past. Many Democrats surveyed described the past yearned by Republicans as a “myth” or a “fairy tale.” Others argued that this mythified past, although attractive in appearance, was repressive for many Americans.
A Democrat said that Maga meant “returning to the United States to a fantastic version of the past with the aim of promoting the success of white, heterosexual and rich men by all means, almost always to the detriment of other segments of the population.”
Finally, many Democrats interpret the slogan as a reflection of an authoritarian cult of personality. In this sense, a Democrat in the survey said about Maga: “He is a call to action for members of the Maga cult, who believe that Trump and the Republican party, in some way, will improve their lives by attacking people and policies that they do not like, even when this goes against their interests and any rational reasoning.”
While some Republicans expressed racist, xenophobic or antitransgenian feelings in their interpretation of Maga, some Democrats showed an open condescension towards those who support it.
“The Maga are members of society with the washing brain and idiots who know only the example of an idiot president with the vocabulary of a third grade child,” a Democrat wrote. “They are nonsense that repeat the idiots as parrots,” said another respondent.
In total, in the 10 years since Donald Trump broke into the political scene, much was written about the contradictory visions of the past, the present and the future that underlie partisan divisions in the United States.
With the commitment proclaimed by the Trump administration to return the United States to its “golden age” and the strong resistance to its efforts, only time will say what vision of the United States will prevail.
*This text was originally published in The Conversation
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