Many of you probably read Chairwoman of the Republican Party Dorothy Moon’s opinion piece last week titled ‘The future is MAGA.’ And I’m sure many of you thought, like me, that you had read something very similar before. And you have many times.
That’s because MAGA extremists’ articles are like Donald Trump’s speeches. Whether he is speaking on a solemn occasion like Memorial Day or at a Louisiana Crawfish Festival, Trump gives the same speech, though the targets of his name-calling propaganda may vary.
In this variation of her stock column, Dorothy Moon sets out to explain why the MAGA movement will continue to thrive even after “President Trump leaves the scene.” Her implication is that MAGA is much more than just Donald Trump, even though all indications are that MAGA lives and dies with Trump.
But don’t take it from me. Let’s analyze the evidence Dorothy Moon presents to prove that MAGA is not reliant on Trump while effectively proving just the opposite.
When discussing Trump’s loyal MAGA supporters, Moon states that, “Those American patriots saw their champion slandered, attacked, impeached and indicted, all for the crime of standing up for them.”
By indicted, one must assume Moon is referring to the New York State “Hush Money” Case, the Federal Classified Documents Case, the Federal Election Interference Case, and the Georgia Election Interference Case.
While being impeached, she is thinking of the fact that Trump is the first and only president to be impeached twice, first for the 2019 Trump–Ukraine scandal, which centered on allegations of extortion, bribery, and an abuse of power, and later for incitement of insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
It is difficult to see how falsifying business records to pay off adult film star Stormy Daniels and contributing to the trashing of the nation’s Capitol are examples of Trump “standing up for” his supporters.
But since MAGA is Trump, it’s understandable that Dorothy Moon interprets such actions that way.
Most of Dorothy Moon’s puzzling evidence that MAGA is more than just Trump involves her sharp criticism of GOP politicians who have attempted to do what is best for the American people rather than what’s best for Donald Trump, politicians to whom Moon applies the Trumpian label “beautiful losers.”
Moon first uses the Indiana Republican senators who voted against redistricting as an example of how risky it is to defy Trump. She says that they voted against the president’s orders because they thought “Trump was too mean.”
The actual list of reasons for voting against redistricting tells a different story: The senators’ districts opposed reclassification; people wanted politicians to focus on local issues; it damaged the unity of local communities; existing maps were already fair; and senators objected to Washington, D.C.’s bullying tactics, severe harassment, and threats directed at them.
In other words, the GOP senators wanted to do the job they were elected to do and serve their constituents, rather than serve Donald Trump.
Dorothy Moon revels in Trump’s punishment of individual politicians who are loyal to their country rather than to him. She gloats that Rep. Thomas Massie will soon be out of a job because he opposed Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill. But she fails to explain that Massie opposed it due to the bill’s negative long-term effects on the economy. And that non-partisan budget analyses confirm that the bill will lead to cuts in Medicaid, increase insurance costs, add trillions to the national debt, and drive up interest rates over the next decade.
Dorothy Moon’s next attempt to show that MAGA is more than just Trump involves U.S. Republican senator Bill Cassidy, who lost in the recent Louisiana primary because, according to Moon, he did not “work with Trump on issues such as election integrity.” So, Trump’s MAGA punished him.
Cassidy’s failure to cooperate with Trump on Moon’s so-called “election integrity,” in truth, is that Cassidy declared he did not believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, and all legal opinions on the issue support Cassidy.
Senator John Cornyn also lost his recent Republican primary due to not working with Trump on “election integrity,” according to Moon. By this, she must be referring to the fact that Cornyn did not object to certifying President Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection loss despite Trump’s baseless claims of widespread fraud. Cornyn defended his decision by saying, “Evidence is required.”
All these primary election losses create a pattern of Trump’s MAGA punishing politicians who do what they feel is best for the nation instead of doing what’s best for Trump, seemingly a key component of the MAGA extremists’ mantra.
Dorothy Moon concludes that under Donald Trump, “…we are moving in the right direction—and we’re not going back.”
Maybe so, but once Trump is out of the picture, the GOP will have to find new leadership to malign our allies, start senseless wars, drive up inflation, and violate the Constitution in its efforts to Make America Great Again.