No. of Recommendations: 3
which opens up the question, in what form will MAGA survive post-trump?
Well, a fair amount of MAGA has a lot in common with right-wing populism generally. That's been resurgent throughout western democracies, and we've seen strong growth in those parties all over Europe. So it may be that we see the GOP semi-permanently move towards that kind of right-wing populist approach, and call that "MAGA" instead of that more generic label.
A moment to descend into semantics. "MAGA" is the brand name for Trump's political footprint. There can't really be a MAGA without Trump, because it's a label for what Trump wants to do and campaigns on and picks his people on. The mistake that the author I referred to in the OP made was in not realizing that: MAGA is distinct from the political philosophy that we might call right-wing populism, but is instead a label for Donald Trump's policy goals, personnel preferences, and political machine.
That aside, I think that the GOP could either move more permanently into right-wing populism - or it might go back to the business-friendly austerity party it used to be. Trump's been able to force the party away from that faction of the party pretty successfully...but solely based on his personal political power and brand. He's a uniquely attractive figure among the base, and because he was able to accumulate all that power by himself rather than as part of or the head of a broader movement, all of that "because Trump said so" resolution of internal factional fights disappears the moment he does. And because Trump's not a party apparatus guy, it's all personal to him and will stay personal to him.
Which means that once Trump is replaced with JD Vance (or whoever is his putative "heir"), the cohesion disappears. Chip Roy has to kind of listen to Donald Trump - he doesn't have to listen to JD Vance.
