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Ironically, MAGAs aren't getting much of anything out of it, Trump didn't have to do anything for them because he has their vote anyway. For example, left a bunch of his most ardent supporters who participated in J6 to democrat mercy while pardoning scammers and rappers. He pushed for gun control, First Step criminal release and Platinum plan reparations, because what are anyone unhappy with that on the right going to do, vote for Biden?
This has been gone over repeatedly - the moment Trump pardoned the J6 crew he would have been immediately impeached and the GOPe would help the left get rid of him. Trump may be liked by the base, but he's loathed by the establishment republicans because him getting his way means that their cushy sinecures go out the window as well.
So, Trump can only do the right thing for his supporters only if it doesn't cost him in any way? Maybe you have invested your hopes and dreams in the wrong guy then?
No, Trump was constrained and hamstrung by an administration that was diametrically opposed to his political goals. He didn't handle things perfectly, but there were actual reasons behind his actions.
I am not whoever you were thinking of when you came up with this line - I haven't invested any of my dreams in Trump, and my only hope for him is that he serves to damage the power elite. My wildest hope would be that he dismantles that power elite in a second term, but I'm not even sure how realistic that is.
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Compare Trump to any non-Trump or pre-Trump politician: illegal immigration as top priority, new trade deals and reshoring manufacturing, no new entanglements or foreign wars. These were the big three planks of Trump's 2016 run. Alternatives to Trump included: Jeb Bush saying illegal immigrants came to the US as an act of love; Marco Rubio having tried comprehensive immigration reform; Ted Cruz supporting an expansion for H1-B visas; etc. etc.
MAGA has been quite satisfied with Trump, which is why they keep voting for him.
For your criticisms, I'm not sure MAGA cares. You seem to be describing the criticisms of some other group. "Platinum Plan" was seen by most people as empty marketing, and nobody anywhere cared about it. (It is definitely not akin to reparations.) "Gun control" is also not very compelling when I presume you're really just referring to bump stocks.
He started arming Ukraine and bombed Syria.
He made a lot of noise and got US hit by retaliatory tariffs, haven't achieved much benefit AFAIK.
That was supposed to be funds earmarked for blacks only, call that whatever you like.
It wasn't just bump stocks, he pushed for red flag laws ("take the guns first, go through due process later").
America was already entangled in Ukraine.
America was already entangled in Syria.
I could go on. I made my point, and you're not really disputing it. MAGA is quite happy with Trump, and that's why they vote for him. You, for your reasons, are not. That's fine man
It seems like an incredibly pedantic distinction to say that Donald Trump expanding US involvement in Middle Eastern and African conflicts doesn't count because the US was technically already involved. It doesn't support the notion of Trump the peacemonger.
This gets to a lot of broader technical questions: How deeply should the US be involved in the Middle East? What counts as a "war"? How much responsibility does the president have over American foreign policy vis-a-vis the rest of the foreign policy establishment? What would a different president theoretically have done? etc. etc.
Ultimately: the blob released information accusing Syria and Assad of using chemical weapons on the people of Syria. Trump responded by bombing an airport tarmac. I don't think you can call that "expanding US involvement" in the Middle East. That's the incident OP was referring to. I don't consider it a very serious accusation that Trump somehow abandoned his position to not start another war. We can compare it against all sorts of hypothetical other presidencies. And we can compare it against Obama and Bush, who both literally started wars in the Middle East.
You can call me pedantic, but, ultimately, I think your idea that Trump "expanded US involvement" in the Middle East can only be true in a pedantic sense. On the basis everyone understands, cares about, and talked about in 2016: Trump did not start any new wars. He did not perpetrate Afghistan, Libya, or Iraq. And that leaves us with boring technical questions about whether, for example, Trump allowed himself to be misled by generals who tried to prevent him from pulling out of Afghanistan. Certainly, nobody in the MAGA coalition feels all that betrayed by Trump's promises in the Middle East that he bombed an inconsequential airport tarmac in Syria (a country with which we are technically not at war, with which US foreign policy has been deeply entangled since the Obama years at minimum).
It is true in the literal, material sense that in a number of places, Trump continued or substantially expanded US military involvement in conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, e.g. US involvement in Syria under Trump was by no means limited to an isolated bombing. The US was heavily involved in the Battle of Raqqa. The Battle of Khasham saw US forces killing Russian troops. In Somalia, US involvement went from nominal to almost weekly strikes. Similarly, strikes in Yemen were massively expanded (Trump also vetoed disengagement).
Perhaps they're not as anti-interventionist as they claim? Or maybe they just don't pay much attention to foreign policy?
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They shouldn't be "happy with him" though. He beat a far better candidate in the current primary based on voter ignorance, glib charm and lies, likely will lose in the general and sell you down the river again if he wins. He doesn't believe in anything except his narcissism.
Who?
Nikki Haley is not a serious candidate. DeSantis was nowhere near as strong as Trump either.
DeSantis was far superior - not so old, not indicted, hasn't lost to Biden once already, not involved in a bunch scandals, can serve two terms, not obese, better on handling Covid, not related to Kushner, on the right of Trump on various issues, etc.
Those are all kind of nice I guess, but the negatives of "being part of the GOP establishment" are just too big. It wouldn't matter if you pulled out a Dragonball Z power-level scouter and got an objective reading that Desantis had a political powerlevel ten times higher than Trump's - he's not on the same team nor does he actually care about the needs and wants of the base.
It's not 2016 anymore. Trump is integrated with the GOP establishment now. RNC chair Ronna McDaniel was his toadie. He endorsed both previous speaker McCarthy and current speaker Johnson.
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I preferred DeSantis too. But elections are contests and it was Trump's job to beat him, which he did, fairly; it would be silly for someone whose preference is DeSantis > Trump > Biden to punish Trump for doing so by not voting for him (or even voting for Biden) in the general.
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Trump is currently poised to beat Biden in the general. MAGA likes Trump and Trump likes MAGA. J6 or whatever aside, no politician in America today has withstood as much pressure as Trump, and if Trump wanted to sell out his base, he could have. We could argue all day about this, but your complaints to me don't add anything that hasn't been debated a million times before.
Twenty years ago before MAGA even existed, its precursors like the Tea Party had almost no institutional support. Ten years ago, the conservative faction was represented by people like Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor, and Trump's nomination was hotly, hotly contested. Today, MAGA is the dominant faction in Republican politics, even marshaling the commitment to unseat a Speaker of the House, and establishment Republicans have largely made peace with Trump as the leader. Like it or hate it, MAGA is proving effective at taking over the Republican Party. In light of that, it's hard to argue that MAGA is especially irrational. They are clearly one of the most effective factions currently operating in American politics.
"MAGA" from the 2016 campaign trail or "MAGA" from the 'legal immigration is actually good for the economy' that Trump started parroting in office after one too many a meeting with the fine folks from the Heritage Foundation?
"MAGA" is an empty political slogan that one too many 'right wing' American pours all their hopes and dreams into. It's vague enough to fit all of them. Vote for change!
To give a factual example of why "MAGA" is a marketing thing and not a political thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2018_United_States_federal_government_shutdown
"MAGA", if it ever was a thing, caved in, got on all fours and kissed the ring of TPTB. No wall, no deportations, more immigration. That has been its state ever since.
What happened to illegal and legal immigration numbers when Trump was in office?
Illegal immigration enforcement had its worst years since the establishment of ICE in 2003.
Legal immigration fell during COVID but otherwise it only slightly decreased.
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Tea party was about fiscal responsibility. At the end of Trump administration US was close to outright socialism, with the stimmy checks, rent moratorium and unemployment paying more than a minimum wage job. If Tea party mutated into that, that's some real "Cthulhu only swims left" stuff. Your guy wins a popularity contest and you completely lose any mission objective along the way.
Some people (you) will never be happy. But, by the standards most people would use, MAGA is increasingly successful. Your drive-by caricature-summaries aren't persuasive or accurate.
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