Political chicanery with lies and fake news about opposition candidates have been part of the democratic process as long as there have been democracies. You can bet that in ancient Greece and Rome during their democratic periods, candidates and their supporters spread false stories about their opponents to tarnish them in the eyes of the voters. That’s always been considered normal and expected when elections occur. Candidates try to elevate their own status and denigrate the status of their opponents. However, with the availability and growth of social media in the 21st century, the ability to spread falsehoods and fake stories about a candidate’s opponents and to fabricate positive stories about one’s self has expanded a thousand-fold or more. And with the advent of AI, it’s even worse.
With AI, images of candidates can be created and manipulated to have them saying things that they never said or doing things that they never did. Obviously, opposition candidates could be depicted in various negative and malign acts and making comments about constituents that were degrading and hateful. Each candidate’s tech team could also show the opposition candidate involved in corrupt acts or have other figures criticizing the opposition candidate for corruption. Statistics could also be fabricated showing a candidate’s proposals in a negative light and harming rather than helping his or her constituents. These falsehoods could be broadcast repeatedly over social media by different figures providing them with more authenticity. Candidates could fight back by broadcasting their own versions of events, but those previously implanted ideas would be difficult to rebut. And even if the false narratives swayed a small proportion of the voters, it might be enough to tip an election in favor of the person promoting the falsehoods. With AI, not only could voices be simulated and false photos used, but videos that were completely fabricated could be employed.
Autocratic states like Russia, Belarus, China and Iran could use AI as well to support candidates that they preferred and whom they believed they would be able to manipulate. This is being done currently in Eastern Europe in nations like Romania. There was so much false information about candidates circulated in Romania that the judiciary nullified the first round of voting which will have to be repeated. However, how will fabricated information be blocked the next time around. And other democracies in Europe and Asia will and have faced the same challenges as autocratic nations spread false information to support the candidates they favor, usually the far right.
It is believed by some that Russia may have hacked U.S. social media in the 2016 presidential election to disseminate information that helped Trump win. And it is possible Russia and China have been spreading falsehoods in other important senatorial elections and additional presidential elections. We do not have adequate technology and computer wizards to stop all false information originating from foreign nations and our own country from influencing elections. If a way is not found to block all local and foreign false information on social networks using AI, democracy may have difficulty surviving.
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When asked what MAGA means to him, Trump, in a 2017 interview with The Washington Post
said, “To me, it meant jobs. It meant industry, and meant military strength. It meant taking care of our veterans. It meant so much.”
But Democratic leaders have a different interpretation of the slogan.
Former President Bill Clinton in 2016
said of MAGA: “That message where ‘I’ll give you America great again’ is if you’re a white Southerner, you know exactly what it means, don’t you? What it means is ‘I’ll give you an economy you had 50 years ago, and I’ll move you back up on the social totem pole and other people down.”
While MAGA is ubiquitous, little is known about what it means to the American public. Ten years on, what do Americans think when they hear or read this phrase?
Based on the analysis of Americans’ explanations of what “Make America Great Again” means to them, we found evidence suggesting that the public’s views of MAGA mirror the perspectives offered by both Trump and Clinton.
Republicans interpret this phrase as a call for the renewal of the U.S. economy and military might, as well as a return to “traditional” values, especially those relating to gender roles and gender identities. Democrats, we found, view MAGA as a call for a return to white supremacy and growing authoritarianism.
Donald Trump rides an escalator to a press event to announce his candidacy for the U.S. presidency at Trump Tower on June 16, 2015, in New York City. Christopher Gregory/Getty Images
The survey question was open-ended, allowing respondents to define this phrase in any way they saw fit. We used AI-based thematic analysis and qualitative reading of the responses to better understand how Democrats and Republicans define the slogan.
For our AI-based thematic analysis, we instructed ChatGPT to provide three overarching themes most touched upon by Democratic and Republican respondents. This approach follows recent research demonstrating that, when properly instructed, ChatGPT reliably identifies broad themes
in collections of texts.
Republican interpretation of MAGA
Our analysis shows that Republicans view the slogan as representing the “American dream.” In part, MAGA is about restoring the nation’s pride and economic strength. Reflecting these themes, one Republican respondent wrote that MAGA means “encouraging manufacturers to hire Americans and strengthen the economy. Making the USA self-sufficient as it once was.”
MAGA is also closely related among Republicans with an “America First
” policy. This is partly about having a strong military – a common theme among Republican respondents – and “making America the superpower” again, one respondent wrote.
Republicans also wrote that putting America first means emphasizing strict enforcement of immigration laws against “illegals” and cutting off foreign aid. For example, one Republican respondent said that MAGA meant “stopping illegals at the border, ending freebies for illegals, adding more police and building a strong military.”
Finally, Republicans see the slogan as calling for a return to “traditional” values. They expressed a strong desire to reverse cultural shifts that Republican respondents perceive as a threat.
As one Republican put it, MAGA “means going back to where men would join the military, women were home raising healthy minded children and it was easy to be successful, the crime rate was extremely low and it used to be safe for kids to hang out on the streets with other kids and even walk themselves places.”
Another Republican made the connection between MAGA and traditional gender roles even more explicit, highlighting the link between MAGA and opposition to transgender rights: “MAGA people know there are only 2 sexes and a man can never be a woman. If you believe otherwise you are destroying AMERICA.”
A banner showing a picture of President Donald Trump is displayed outside of the U.S. Department of Agriculture building on June 3, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Kevin Carter/Getty Images
Democratic MAGA views
Democrats have a very different understanding of the MAGA slogan. Many Democrats view MAGA as a white supremacist movement designed to protect the status of white people and undermine the civil rights of marginalized groups.
One Democrat argued that “‘Make America Great Again’ is a standard borne by people who’ve seen a decrease in the potency of their privilege (see: cisgendered white men) and wish to see their privilege restored or strengthened. In essence, it’s a chant for all racist, fascist and otherwise bigoted actors to unite under.”
Another Democrat wrote that MAGA was a call to “take us backwards as a society in regards to women’s, minority’s, and LGBTQ people’s rights … It would take us to a time when only White men ruled.”
Democrats also view MAGA as a form of nostalgia for a heavily mythologized past. Many Democratic respondents described the past longed for by Republicans as a “myth” or “fairytale.” Others argued that this mythologized past, though appealing on the surface, was repressive for many Americans.
One Democrat said that MAGA meant “returning America to a fantasy version of the past with the goal of advancing the success of white, straight, wealthy men by any means necessary and almost always to the detriment of other segments of the population.”
A person holds a ‘Trump won’t erase us’ sign while walking in the WorldPride Parade on June 7, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Kevin Carter/Getty Images
Finally, many Democrats interpret the slogan as reflecting an authoritarian cult of personality. In this vein, a Democratic respondent said of MAGA, “It’s a call to arms for MAGA cult members, who believe that Trump and the Republicans party will somehow improve their lives by targeting people and policies they don’t like, even when it is against their best interests and any rational thought process.”
While some Republicans expressed racist, xenophobic or anti-trans sentiments in their understanding of MAGA, some Democrats revealed outright condescension toward MAGA believers.
“The MAGA’s are brainwashed, idiotic members of society who know nothing more than to follow the lead of an idiotic president who has the vocabulary of a 3rd grader,” one Democrat wrote. “It is nonsense idiots parrot,” another respondent said.
In all, in the 10 years since Donald Trump burst onto the political scene, much has been written
about the conflicting visions of past, present and future at the heart of America’s partisan divisions.
With the Trump administration’s proclaimed commitment to return the U.S. to its “golden age
” and a strong resistance to his efforts
, only time will tell which vision of America will prevail.
As the U.S. House of Representatives voted to approve
President Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic tax and spending package
, many critics are wondering how the president retained the loyalty of so many congressional Republicans, with so few defections.
Just three Republican senators – the maximum allowed for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act
to still pass – voted against the Senate version of the bill on July 1
, 2025. In the House, only two Republicans voted against the bill, which passed the chamber
on July 3.
Trump is not the first president to bend Congress to his will to get legislation approved.
Presidential supremacy over the legislative process has been on the rise
for decades. But contrary to popular belief, lawmakers are not always simply voting based on blind partisanship.
Increasingly, politicians in the same political party as a president are voting in line with the president because their political futures are as tied up with the president’s reputation as they have ever been
.
Even when national polling indicates a policy is unpopular – as is the case with Trump’s budget reconciliation bill
, which an estimated 55% of American voters said in June they oppose, according to Quinnipiac University polling
– lawmakers in the president’s party have serious motivation to follow the president’s lead.
Or else they risk losing reelection.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson speaks to reporters at the Capitol building on July 3, 2025. Alex Wong/Getty Images
Lawmakers increasingly partisan on presidential policy
Over the past 50 years, lawmakers in the president’s party have increasingly supported the president’s position on legislation that passes Congress. Opposition lawmakers, meanwhile, are increasingly united against the president’s position.
These patterns are unheard of in the modern Congress. In 2022, for example – a year of significant legislative achievement for the Biden administration – the Democratic majority in Congress voted the same way
as the Democratic president 99% of the time. Republicans, meanwhile, voted with Biden
just 19% of the time.
Elections can tell us why
Over the past half-century, the two major parties have changed dramatically, both in the absolutist nature of their beliefs and in relation to one another.
Both parties used to be more mixed in their ideological outlooks
, for example, with conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans playing key roles in policymaking. This made it easier to form cross-party coalitions
, either with or against the president.
A few decades ago, Democrats and Republicans were also less geographically polarized from each other. Democrats were regularly elected to congressional seats in the South, for example, even if those districts supported Republican presidents such as Nixon or Ronald Reagan.
These changes have ushered in a larger phenomenon called political nationalization
, in which local political considerations, issues and candidate qualifications have taken a back seat to national politics.
Ticket splitting
From the 1960s through most of the 1980s, between one-quarter and one-half of all congressional districts routinely split
tickets – meaning they sent a politician of one party to Congress while supporting a different party for president.
These are the same few districts
in Nebraska and New York, for example, that supported former Vice President Kamala Harris for president in 2024 but which also elected a Republican candidate to the House that same year.
Since the Reagan years, however, these types of districts that could simultaneously support a Democratic presidential nominee and Republicans for Congress have gone nearly extinct. Today, only a handful of districts split their tickets, and all other districts select the same party for both offices.
The past two presidential elections, in 2020 and 2024, set the same record low for ticket splitting. Just 16 out of 435 House districts voted for different parties for the House of Representatives and president.
Members of Congress follow their voters
The political success of members of Congress has become increasingly tied up with the success or failure of the president. Because nearly all Republicans hail from districts and states that are very supportive of Trump and his agenda, following the will of their voters increasingly means being supportive
of the president’s agenda.
Not doing so risks blowback from their Trump-supporting constituents. A June 2025 Quinnipiac University poll found that 67% of Republicans
support the bill, while 87% of Democrats oppose it.
These electoral considerations also help explain the unanimous opposition to Trump’s legislation by the Democrats, nearly all of whom represent districts and states that did not support Trump in 2024.
Thanks to party polarization in ideologies, geography and in the electorate, few Democrats could survive politically while strongly supporting Trump. And few Republicans could do so while opposing him.
But as the importance to voters of mere presidential support increases, the importance of members’ skill in fighting for issues unique to their districts has decreased. This can leave important local concerns about, for example, unique local environmental issues or declining economic sectors unspoken for. At the very least, members have less incentive to speak for them.
Disney CEO Bob Igor has called to re-evaluate Disney’s values and focus on entertaining, and refrain from messaging. Disney’s latest re-action remake has inspired some backlash over apparent “wokeness” in Snow White. There is a resistance movement that works to take things for the people-Snow White meets Occupy Wall Street anyone? There are some elements of “woke” in the re-make but critics are simply picking up on a trend in a lot of Disney movies and taking it out on Snow White. It isn’t called Snow White And The Seven Socialists.
Is it just me or was 2012’s Mirror Mirror much more “woke?” Mirror Mirror featured dwarfs that resembled the United Nations. Mirror Mirror actually reversed the prince rescues princess scenario. Mirror Mirror abolished the whole “poison apple/loves first kiss” segment. Snow White included this element of the story, it is rushed, but included nonetheless.
That’s not to say the 2025 Snow White is not flawed. The movie does include all the classic songs, but they are highly abbreviated. This is actually a good thing, as it helps the movie flow. However, there are a number of new songs composed for the movie. These songs all seem longer than the classics, and they all sound the same. Evil Queen Gal Gadot’s voice stays stuck with you, and not in a good way. What’s worse, she sings the same song throughout the movie. A live-action is one thing, but since when did Snow White become an operetta? The seven dwarfs singing actually sounds better the Gadot’s, yet Gadot’s song lasts longer. There is a reason why the music seems recycled from The Greatest Showman, it was. “Where The Good Things Grow” sounds exactly like ”The Greatest Show” with different lyrics. This is a sure fire way to fool someone at a game of “Name That Tune.”
Unfortunately, the classic songs are not the only thing shortened. The whole storyline of the resistance feels rushed, which is a shame because it is an interesting twist. It makes sense, one question the animation movie posses was Snow White and the seven dwarfs the only ones resisting the Queen? Another essential concept shortened was the Queen’s transformation. This was actually portrayed via a song, which strips of it its dark magic. Even in the animated movie, as the Queen prepares the potion, the viewer knows this is not just a potion making in progress. A new character, a new evil entity is being created in this scene. Disney passed up a chance to make this scene come to life on screen.
In an interview, Cate Blanchett said the 2015 Cinderella said she felt like the remake would make audiences feel like they were being told the story for the first time. She was right. Snow White felt like we were being told a different story, with some elements of the original sprinkled into it.
As for Snow White being too woke? Aside from the slight anti-establishment message of the resistance, not really. Snow White is played by a Hispanic actress — but she has no accent, and the male lead and the dwarfs are all as white as, well… snow. If this is political messaging, it’s pretty mild.
Unlike 2015’s Cinderella, which truly felt like it was telling the story for the first time, Snow White feels more like a remix — a different story, sprinkled with familiar elements from the original, and a bit of The Greatest Showman.
What’s most important to remember about the monstrous “big beautiful” bill ginned up by Trump’s Reichstag is that Republicans are just being themselves. They’ve always pined to fatten the fat cats and screw the average citizen – to take from the needy and give to the rich, like Robin Hood in reverse. None of this is new.
What’s different now is the sheer scale of the cruelty, the scope of the destruction, and the spineless fealty to a fascist. And what truly galls me is the Republicans’ repugnant hypocrisy.
In 2011, President Obama proposed tax hikes on the rich in order to buttress crucial federal programs that help tens of millions of Americans. In response, the Pavlovian Republicans barked their favorite rhetorical mantra: Dems are waging class warfare!
On the Sunday talk shows, House bigwig Paul Ryan (remember him?) said, “Class warfare will simply divide this country more.” Senator Lindsey Graham echoed, “When you say you’re going to tax those (rich) people, that’s class warfare.” And when Obama floated similar priorities in 2015, Senator Orrin Hatch inveighed against “redistribution and class warfare,” while, on the House side, Republicans seethed that Obama was “returning to the theme of class warfare.”
If memory serves, the pre-Trump GOP began to chant that phrase, via frequent repetition, some time around 1992. I first heard it that year when Bill Clinton ran for president with a pledge to raise some taxes on the wealthiest Americans. In response, incumbent George H. W. Bush scoffed that his foe was waging “class warfare,” seeking to “divide Americans rich from poor, one group from another.”
See how the game works? Republicans have long instinctively understood, far better than their oft-bumbling opponents, that capturing the language is crucially important. When you do that, when you frame the terms of debate, you have a darn good shot at winning hearts and minds. Particularly weak minds.
I’ll leave it to the shrinks to diagnose the passivity of the Democratic mindset, to try to fathom why the blue party has long allowed class warfare to become a weapon in the GOP’s arsenal. In reality, the Bloated Billionaire Bill is teed up to engineer the most historic transfer of wealth from middle- and low-income Americans to the richest. It’s the GOP that has waged class warfare with great success, most notably in 2001 when George W. Bush’s top-end tax cuts helped exacerbate the growing disparity between the rich and the lower classes; and again in 2017, when Trump’s tax cuts were rigged for the rich at the expense of us lesser beings.
Republicans have long skated relatively unscathed with their insistence that taxing the rich will “divide this country” – when, in fact, the rich have long been reaping disproportionate rewards. I hesitate to cite statistics, because they’re boring and fact-free fools won’t believe them anyway, but here’s something the Wall Street Journal discovered years ago while examining the impact of the Bush tax cuts: “The average tax rate for the top 400 earners in the U.S. fell to as low as 16.62 percent in 2007, from a recent peak of 29.9 percent in 1995.”
As billionaire Warren Buffett said in a 2006 interview, “There’s class warfare all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
But the richest Americans always want more – hence the current unholy alliance of oligarchy and fascism – and it’s clear that the only way a Republican can risk telling the truth is to quit the game. Exhibit A is Thom Tillis, the North Carolina senator who announced he won’t run for re-election. Having freed himself from servitude, he’s openly pissed that the MAGAts he serves with are waging class warfare against his constituents – 663,000 of whom are projected to lose their Medicaid coverage because the rich supposedly deserve more money.
In theory, Democrats should be well positioned to reap an anti-MAGA backlash in 2026 and “class warfare” should be their battle cry. It’s past time for the blue party to own that phrase and buttress it with the abundant evidence. With that goal in mind, here’s some rhetoric they can use:
“The privileged princes of the new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, (have) reached out for control over government itself. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power…In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.”
So said Franklin D. Roosevelt, who waged class warfare against the rich and championed the working stiff.
Seriously, how hard should that be?
Copyright 2025 Dick Polman, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Dick Polman, a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia and a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, writes the Subject to Change newsletter. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com
