How MAGA lost its way

British readers may have a tough time with this question, but could Keir Starmer represent the future of America? To be sure, the UK prime minister is a world-class political fool, managing to trash his impressive electoral mandate in short order. But his cacophony of income redistribution, mass migration, censorship and draconian climate policies could soon be playing at full blast on the Potomac.

As with the Tories at the last UK General Election, the MAGA GOP is losing the support of much of its electoral base. Even the pro-Trump New York Post suggests the president’s bombast cannot ‘solve his very real economic problems’.

Claiming that the cost-of-living crisis is ‘a scam’ and a ‘con job’, as Trump does, is not a good look – and terrible politics. This is particularly damaging for a president who was elected with working-class support, yet projects a clear preference for his fellow magnates – his is by far the most billionaire-dominated cabinet in US history. Worse still, some of his key backers, particularly in the tech world, embrace the neo-monarchist, top-down ideology promoted by the likes of Curtis Yarvin and other equally noxious eugenicists. Yarvin wants a king, which is perhaps an appealing idea for Trump.

Caught in their billionaire bubble, the Trumpistas, like the elite Democrats of recent years, seem unable to comprehend the cost-of-living crisis, the roots of which lie in the Biden administration. Democrats ignored inflation to their own peril in 2024, and now Republicans are doing much the same. The fact that Wall Street bonuses are soaring and the number of billionaires increasing to record levels will be of little comfort to rank-and-file MAGA supporters struggling to make ends meet.

Disillusionment with Trump is growing fastest among those who, according to a study from the Manhattan Institute, are generally younger, less conservative on economic issues, and more susceptible to conspiracy theories. It is among this group that far-right ideology – including the noxious anti-Semitism of Nick Fuentes – has gained adherents.

Many young people who gave Trump surprising support in 2024 are also turning against capitalism. They increasingly support expanded government and greater income redistribution. A majority of under-40s strongly favours limiting wealth, and a large portion wants to cap incomes at one million dollars per year. Even in the US, then, the majority of young people now embrace a vague state socialism as a better model for society.

Wealth taxes and income caps may be flawed policies, but young people’s disillusionment is very real. It’s based on diminishing economic prospects, declining earnings and a job market getting tougher even for college graduates – a trend that could be further exacerbated by the rise of artificial intelligence. Today, barely half of all people under 30, according to one survey, have full-time jobs.

As they did in 2024, these voters at the 2026 midterms and 2028 presidential election may well feel a similar urge to stick it to the billionaire class. Unease about the economic future could lead to a new Democrat-controlled House, and maybe a Democrat-controlled Senate as well. They would have little reason to work with Trump, as they did with Reagan and the Bushes, because the egomaniacal Trump and his courtiers remain so bedazzled by their 2024 mandate that they refuse to consult them much.

Once they take back control, particularly of the White House, so-called progressives will try to erase even the good things Trump has done – on climate policy, border security and defence – and will work hard to go in the opposite direction. In congress, we may see another round of pointless and distracting impeachments.

Much of the blame for this prospect can be attributed to the administration’s own blunders. Trump’s overly brutal immigration crackdown and relentless score-settling make him seem more of an autocrat than he really is, and leave the GOP vulnerable.

As my friends in North Dakota say on minus-20 degrees Celsius days, the weather could still get worse, and likely will. By 2029, we could have a Democratic president and congress anxious to restore climate policies that will drive up the price of gasoline and electricity, loosen the border and welcome a tsunami of cheap Chinese products. DEI and transgenderism will once again become priorities. Expect as well a drive to support the UK and EU’s penchant for Orwellian speech codes, selective prosecution and censorship.

In the end, the failures of MAGA could leave America much less great. This won’t bother many of the very oligarchs now genuflecting to Trump. They would be equally, if not more, comfortable with someone like California governor Gavin Newsom and the quasi-woke ‘abundance’ agenda – after all, Trump still threatens their desire for cheap imported labour and offshoring production. Also, I expect the media-academia clerisy, now more evenly divided but still predominantly ‘progressive’, to raise their agenda again.

James Carville, the strategist who engineered Bill Clinton’s rise, believes that the GOP’s loss of younger voters could guarantee ‘40 years’ of Democratic dominance. Certainly, in the short-run, the same forces that elected Starmer in Britain – notably the public-sector workers, hip professionals and disgruntled minorities – could also bring their power to bear in Washington. Having Donald Trump as president may be no boon to liberal ideals, much less civility, but what lurks around the corner, as Britain has already found out, could be much worse. At least until those rascals, as seems highly likely, are tossed out yet again.

Joel Kotkin is a spiked columnist, a presidential fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University in Orange, California, and a senior research fellow at the University of Texas’ Civitas Institute.