this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2025
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MAGA didn't start with the RNC demanding loyalty for party politics, it started after a bunch of online gamers mobilized against women in video games and took the party over.
Democrats dont have the same motion because they keep tossing water on any populist energy in their base, and that's exactly what is being criticized in the meme
No, maga started with the tea party taking over and demanding loyalty. You literally had to sign loyalty oaths that dictated acceptable policy or risk getting primaried by these wackos.
There have always been fringe reactionary elements in the republican party, just like there have always been fringe socialist elements in the democratic party.
IMO, that reactionary movement didn't reach critical mass until the populist gamergate movement and all the cultural backlash that followed. Trump likely would not have won in 2016 if there hadn't been widespread reactionary sentiment already boiling over in online spaces.
Similarly, democrats can't count on winning if they ignore the populist sentiment simmering in their own party, and even less if they continue actively suppressing it.
Trump had nothing to do with gamergate. He won in 2016 because the DNC had given up on getting the working class vote which lost them key rust belt states. They were so sure helping Trump win the primary would be an auto win in the general, they barely bothered campaigning at all.
No disagreement, but they believed he would lose because they miscalculated just how popular he was becoming in that demographic. They assumed either a typical republican turnout, or slightly reduced due to centrist republicans being turned off by his populism and abrasive aesthetic. They didn't expect the high turnout among young white men, and a big motivation for those voters was a reactionary misogynistic and anti-establishment resentment. That Hillary was a white woman from the political elite class amplified that sentiment, too.
He didn't 'have anything to do' with gamergate directly, but that movement is what set the environment for his popularity. Had that demographic remained politically apathetic, there's a good chance the election would have gone more like what the democrats were expecting. And had the democrats run a more populist candidate/policy platform that addressed the sinking popularity among their own base, they might have overcome that higher turnout on the republican side.
They seem poised to replay the same strategy, though - Newsome is a milquetost neoliberal candidate from the political elite class, and unless trump actually sinks his own coalition, Newsome likely won't activate enough of the democratic base (who is increasingly unhappy with the party) to beat a similar high anti-establishment voter base on the republican side. I'm praying AOC actually runs, or another progressive with a populist economic agenda, and that the democrats don't fuck themselves and the entire country over by working against the popular sentiment among young democrats and non-voters. It would be a huge mistake for them to assume trump is unpopular enough to ignore their own unpopularity within the progressive side of their caucus.
I don't know why you keep trying to bring gamergate into it. That didn't have anything to do with it.
Because trump's rise through the republican party was predicated on a popular reactionary movement that was - at the very least - far less prominent during the rush limbaugh days. Democrats made a political calculation that Trump couldn't win, and that calculation included factoring in the green party voters for trump. The part they missed is that the culture had shifted, and a big part of that shift happened during and after gamergate in a demographic they weren't expecting to turn out.
You have your causal relationship wrong. Gamergate was not causal in electing Trump. That's a bit like saying satanic panic got Reagan elected.
The alternative being, what exactly? Trump creating the environment of resentment himself?
I think that's hubris. If that were true, then the American political system is so unstable that all it takes for a fascist takeover is the right person to come along and flip a switch.
Edit: im also not saying gamergate caused Trump to get elected, only that it lead to the environment where he could win
The fascist takeover was facilitated by the compromised republican party infiltrating every level of government with cultists. Literally nothing to do with gamergate.
Compromised by who? Who elected them? And why did they elect them?
Mostly the religious right because they are easily mislead.
"That would mean all it would take is for the right person to come along and flip a switch"
This is idiotic and the dems will never win again if this is their understanding.
That's all Trump really did. He latched on to the inherent racism of the tea party and religious right and just started saying the quiet part out loud.
Gamergate had literally nothing to do with it in any way shape or form.
He rode a popular wave of anti-establishment resentment.
Unless you think the Joe Rogan fanbase is comprised of religious fanatics, you've missed the same cultural undercurrent that the Democrats have missed.
You're trying to insert cultural undercurrent that doesn't exist. I know you have some sort of vendetta you're working through, but try not to let it cloud your judgement.
I dont have any kind of vendetta, it's an extremely well known analysis of current US affairs
Im not sure why you're so intent on dismissing culture as a relevant context to the rise of MAGA. Most political scientists agree that Trump marked a notable shift and a deviation from political norms and assumptions from pre-2012 politics. Even insisting on the 'religious right' doesn't explain Trump's popular appeal at a point in time when religious participation in the US is at an all-time low. Seems to me like it might be you with a vendetta, since your explanation seems to boil down to 'religious bigots are dumb'
lol. If you can't do better than "no you" you might want to just stop.
Let's assume your narrative is correct (and it probably is).
You still failed to answer a single question OP asked.
Because OP is asking the wrong questions.