Perhaps it is helpful to examine their views on American history to understand what Donald Trump and MAGA are all about. For Democrats, Trump and his supporters represent a regression to a bygone era. For MAGA, it is an effort to return to a period of what they perceive as traditional moral standards and a reinstating of small-town values. Both groups have reason to complain that the other sought dominance over their way of life.

Consider Trump’s fondness for tariffs and his attempt to protect American jobs from outside competition. To people in the old industrial Midwest and Northeast, it meant the disappearance of communities and certainties. Once prosperous areas, like Detroit, Pittsburgh, and other industrial hubs, lost their identities. Over the years, steel and iron, symbols of a vibrant era, disappeared, families moved, and perceptions of self-worth changed.

Meanwhile, a new culture emerged that upset the balance. Tourism, High Tech, and the knowledge industry replaced or attempted to replace the old order. Suddenly, the pride of construction and manufacturing gave way to an uncertain new entrepreneur culture. Some workers left for the Sunbelt and others for the West Coast. Meanwhile, new urban centers spread out, and the old industrial neighborhoods became boutiques, high-end restaurants, and, more importantly, were marked by expensive home prices and exorbitant rents. Communities were defined less by their spiritual content and more by their consumer society.

Moreover, political parties began to appeal disproportionately to the new economic elites, often making their differences indistinguishable. Suddenly, the content of your character was replaced by your bank account or educational pedigree. Trump disrupted this arrangement in 2016, arguing that those left behind by NAFTA needed to be heeded. Of course, he also gave exorbitant tax cuts to the financial elites.

When Democrats saw their blue wall shattered in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania in 2016 and again in 2024, they were surprised. They should not have been; these tendencies had been present for decades. In his various presidential campaigns in 1964, 1972, and 1976, George Wallace, in the Democratic primaries and his third-party run in 1968, demonstrated that all was not right in consensus America.

During these campaigns, Wallace denounced “pointy-headed judges” and “bearded bureaucrats,” who he swore only used their briefcases to carry their lunch. Like Trump, he loved rallies and had sway over parts of the Democratic Party. Now it is true he relied on racist and cultural appeals to get his votes, but liberals, libertarians and the like should have seen it coming.

Now, critics of Trump and his antecedents have insisted that changes in economics and social patterns were inevitable, but they often ignored those groups that felt lost in their own country. Trump and his followers may have exaggerated and been incorrect in their solutions, but they were not seeing ghosts. Understanding the woes of the MAGA voter is necessary to grasping Trump’s phenomenon.