Why MAGA?

 

Sometimes I think I understand the MAGA Movement, other times I don't. ChatGPT (here) reports that there are a handful of reasons. The best I can say right now is that it is complicated. My favorite explanation, that aligns with historical analysis of the Nazi Movement, is Right-Wing Reactionism. The failure and humiliation of loosing World War I led Germany to Nazism. The failures for the US are not so clear, but let me just explore Economic failures in this post.

Everything seems to have come to a head during the COVID-19 Pandemic which was a strong shock to the US Economy and was handled very poorly by the first Trump I Administration (2017-2021).

MAGA and Big Tech

To me, the alignment of the MAGA movement and Big Tech continues to be surprising. I have worked in Tech all my life because of the intellectual challenges and the ability to get things done (estimating statistical models, specifically) that couldn't reasonably be done on a desktop calculator. I don't find anything about the MAGA movement intellectually challenging but the Tech Bros seem to see MAGA as a way to get things done. What exactly are they trying to get done and, what if anything is the intellectual attraction?
 

Boiler Plate

Notes

The first six indicators in standard scores are taken from the World Development Indicators (WDI). KOF = KOF Index of Globalization, EF = Ecological Footprint, HDI = Human Development Index. 

See the rest of the Boiler Plate here.