EDITORIAL: MAGA is what happens when you have no friends

Why Trumpism thrives on loneliness, resentment, and manufactured identity

If you want to understand what has happened to the Republican Party—how it transformed from a center-right political coalition into something unrecognizable—you need to understand the emotional and social vacuum that helped give rise to MAGA. You need to look beyond the slogans and the rallies and the red hats and start with one basic, uncomfortable truth: MAGA thrives in loneliness.

That doesn’t mean every Trump supporter is physically isolated. Plenty are embedded in churches, small towns, and tight-knit online communities. But those networks often serve to reinforce ideological isolation. They become echo chambers for grievance, fear, and misinformation. And in those echo chambers, Donald Trump offered something potent: not policy, not competence, not truth, but identity and belonging rooted in anger.

MAGA appeals to people who feel abandoned—not just by the economy, or by culture, but by the sense that they matter in the eyes of society. For many, Trump arrived as a savior. Not because he had the answers, but because he told them they were not the problem. He told them they were victims of a rigged system, of Marxists and immigrants, of cultural elites and deep state bureaucrats. He made resentment into a worldview and grievance into a form of solidarity.

Trump’s genius—if one dares call it that—was his ability to convert social isolation into political loyalty. He turned “owning the libs” into a lifestyle brand. And when you peel back the layers, you see something that looks far less like a traditional political movement and far more like a personality cult. You see people dressing up in Trump costumes, painting their cars with his face, and joining Facebook groups that offer not policy debates but community rituals of shared outrage. These people don’t just vote for Trump—they build their identity around him.

This movement is not fueled by hope or aspiration. It is powered by a desire for revenge. Revenge against a world that moved on without them. Against a modernity they feel excluded from. Against diversity they don’t understand and social changes they feel were forced upon them. And that desire for revenge takes on many forms—book bans, school board threats, cruel immigration rhetoric, demonization of LGBTQ+ people. What binds it all together is not ideology. It’s emotion. Often unprocessed, sometimes justified, but nearly always redirected toward enemies—real or imagined.

The MAGA worldview needs enemies to survive. It needs a permanent sense of siege, a constant refrain that "they" are coming for “us.” It needs Fox News to stoke the fear. It needs Newsmax to affirm the lies. And it needs Trump—or someone like him—to promise that loyalty, not truth, is the highest virtue. That no matter how corrupt, criminal, or cruel he may be, it’s all okay because he’s their guy. He made them feel seen.

But make no mistake: Trump doesn’t know these people. He has never lived their lives or shared their struggles. He was born into wealth, educated at private schools, and surrounded by sycophants. The irony is painful—he built his empire on gold-plated walls while convincing millions that he’s one of them. They’d die for him. He wouldn’t lift a finger for them.

Still, he gave them something seductive: a story. A simple, emotionally satisfying story in which they are heroes betrayed by villains. It’s not about the complicated truth of globalization, automation, systemic racism, or institutional decay. It’s about a clean line between “us” and “them,” between the righteous and the corrupt, the patriots and the traitors. It’s easier than critical thinking. It’s certainly easier than empathy.

This is what makes MAGA fundamentally antisocial—not just in how it treats outsiders, but in how it views social connection itself. Connection based on mutual respect, on pluralism, on understanding—that’s not the goal. The goal is domination, not dialogue. Loyalty, not community. Belonging through exclusion, not inclusion.

So no, not all MAGA voters are friendless loners. But MAGA as a movement is deeply rooted in the social decay of loneliness, alienation, and disconnection. It offers people a way to belong—by hating the same people. It offers them meaning—not through shared purpose, but through shared enemies.

If we want to fight this movement, we can’t just fact-check it or ridicule it. We have to rebuild what it replaces. That means addressing the epidemic of loneliness. It means creating economic opportunity, yes—but also real spaces for connection, for identity, for belonging that isn’t built on grievance. It means resisting the temptation to mirror their tactics and instead model something different.

MAGA isn’t just a political movement—it’s a symptom of a society that has allowed too many people to slip through the cracks. And until we confront that, the politics of vengeance will keep winning hearts, even if it loses elections.