The Post Election MAGA Neo-Reaganite Vibe Shift

Trump is president so stop bitching and go work at Panda Express

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There was a major vibe shift right after Trump was elected to this new exuberance and optimism that Trump will usher in this golden age of prosperity, that echoes Ronald Reagan. However, like with Reaganism this vibe shift entails a more sinister narrative that because everything is great now that Trump is in office, you have nothing to complain about so suck it up.

source: @realchrisrufo on X

source: @realchrisrufo on X

Conservative activist, Chris Rufo, best known for his opposition to Critical Race Theory, encapsulates this vibe shift by telling people to go out and apply for a job at Panda Express. Rufo is implicitly directing this message at young White men, gaslighting those who are complaining that they can’t find decent jobs due to their economic situation or anti-White discrimination, to lower their expectations.

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While anti-CRT crusader, Chris Rufo, acknowledges that anti-Whiteness is a problem, he encourages White Americans to remain atomized while pursuing this idealized classical liberal obsession with colorblind meritocracy, which is as utopian as Critical Race Theorists’ belief in equal outcomes. In an interview, he celebrated America becoming a totally racially blended society, which has traditionally been a leftist position. This also relates to James Lindsay, who is ideologically similar, with his cringe “Woke Right” meme, that those on the Right who are embracing identity politics for their ethnic or political tribe are the equivalent of woke leftists.

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The initial context of Chris Rufo telling frustrated young people to go work at Panda Express was gaslighting them that we have one of the greatest economies and job markets ever, in response to comments that were bearish about the economy and society. He is assuring them that things aren’t actually that bad, which totally counters the original grievance narrative of MAGA. Considering that he posted this about a week before Trump was inaugurated, technically he was defending Biden’s economy.

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Similarly, conservative pundit Matt Walsh commented that people should stop complaining, as the economy and inflation are not that bad, and like Rufo, posted this before Trump was inaugurated. Matt Walsh who used to be a conventional conservative, reinvented himself as this ultra based nationalist populist who even pushed White grievance politics, but is now again showing his true colors.

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After the election, I noticed an expected realignment on economic sentiment that conservatives who complained about how much the economy sucked, due to “Bidenomics” and “Bidenflation”, turned into the biggest economic bulls. The current rhetoric from MAGA personalities reminds me a lot of how the media and Democrat establishment gaslit people that Biden’s post pandemic recovery was one of the greatest economies and job markets in history, and dismissed bearish sentiment as a “vibe session.” Now liberals are much more bearish in that they predict Trump will crash the economy and cause inflation to surge.

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Since pushing overt austerity on people is terrible optics, hyper-bullishness or defending the status quo, like Rufo did, can be a way to mask austerity and stifle people from making demands from society, institutions, politicians, and elites. Rufo gives a “boomereque” story about how he pulled himself up by his bootstraps to succeed. While Zoomers often blame boomers for this, Rufo and Matt Walsh are about my age as older millennials. This “boomer” mentality is more class based, transcending age. Regardless, many hardcore Trump supporters were especially pissed off at Rufo because they believe that Trump will deliver all these grandiose promises and not a job at Panda Express.

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These Con Inc. and MAGA Inc. figures are doing very well under the current system, despite previously whining that they were victims of woke cancel culture. Thus they lack empathy for those, including fellow Trump supporters, who are experiencing real hardship. Rufo is especially hypocritical because he gets paid to write about politics and exists in this secure bubble, that is working for the Wall Street backed patronage network of the Manhattan Institute. Thus he does not have to worry about competing in the capitalist economy, nor does he have a “real job” like conservative chuds say. The Manhattan Institute was founded by former CIA director, William J. Casey in 1978, and was influential in Reagan’s welfare reform and the broken windows theory on crime, albeit is also in favor of expanding high skilled legal immigration.

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Not just normie MAGA chuds but a lot of the dissident right are nutting their pants and proclaiming “woke status defeated” over a Carl’s Jr. Super Bowl ad featuring a somewhat attractive scantily clad blonde White woman rather than an obese Black woman or a trans person. Somehow returning to the vapid trashy consumer culture and shallow jingoistic patriotism of the Bush era is some huge Trad victory. You have all these Trump supporters saying that they are going to watch football and the Super Bowl again, with Trump attending the recent Super Bowl, despite it still having a lot of woke stuff and Black identity politics. Someone who has long been demoralized and beaten down will interpret any scraps tossed their way as freedom and victory. Regardless, a lot of right-wingers desperately want to be normies and feel that it is the Left who are preventing them from being normies.

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There is this deradicalization process in which Trump supporters who had begun to seriously question the legitimacy of the American system and its institutions are now back to something more akin to post-911 or Reagan era patriotism. For instance, corporate America is great and driving America’s great economic engine now that they have tossed wokeness and CRT aside. This is also reflected in the recent surge in military recruitment, hitting a 15 year high, after a major shortage in recruits during the Biden era. Gullible Trump supporting young men are ready to sign up to die for the Military Industrial Complex and AIPAC because their hero Trump is in charge and the military is no longer woke.

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This coincides with a pro-social message and celebration of bourgeoise values that are being promoted by Con Inc. This is the antithesis of the anarchic F-You attitude of both the original MAGA and the Alt-Right. For instance, going from using racial epithets or making fun of LGBTQ people or feminists to be transgressive, including the nihilistic dark humor that emerged from 4chan to framing trans people as dangerous because they threaten bourgeois normie values or frighten Karens living in McMansions in suburban Dallas. It is analogous to the social conservatism and “church lady” moral hysterias of the Reagan and Bush eras.

The vibe of MAGA shifted from a pitchfork rebellion against the elite, albeit directed more against cultural elites like University Professors or Democratic government officials than billionaires, to this narrative that everyone is going to get rich due to Trump and Musk’s capitalist deregulation policies. Trump’s initial appeal was that he broke with the conventional conservative message of bootstraps, personal responsibility, and austerity, and told people that they were victims who got f-ed over by elites and outgroups like leftists and immigrants and that he was going to get retribution on their behalf.

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MAGA is a coalition of those resentful about being left behind and business interests, as well as strivers who expect to get rich due to tax cuts and deregulation, including crypto bros. While MAGA was initially prole coded, there is also this new upwardly mobile MAGA youth movement that harkens back to the 80s Yuppies or preppy country club young Republicans of the Reagan or Bush eras.

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Pictures of a Trump inauguration party went viral due to a disparaging New York Magazine article, The Cruel Kids Table. The attractive high status young people at the inauguration party likely come from affluent families, and stand in contrast with the scruffy working class coded crowd that is stereotypically associated with Trump rallies. Higher status young people are now more likely to associate with the Right than just several years ago. The conundrum is that attracting more successful people is a sign of political success but these people are often more invested in maintaining the status quo.

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I suspect that much of this abrupt vibe shift is oligarch astroturfed, such as to quell any anti-capitalist sentiment among young people who voted for Trump. However, this is not necessarily all astroturfed as a lot of MAGA were former normie conservatives who got radicalized as recently as the George Floyd riots and Covid and are quickly going back to their old ways. Even many on the dissident right feel like they put all this effort into politics, and now just want to enjoy their victory, relax, and not worry about politics, which is a very complacency mentality.

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I don’t foresee this neo-Reaganite vibe shift succeeding, as younger people on the Right are so different ideologically than older generations and the Overton Window shifted so much on the Right. Also, this neo-Reaganite ideology is dependent upon economic prosperity and upward mobility, which I don’t see with the state of the economy, income inequality, and the incoming mass automation of jobs. America today has none of the prosperity, demographic composition, or cultural aspects of the 1980s.

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