26 April 2023

The MAGA Movement Is A Noisy Minority

In Nixon's day, conservatives liked to say that they were a "silent majority", but today's far right movement is the opposite: a noisy minority.

The notable parts of a new poll on favorability rating for the MAGA movement are its shallow support in the GOP and very weak support among independents as well as Democrats. Supporters of the movement that President Trump co-opted, radicalized, and took the helm of are the most vocal force on the political right and have greatly influenced Republican politics, but it isn't just the political left that rejects this movement. The "reasonable right" may have gone underground, but it isn't gone.
24% of respondents viewed the [MAGA] . . . movement favorably, while nearly twice as many, 45%, expressed their distaste for [it] . . . .  Among Republicans, a modest majority of 52% hold a favorable view of the MAGA movement. . . . among the unaffiliated, with a mere 12% of independents giving it their blessing. . . . Rural dwellers, the highest-ranked geographic subgroup, offer the most robust support, with just over a third viewing the movement positively.

Via Boing Boing citing an new NBC News poll. The NBC News story goes on to say that:

More than a third of rural Americans have positive views of the movement, the highest of any geographic subgroup. And the movement received its highest mark from white Americans, with a 29% positive rating, of any racial subgroup.

Men over the age of 50 were evenly split, with 36% voicing positive views and 37% voicing negative views. And a combined 58% of those with a high school degree or less and those who attended technical or vocational schools view the movement positively.

On the flip side, the movement received its highest negative ratings from groups that make up the Democratic base: the higher educated, younger people, people of color, particularly Black people, and those who define themselves as liberals.

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