The Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement has carried Donald Trump to the White House and inspired multiple parallel movements in Europe. Moises de Souza argues that if progressive parties are to respond, they must reclaim the narratives MAGA has co-opted from the left.
As democratic left and liberal forces on both sides of the Atlantic struggle to reinvent a compelling discourse on social inclusion and mobility, they have tragically ceded the language of daily economic hardship to exclusionary, MAGA-inspired movements.
These forces focus on globalisation, predatory elites and self-serving institutions – long standing concerns of progressives and liberals – but repackage them in service of cultural resentment and radical nationalism. In this vacuum, the narrative of working-class resurgence is increasingly wielded to divide rather than unite.
MAGA and the left
Understanding how this inversion took place is key if progressives are to counter the populist tide. Consider MAGA’s attacks on free trade, financial markets and the so-called “deep state”. These are foundational targets for the left. The idea that globalisation benefits a selfish transnational elite while shipping out domestic industry and eroding democratic accountability was a staple of left-wing critiques in the 1990s and early 2000s.
The term “deep state” was popularised among left-leaning scholars by Peter Dale Scott as “top-down or closed power, as opposed to the open power of the public state or res publica that represents the people as a whole”. Using this kind of language would at one time in the United States have seen you labelled a “socialist”, but today, it is central to the MAGA movement.
Steve Bannon, one of the primary architects of MAGA, is a case in point. On several occasions, he has described his movement as something that seeks to unite economic nationalism with cultural traditionalism. He frequently rails against global finance, the offshoring of jobs and a corporate betrayal of the working class.
These are concerns that once united moderate liberals and democratic socialists. When countries shifted to neoliberalism in the 1990s, it was the left that gave voice to fears about unregulated capitalism. Now, the roles appear reversed.
The left’s retreat
This dissonance has been magnified by the left’s own retreat. Embracing parts of the neoliberal agenda was the price paid by progressive parties to become electorally competitive in Europe and Latin America in the early 2000s. This has resulted in the left moving away from the promise of economic justice in favour of managerial centrism.
The case of Brazilian President Lula da Silva is illustrative. Lula was victorious in the 2022 Brazilian election not because he gave voice to progressive hope but because he was viewed as the lesser evil to Jair Bolsonaro’s authoritarian populism. Lula’s discourse remains trapped in the early 2000s, while the electorate is living in a post-2020 reality shaped by AI, social media and post-pandemic precarity. His administration has appeared more reactive than visionary, often caught in a time loop – unsure how to respond to a vastly different economic and cultural landscape.
The primary consequence of this phenomenon is that across the western world, the left has aimed for defensive wins built on the electorate’s rejection of the right rather than an embrace of the left’s social and economic programme. Once back in power, progressive governments often fall back on outdated templates that served them well in the past in the hope of shifting macroeconomic indicators in a positive direction.
But good economic numbers do not convince people whose daily lives are marked by unaffordable groceries and stagnant wages. In several recent elections, including Trump’s victory in 2024, positive economic indicators have failed to resonate with a large part of the public, many of whom have simply stopped listening to a discourse from left-wing incumbents that they view as increasingly detached from daily realities.
A frustrated generation
If progressive political forces have misunderstood their traditional base, what can we say about the current generation? Well, things are not much better. Socialists and liberals alike have failed to grasp the political psychology of today’s youth. They are, at once, more progressive on identity politics but more materialist in economic aspirations – and less satisfied with life.
Beyond ideology, young voters are demanding something practical: they want policies that get things done. Politicians are supposed to solve problems and make life concretely better from one administration to the next, regardless of which party is in charge. As dysfunctional politics has set the tone in democracies, this practical perspective has evolved into repeated cycles of frustration. The result is anger and a deep sense of betrayal.
Zygmunt Bauman diagnosed this frustration in his reflections on the London riots of 2011, noting that “these are not hunger or bread riots. These are riots of defective and disqualified consumers”. The exasperation was – and still is – not simply about poverty but about being invisible in a society where visibility is capital and where the wheel of social mobility is dramatically slowing down.
The progressive void
All these developments point to a broader political crisis: liberals and progressives are struggling to craft a new narrative that captures the energy of this restless age. Think tanks like the IPPR have urged a radical rethink of progressive politics for the 21st century, calling for a new social contract, post-neoliberal governance and bold visions of shared prosperity. They would do well to make these ideas to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Starmer’s Labour Party is seemingly willing to risk legitimising exclusionary narratives by embracing populist positions on migration in exchange for short-sighted electoral gains. Yet the ideas needed for the left to fight back exist: economic democratisation, climate justice, fair tech and cooperative ownership, to name a few. If they intend to remain relevant, progressive forces in Europe, the US and Latin America can’t afford to be ashamed or hesitant about these ideas.
To reconnect with the working class, democratic liberals and progressives must ultimately reclaim the narratives they have abandoned. This does not mean embracing toxic nationalism or cultural exclusion. It means acknowledging that, despite the divisive worldviews of MAGA and its sister movements in Europe, they correctly point the finger at the failures of global capitalism and the impact these failures have had on the working class.
Make no mistake, movements like MAGA are dangerous – precisely because they speak to real people’s problems while offering unrealistic and simplistic solutions (like tariffs). Progressive forces must address the same grievances with clear vision and confidence. After all, the prosperity of the post-war era in Europe was founded on liberal values and social justice: everything that MAGA and its sympathisers stand against.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: Schager / Shutterstock.com
