New polling finds that a majority of Americans view Donald Trump’s far right political movement as a threat to American democracy.
According to a survey done by Reuters/Ipsos last week, 58 percent of respondents believe that Trump’s so-called Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement threatens to undermine democracy.
The poll found that one in four Republicans also agree that MAGA is threatening democracy. Though this number does not represent the majority of Republicans, it shows that a significant portion of the party’s base rejects the extremist bent that many mainstream Republicans have embraced in recent years. The survey also found that 60 percent of Republicans don’t think MAGA represents the majority of the party.
The findings add to evidence from other recent polls that Trump’s popularity — if it existed in the first place — is waning. Only a third of voters in a recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll said they believe Trump should run for president again, while 61 percent said he shouldn’t.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted in the days following President Joe Biden’s speeches warning of the threat of “semi-fascism” within the Republican Party, in which Biden issued his strongest rebukes of the right since he took office.
“MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people,” Biden said last week in a speech in Pennsylvania. “They refuse to accept the results of a free election. And they’re working right now, as I speak, in state after state, to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself.”
Political experts and anti-fascists have been warning for years of the threat that Trump and his movement pose to a democratic society — even before he took office. His actions to gag government scientists, repeal regulations whole cloth, normalize the perpetuation of blatant lies from far right politicians and resurrect open white supremacy in the mainstream Republican Party have continually empowered the party to suppress facts and uplift its most extreme figures.
It is fitting that Trump ended his first term by rejecting the results of the 2020 presidential election and stoking an attempted coup to violently force lawmakers to overturn the will of American voters, as historians say that Trump and his movement have brought the U.S. to the brink of fascism and, potentially, the end of American democracy.
Republican lawmakers and political figures across the country have seized upon Trump’s election-denial to implement dozens of voter suppression laws and even establish blatantly fascist institutions like a so-called election police force put in place by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this year.
Despite the unpopularity of the MAGA movement among the public, however, extremist Republicans have been finding success in state and federal elections. According to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight earlier this week, over half of Americans will have an election denier on their midterm ballot this fall, with 256 candidates running for state or federal office that outright or somewhat deny the results of the 2020 election.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.