STILL SWINGING

MAGA continues to act like a movement under siege. Having gained power, it struggles to accept it now embodies the establishment it once railed against

- BY ALEX J. ROUHANDEH

WHAT CONSTITUTES “MAGA” TODAY HAS become increasingly difficult to define—especially now that it controls the very institutions it once fought against.

“MAGA is me,” President Donald Trump said in a January NBC interview. “MAGA loves everything I do, and I love everything I do, too.” However, for a movement facing Trump’s term limit in under three years, that definition may no longer be enough.

If the people who make up MAGA are supposed to be living in a “Golden Age of America,” as Trump likes to say, maybe the acronym’s meaning needs an update to Made America Great Again. But is the movement, focused as much on retribution and grievances as it is, even capable of rejoicing in its own triumphs?

The Conservative Political Action Conference has long been the safe place for the conservative id to perform without restraint, often casting doubts about its own Republican political leaders as much as liberal forces. A presidential straw poll at CPAC 2010 went decisively for Ron Paul over eventual Republican nominee Mitt Romney. That effect could still be felt in March as CPAC 2026’s stage was taken over by podcasters, influencers and right-wing reporters more comfortable stoking fear about far-flung cultural threats and attacking those to their left (even if they’re Republican) than basking in the glory of the GOP’s recent electoral high-water marks. In the 71 years since President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Republicans ruled D.C., the GOP has enjoyed a federal trifecta controlling the White House, Senate and House for just eight years—and more than three of those have been under Trump.

“This year, the conservative movement hasn’t been showing its best side. It’s been squabbling, and a lot of people were sending me text messages saying, ‘I won’t appear if that person appears, and you better not invite this person, or I won’t go,’” CPAC leader Matt Schlapp told Newsweek.