On the SOC 119 stage at Penn State, sociologist Dr. Sam Richards invited his students to do something rare in public life: talk plainly – without sneering – about the Make America Great Again movement. The highlight discussion, from the second class of the semester, asked versions of one deceptively simple question: who is MAGA, what do they really want, and when exactly was America “great”? The answers, offered by students and prodded by Dr. Richards, were messy, data-tinged, and occasionally uncomfortable. Which is precisely the point.
Who’s MAGA? Students Confront The Stereotype
Dr. Richards began by pressing the room: “Who’s MAGA? What’s the social class of supporters?” One student answered reflexively – “mostly white” – with others piling on “rich white men.” Then the picture splintered. A student from a big city said the MAGA supporters he’s known skewed “middle to middle-high class.” Another student added that her father is a first-generation Asian immigrant who votes conservative, challenging the idea that MAGA is a monolith of white rural men. The room didn’t land on a single class profile – already a sign that our clichés miss more than they capture.
What The Polls Say, According To Dr. Richards
To ground the conversation, Dr. Richards flashed a few stats he’d carefully vetted. He said about 15 percent of adult Americans identify as “MAGA Republicans.” Among Republicans, roughly half identify as MAGA – including about half of 18- to 29-year-old Republicans. He also noted recent approval polling that put Trump at around 15 percent among Black Americans in one YouGov reading, and as high as 30 percent in another survey he cited from “Qantas Insights,” while cautioning that measuring approval is genuinely difficult. His bottom line: the coalition is broader and younger than many assume, and support among Black Americans – especially in churchgoing communities – is nontrivial.
Men, Women, And The 2024 Surprise
When asked whether MAGA is a “men’s thing,” a student named Allie resisted the simplification. “Both, everyone,” she said. She argued that women “did not show up to vote” as a uniform bloc in 2024 and that, among those who did, many voted for Trump. It’s a student’s observation, not a full autopsy. But her pushback mirrors what analysts have found for years: gender gaps exist, yet women are hardly a single political tribe, especially once you account for age, race, and religion.
What MAGA Wants – And What People Assume
Another student argued that the biggest misconception about MAGA is assuming “they’re really trying to hurt people.” Dr. Richards pushed the class to keep two truths in view: intentions and outcomes. Policies have consequences whether or not supporters want harm. The student agreed that people – on all sides – rarely grasp downstream effects unless they’ve devoted themselves to policy study. That humility felt like a small moment of grace: disagreement without caricature.
America First Is Not America Only
A different student tried to reframe “America First” as “not America only.” He pointed to disasters – floods in North Carolina, hurricanes in Florida, slow FEMA response in Orlando – and argued that conservatives want to prioritize citizens at home before underwriting “global wars.” Dr. Richards didn’t dismiss the concern; instead, he asked the room to look at the actual numbers and then, with a bit of theological mischief, offered a moral twist: if you’re a Christian, Muslim, or Jew who believes all are children of one God, isn’t the person in Sudan as beloved as the person in Scranton? He even coined a cheeky test: “What Would Jesus Spend?”
How Much Do We Spend On Foreign Aid? The Numbers Pop The Balloon
The room guessed high – 30 percent, then 10–13 percent – before Dr. Richards answered: the United States spends roughly 1 to 1.5 percent of the federal budget on foreign aid. Hearing that, the “America First” student didn’t fold; he simply said, “That number isn’t zero,” arguing for dialing it down further when disasters hit at home. My read: that’s exactly how this should go. We start with facts, then argue values on top of them.
Trump, FEMA, And The Hard Questions
A student asked directly about reports that Trump cut FEMA funding – how does that square with “take care of Americans first”? Dr. Richards tried to recruit a strong Trump backer to respond. No one volunteered. Silence, too, is data. Sometimes the hardest questions spotlight where our talking points run out of road. To his credit, Dr. Richards didn’t gloat; he simply moved on and kept the room thinking.
Who Said MAGA First? A Quick History Check
Later, Dr. Richards tossed a pop-quiz curveball: who first popularized “Make America Great Again” in politics? A student answered: Ronald Reagan. He got the nod. Beyond trivia, the reminder matters. “MAGA” is not a single person’s invention; it’s a recurring American yearning dressed in new colors, and the power of that slogan long predates social media.
If You Could Ask MAGA One Thing
Given the mic, one student said she’d ask MAGA voters a personal question: “What makes Trump a good president for you?” Another posed the slogan’s thorniest riddle: “When was America great? What changed to make it not great? And why is Trump the one to get us back there?” Those are not “gotchas.” They’re the questions any serious movement should be able to answer without shouting – ideally with examples that point beyond vibes to lived experience.
Stepping Over The Line: Dr. Richards’ Intellectual Challenge
Dr. Richards then issued a challenge he calls “stepping over the line.” Could students argue, convincingly, for ideas they oppose – not to capitulate, but to get smarter? He insisted that true intellectual growth requires changing how we think, at least temporarily, to inhabit the logic of people we disagree with. “If I can make a really strong argument for something I dislike, I know I’m getting sharper,” he said. It’s a muscle almost nobody trains in public anymore – and it shows.
The FGM Thought Experiment
To prove he practices what he preaches, Dr. Richards described a private exchange with an African activist who supports female genital mutilation. He asked her to “convince me I’m wrong” – not to endorse the practice, but to see if there was any sliver of nuance he’d missed. She couldn’t persuade him. He remains fully opposed. But his point landed: the exercise of trying to be convinced is itself a discipline. It makes our “no” sturdier where it matters and our “yes” humbler where we might be wrong.
Why The ‘Great Again’ Question Defies Easy Answers
Here’s my take: the “When was America great?” question is unanswerable with a single date because “great” depends on who you were. If you were a union worker in the 1950s, you might point to rising wages and strong community life. If you were Black in Jim Crow Mississippi, you might name different decades – hard-won civil rights milestones – as “great.” For women, LGBTQ Americans, immigrants, and religious minorities, the curves of opportunity and safety bend on different timelines. Any honest greatness story has to braid prosperity, liberty, dignity, and fairness – and admit trade-offs. The more we force one story to fit everyone, the less persuasive it gets.
What This Class Teaches About Talking Across The Divide
The most useful lesson from Dr. Sam Richards and his students wasn’t a conclusion; it was a process. Start with data, the way he did with YouGov and other polling. Test your assumptions about who’s in the coalition. Ask personal questions that get at stakes, not slogans. Correct the big factual misses – like how little we spend on foreign aid – without dunking on people. And then, crucially, try to “step over the line,” if only long enough to see how smart, sincere people could land in a different place. You may walk back to your side unchanged. But you’ll carry a better map. And that, in a country as sprawling and contradictory as this one, is its own kind of greatness.
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Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, John developed a love for the great outdoors early on. With years of experience as a wilderness guide, he’s navigated rugged terrains and unpredictable weather patterns. John is also an avid hunter and fisherman who believes in sustainable living. His focus on practical survival skills, from building shelters to purifying water, reflects his passion for preparedness. When he’s not out in the wild, you can find him sharing his knowledge through writing, hoping to inspire others to embrace self-reliance.