Since Election Day, political pundits on CNN and MSNBC have been recycling the familiar explanation that racist, xenophobic, and sexist voters put Donald Trump back in the White House. But when you consider Trump’s gains across nearly every demographic—including traditionally Democratic-leaning groups such as Latino, black, and young voters—that story doesn’t add up.
As the chronically online social media editor at The Free Press, I’ve had a front-row seat to the MAGA “vibe shift” unfolding in real time. In July, after Trump was nearly assassinated and Joe Biden dropped out of the race, I began to see dozens and dozens of videos of “unlikely” first-time Trump voters. Some said they appreciated Trump’s “Avengers Team”—including independent presidential candidate RFK Jr., former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, and billionaire Elon Musk—because they share a disdain for the status quo. Many called Trump’s campaign a “unity ticket”—which had created a big enough tent for them to get inside.
The new MAGA coalition includes people like Kaizen Asiedu, a 34-year-old black Los Angeleno who said he started supporting Trump this summer. “I myself voted against Trump twice,” he posted in a September TikTok to his more than 19,000 followers. “Now I’m voting for him. It comes down to tangible results, dysfunctional Democratic Party leadership, and seeing through media misinformation.”
And AJ Sanchez, a 28-year-old with Mexican and Japanese flags in his TikTok bio, who told his 876,000 followers last month why he was backing Trump. “As a gay man voting for Trump, I get asked how I can vote against my own best interests,” he said. But “I don’t believe that more secure borders, less wars, better economy, higher wages, lower housing costs, and a man who’s actually going to prioritize America and American citizens first is going against my own best interests.”
Then there’s Heather, a 32-year-old former “Democratic/independent voter” from Athens, Georgia, who told her 167,000 TikTok followers she was voting Trump because she’d grown tired of the establishment. “This is no longer the time of ‘We the Corporations,’ ” she said. “This is the time of ‘We the People.’ And there is no other person that is representing themselves as ‘We the People’ than Donald Trump and his entire team of bandits.”
The new MAGA coalition I’m seeing online is not traditionally conservative. They’re not of one religion or even religious at all. Many of them are not white. They’re all under 40. Most of them say they are former Democrats or independents. Watch my video below to see them for yourself—and hear why many of them voted Republican this year for the first time.
Lucy Biggers is a social media editor at The Free Press. Read her piece “I Helped Make Standing Rock Go Viral. Now I Regret It,” and follow her on Instagram @lucybiggers.
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