MAGA Maoism is spreading through the populist right

[Celerity]

A new conservative strain dreams of sending the bourgeoise to work the factories.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/04/08/maga-maoism-tariffs-trump/

https://archive.ph/WLOn1



On “Liberation Day” this past week, President Donald Trump announced a 10 percent universal tariff on all imported goods and far greater ones on individual countries. His administration framed it as a course correction to make America “competitive” again. But if you listened closely, especially to his supporters, this wasn’t just about trade. It was about work and the kinds of work that still count.

Recently, a viral meme in MAGA circles captured the moment, featuring a cartoon Trump addressing a faceless American: “Your great grandfather worked the mines, your grandfather worked in a steel plant, and you thought you could be a ‘product manager’ ???” It’s a joke, but it’s also a worldview — one where white-collar ambition is seen not as a step forward, but as a fall into decadence. The meme doesn’t just mock digital work; it exalts physical labor as the only authentic form of contribution.

Link to tweet

What we’re seeing is a kind of MAGA Maoism, remixed for the algorithm age. Like the Chinese Cultural Revolution, it glorifies physical labor as moral purification, only now the purification is from the supposed “wokeness” of desk work, filtered through TikTok, X and Twitch. It’s not about creating jobs. It’s about creating vibes: strong men doing hard things, reshared until they become ideology. As one MAGA influencer put it, “Men in America don’t need therapy. Men in America need tariffs and DOGE. The fake email jobs will disappear.”

Link to tweet

This style, what some might call online pastoralism, is no longer fringe. It is a governing strategy. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently hinted to Tucker Carlson that the administration plans to restock America’s factories with recently fired federal workers. It’s a sharp evolution of the old MAGA line, which claimed elites abandoned the working class by offshoring jobs and hoarding the degrees that powered the new economy. Now, those same college-educated liberals once seen as the future of work are being recast as its obstacle.

Link to tweet

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[Drum]

1. Wowza. Kick/Rec/Bookmark

[Itchinjim]

2. MAGA is America's version of the Khmer Rouge.

Both a bunch of anti-intellectual rednecks who hate "city folk" and diversity.

[Solly Mack]

3. Was reading about this earlier. Tariffs being good for masculinity - creating manly men and women who know their place.

Report about some Fox news moron talking about it - was an article on my news feed.

[Jim__]

4. We're going to bring manufacturing jobs back? Are we going to ban robots?

[Girard442]

5. So, what next? Get rid of the John Deere tractors and bring back hoes?

These Muskoids should actually try some of that manual labor they rhapsodize about.

[Brenda]

6. Exactly.

These people are all living in an online world of fantasy. Making money by clicks.

They have no idea about the real physical world and how HARD it is as well as beautiful. But they don't care about that, they never leave a climate controlled building except to get in a 10 mpg ugly truck.

[Brenda]

7. Thanks for stickin around Celerity

I appreciate your posts and it's good to have more younger folks here.

[Celerity]

8. thank you so much for the kind words

[Brenda]

9. I respect you

You've got a lot of knowledge that DUers should heed.

We are in a crisis yet some DUers feel a need to post things that attack other DUers.

[Comrade Citizen]

10. I've never seen a magat doing any type of hard labor

Those jobs are done by People of Color, many of them foreign born.