The Argument and Its Theoretical Foundations

We make two arguments about the Trump phenomenon. First, as we will elaborate, Trump’s core supporters were motivated by more than the factors established in the literature, such as economic decline, partisanship, ideology, or social identity. Our findings suggest that much of the explanatory power of these factors comes from their connection to status.

As defined by Ridgeway (Reference Ridgeway2019, 1), status is “a comparative social ranking of people, groups, or objects in terms of the social esteem, honor, and respect accorded to them.” Through its emphasis on shared perceptions of group rank, status is distinct from material self-interest, morality, or group and partisan identities.

To develop the concept of status as an explanation for Trump support, we offer a theory of the symbolic politics of status. According to this theory, political conflict extends beyond contests over material distribution or moral values. It implicates battles for social esteem conferred by institutions, which signal whose values and lifestyles are either favored or disparaged. Importantly, government, schools, workplaces, and media can symbolically affirm or deny status. They can do so both through the formal work of policy and the informal work of political culture. Thus, deep political cleavages can arise over the role of government in advancing “shared status beliefs” that frame what kinds of practices and what sorts of people are worthy of respect (Ridgeway Reference Ridgeway2019, 3). Consequently, social conflict intertwines with political conflict, as influential institutions signal the social value of particular traditions and behaviors (Mendelberg Reference Mendelberg2022; Sears Reference Sears, Iyengar and McGuire1993). Elections therefore encompass more than just resource allocation, policy enactment, or moral framing: they also serve to delimit which people and whose standards of conduct hold greater or lesser value in the collective perception of society. We argue that the lens of status helps to explain how Trump activists understand issues of partisanship, racial prejudice, place-based deprivation, and the role of the economy.

Second, Trump’s supporters are not merely voters. Some of his core supporters were embedded in a social movement—the MAGA movement—that engages them in a holistic way, through media and offline political behavior; through cultural practices and interpersonal connection as well through electoral actions; through emotion and symbol as well as information and cost-benefit calculation; and through joy and celebration as well as anger and resentment. We build on studies of organized right-wing grassroots groups (Newman and Skocpol Reference Newman and Skocpol2023; Skocpol and Tervo Reference Skocpol and Tervo2020; Ternullo Reference Ternullo2024), and, more directly, on studies of “status movements,” which prioritize social standing over economic class and material distribution (e.g., Gusfield Reference Gusfield1964; Plotke Reference Plotke2001). Social movement analysis, particularly its focus on the politicization of collective identity and the importance of emotions like anger and joy, offers valuable insights into the role of status (Goodwin and Jasper Reference Goodwin, Jasper, Stets and Turner2006; Van Stekelenburg and Klandermans Reference van Stekelenburg, Klandermans, Klandermans and Roggeband2017). We apply this framework to explore the affective dynamics, discursive practices, and social interactions that shape how status influences what it means to be a MAGA participant. Elections thus become not just contests over resources, but also avenues for social actors to rescue their status positions through the symbolic work of social and political institutions.

Our theory of the symbolic politics of status builds on the sociological literature on symbolic boundaries, which examines how actors create distinctions to define and include certain individuals, communities, or entities while excluding others, often based on moral criteria of worthiness (Lamont Reference Lamont2017; Lamont and Molnár Reference Lamont and Molnár2002; Lamont, Pendergrass, and Pachucki Reference Lamont, Pendergrass, Pachucki and Wright2015; Lichterman, Prudence, and Lamont Reference Lichterman, Prudence, Lamont, Brint and Schroedel2009). This boundary work is essential in shaping group identities within social movements, where grievances are collectivized and politicized around a unified “us,” with blame directed at “them” (Braunstein Reference Braunstein2018; Taylor Reference Taylor, van Stekelenburg, Roggeband and Klandermans2013; Van Doorn, Prins, and Welschen Reference van Doorn, Prins, Welschen, van Stekelenburg, Roggeband and Klandermans2013). While much of the literature on boundary setting focuses on how individuals and groups define, enforce, and interpret these distinctions, our focus on elections connects democratic contests and political institutions to this literature. The symbolic politics of status highlights how social and political institutions act as arbiters of social worth, positioning electoral contests as key sites within the broader process of boundary making and identity formation.

Our fieldwork illustrates how the political mobilization of MAGA supporters is not only a function of electoral preferences, but also of broad notions about what government should do to signal the worth of “people like me.” We argue that a status motive fuels a political movement that engages people beyond the voting booth and is shored up by more than misleading facts: it also gives meaning to their lives.

Explaining Support for Trump

Scholarship about Trump support has sought to understand his rise and popularity through the explanatory power of various factors, including partisanship, racial and ethnic resentment, place-based deprivation, and economic distress. Each of these explanations has produced important insights into contemporary politics, and each has explanatory power in understanding Trump support. But as we discuss in this section, they do not explain some key aspects of MAGA activists’ worldviews. In addition, much of their explanatory utility when it comes to MAGA activists derives from their connection with status.

Partisan identity and media bubbles help to explain some of Trump’s popularity (Sides, Tesler, and Vavreck Reference Sides, Tesler and Vavreck2018). Trump support in 2016 and 2020 was strongly shaped by party identification, as partisans fell in line with their party’s nominee. Polarizing media, fueled by the increasing isolation of partisans on social media and in news viewership, also played a role (Settle Reference Settle2018). However, this explanation has limitations. First, it does not explain why some Democratic voters switched from Barack Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016 (Reny, Collingwood, and Valenzuela Reference Reny, Collingwood and Valenzuela2019). Perhaps more importantly, as we will show, many MAGA supporters are animated by a dislike of the partisan establishment, much as many Trump voters distrust both parties (Dyck, Pearson-Merkowitz, and Coates Reference Dyck, Pearson-Merkowitz and Coates2018).Footnote ¹ This is not simply about negative partisanship—the dislike of the opposing party—or positive partisanship—loyalty to one’s own party (Abramowitz and Webster Reference Abramowitz and Webster2018; Dyck and Pearson-Merkowitz Reference Dyck and Pearson-Merkowitz2023). Rather, our findings align with the impact of nonpartisan populism (Uscinski et al. Reference Uscinski, Enders, Seelig, Klofstad, Funchion, Everett, Wuchty, Premaratne and Murthi2021). Our ethnographic evidence will help to address these gaps, focusing on the role of status in disillusionment with both parties.

Another explanation argues that Trump’s support is rooted in his ability to stoke racial resentments, especially toward Black, Latinx, and immigrant groups. Many studies confirm that racialized views form a key basis of support for Trump (Schaffner, MacWilliams, and Nteta Reference Schaffner, MacWilliams and Nteta2018; Sides, Tesler, and Vavreck Reference Sides, Tesler and Vavreck2018). However, theories of racial resentment and immigration backlash struggle to account for some important elements of Trump’s support. First, while Trump certainly demonizes immigrants, some of his rhetoric also incorporates Latinx Americans into the category of “deserving hard workers,” albeit with paternalistic overtones (Lamont, Park, and Ayala-Hurtado Reference Lamont, Park and Ayala-Hurtado2017). As we will show, many MAGA activists echoed this rhetorical inclusion. In addition, existing accounts have not fully explored why some people of color support Trump and agree with his messages (Geiger and Reny Reference Geiger and Reny2024).Footnote ² To be sure, some people of color are xenophobic, and some immigrants hold prejudice against Latinx and African Americans. However, given Trump’s mixed racial narrative, and the fact that Trump’s support was not exclusively white, explanations of political motivations must go beyond the acceptance or rejection of racial sentiments. As we will show, the symbolic politics of status helps to explain how race and sentiment about immigrants function in the MAGA movement. Among activists, overt racism is viewed as immoral, but liberal elites’ accusations of MAGA racism are seen as an unjust tarring aimed at stripping participants of social status. We explore the nuanced ways race features in the worldviews of Trump activists and how these views connect with status motivations.

A third account focuses on place-based identity. Our fieldwork confirms that MAGA participants indeed harbored place-based resentments toward elites. This aligns with research on rural consciousness and local deprivation, where cities were often the target of MAGA supporters’ ire (Cramer Reference Cramer2016; Gest Reference Gest2016; Hochschild Reference Hochschild2016; Monnat and Brown Reference Monnat and Brown2017). Further, the characteristics of northeastern Pennsylvania align with recent research showing how the decline of economic opportunities, educational attainment, and population growth in rural areas has contributed to the urban–rural divide (Brown and Mettler Reference Brown and Mettler2024). Our research builds on these findings, while complicating them in two ways. First, though MAGA participants in this study used place-based distinctions, they did not live in rural bubbles, nor hold Manichean views about the urban–rural divide. Northeastern Pennsylvania is a mix of urban, suburban, small-town, and rural areas. Further, in a region where Philadelphia and New York are a few hours away, participants expressed positive emotional connections to these cities, not only derision toward cosmopolitan elites. Most importantly, MAGA participants routinely articulated their status beliefs in national terms. We will show how they constructed a righteous “American” people, defined by national values, called to fight back against an “un-American” and corrupt elite. This type of American identity features prominently in right-wing movements (Federico and Golec de Zavala Reference Federico and de Zavala2018). MAGA supporters thus fit a classic profile of right-wing populism, where national identity is a source of status and heightens the political conflict against opponents both foreign and domestic, who are seen to have reduced the standing of both the nation and its people in the international order (Hawkins and Kaltwasser Reference Hawkins, Kaltwasser, Hawkins, Carlin, Littvay and Kaltwasser2019; Mendelberg Reference Mendelberg2022; Mutz Reference Mutz2018).

Finally, economic explanations also attempt to explain Trump’s popularity, arguing that the white working class has abandoned the Democratic Party due to economic distress (e.g., Frank Reference Frank2016). However, Trump voters were more affluent than the average American, and there is little empirical support for the notion that material distress was the main driver of Trump’s support (Mutz Reference Mutz2018; Sides, Tesler, and Vavreck Reference Sides, Tesler and Vavreck2018). To be sure, some studies found that community decline predicted Trump’s county vote share, and rising import competition pushed white-majority districts to the right (Autor et al. Reference Autor, Dorn, Hanson and Majlesi2020; Monnat and Brown Reference Monnat and Brown2017). However, it is unclear why these factors should cause people to turn toward Trump, who has not directly served the material interests of people in distressed places. An account centering the symbolic politics of status better integrates economics and community decline into a more accurate explanation of MAGA participation. Several studies suggest that the decline in the status of white Christian men motivated Trump support (Mutz Reference Mutz2018; Newman, Shah, and Collingwood Reference Newman, Shah and Collingwood2018; Sides, Tesler, and Vavreck Reference Sides, Tesler and Vavreck2018).Footnote ³ Our ethnographic evidence expands on work that emphasizes the importance of status in understanding the role of economics and community decline in political behavior.

Our aim is not to dismiss explanations centering partisanship, racial identity, local decline, or economics. Rather, status is a lens through which to integrate these explanations and address their gaps and complications. As we show, MAGA participation cannot be fully reduced to universal human tribalism manifested in party loyalty, racial threats, cultural difference, rural identity, or economic self-interest. MAGA participants felt they were denied honor, esteem, and respect by powerful political forces, including mainstream Republican leaders. Members of Trump’s base were expressing their need for status in society and their suspicion of those they believed held power and used it to denigrate them. They targeted government as a source of their status loss and as the potential site of its redemption.

The MAGA Movement from the Inside Out

To explore the practices, motivations, and beliefs of Trump voters, the first author (Biko Koenig) conducted an ethnographic study of the 2020 election in five counties across northeastern Pennsylvania. Several characteristics make this region a useful case, including its history as a Democratic stronghold; its recent and dramatic electoral swing to Trump; a declining manufacturing base; and high levels of economic, health, and social distress (Bradlee Reference Bradlee2018; Monnat and Brown Reference Monnat and Brown2017). Consent was secured from all interview participants, and consent from ethnographic participants was obtained when possible. Additionally, the research approach was designed to minimize any impact on the election, with the researcher focusing solely on observation and participation, without any attempts to influence voters. Details of the case selection, research design, and ethical considerations can be found in the online appendix.

The core of the research involved participant observation as a Trump campaign volunteer. Over five months, the researcher became embedded in the local MAGA community, participating in typical electoral campaign activities, including canvassing, attending events, and making phone calls. These activities ranged from one-hour sessions to full-day commitments, with the researcher in the field between three and seven days a week, increasing as the campaign progressed. Data were collected during the execution of these volunteer duties and through observing interactions among Trump supporters at formal campaign events and informal political gatherings. Ethnographic research was further enriched by roughly 70 unstructured interviews with participants, conducted before and after the election. Ethnography offers several benefits in analyzing the status politics and motivations of MAGA participants (Schatz Reference Schatz2009). Immersion allowed for a deeper understanding of the existing explanations for Trump’s support and revealed how they worked in practice. The method also captured how political actors interpreted economic, social, and cultural concepts in real time and within their own social spaces (Kubik Reference Kubik and Schatz2009; Pachirat Reference Pachirat and Schatz2009; Shehata Reference Shehata, Yanow and Schwartz-Shea2006). This approach allows us to see not only how people perceive their environment, but also how they make political decisions based on their lived experiences. Ethnography is particularly suited to exploring how personal and political experiences intertwine to form a social movement.

Status in the MAGA Movement

At a backyard party, a musician took a break from playing the guitar to call on people to get involved in the election:

Sitting around an outdoor table on a warm summer afternoon, I (Koenig) heard this sense of fear and loss underlying the lively conversation among the party attendees. Discussions about vacation plans or the hopes for good weather were continually punctuated by political concerns.

One attendee lamented his inability to freely express his political views at work, fearing repercussions like those faced by a colleague who was criticized for their conservative perspective. He was certain that voicing his opinions could cost him his job. But underlying his fear was resentment: he felt silenced at the same time other coworkers were praised for displaying Black Lives Matter signs. Another attendee, a schoolteacher, voiced frustration about liberal teachers who pushed college attendance over trade work and complained that some schools were not even allowing students to wear American flags. Her friend, equally irritated, complained that recommending military service was apparently now discouraged due to Democratic portrayals of the military’s recruitment efforts among people of color as racist and exploitative. “Isn’t that messed up? Probably one of the most egalitarian places on the planet is the United States military.”

Everyday conversations like this illustrate how, at its heart, the discursive community of the MAGA movement is one of status reversal (Mendelberg Reference Mendelberg2022; Petersen Reference Petersen2002). The key grievance for many was a perception that mainstream society, captured by political opponents with immoral beliefs, had unfairly judged them, their values, and their customs to be undeserving of respect and honor. Their critiques of schools, teachers, workplaces, and government were grounded in the notion that these core institutions of society should be signaling the supreme value of “traditional” mores such as military service, assimilation to a uniform vision of America, and the authority of the law. The gravest status injury for many MAGA adherents was the loss of institutional stamps of approval and signals of esteem for a way of life and a set of values they viewed as morally superior.

Like many right-wing populist movements, the MAGA movement connected these issues to a particular enemy: the corrupt elite who have unjustly hurt and maligned everyday Americans like them (Hawkins and Kaltwasser Reference Hawkins, Kaltwasser, Hawkins, Carlin, Littvay and Kaltwasser2019). The movement constructed a populist notion of the virtuous “American people” called to fight against domination and oppression by those in power. In doing so, the movement combined the status concerns of MAGA participants with a sense of righteous injustice about this loss, coupled to a normative vision of how the country’s problems could be solved by recentering the traditional status order. Beliefs about cultural elitism, electoral fraud, and conspiracies explained political opponents as corrupt, authoritarian, morally decayed, yet powerful. Taken together, MAGA participants not only saw their loss of status as incorrect and unfair, but also as oppressive—legitimating their resistance as righteous opposition to a repressive status regime. These grievances justified a war, a fight for control over state institutions that were understood to be fundamentally tainted by corruption. Regardless of its accuracy, these perceptions of disrespect and oppression were routinely discussed among MAGA participants.

In late August 2020, I heard these concerns of symbolic status directly from the source, at a rally where President Trump spoke to a relatively small outdoor crowd of three hundred people. Though the venue and crowd size were held in check by ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, the thousands of people lining the street in both directions created an atmosphere in line with the arena-sized spectacles I had seen on television. Echoing the conversation at the party above, Trump expressed self-righteous anger and indignation directed at political elites as immoral frauds who not only look down on hardworking Americans but actively seek to undermine all that such people hold dear in their quest for power and money. In his populist critique of the elite, Trump also underlined those institutions and practices that MAGA participants believed were status worthy:

As he took a pause someone shouted “That’s right!” causing the crowd to cheer before Trump went on: “Joe Biden is the candidate of these privileged liberal hypocrites who hold you and your values in disdain. But you can send them all a thundering message on election day by voting for Trump-Pence.” The crowd roared its support.

To explain how the MAGA movement found such purchase among ordinary Americans, we need to look to the status narrative of the MAGA movement, a story where status was unfairly lost, recently regained, and will possibly be lost again without the commitment of the participants. In this narrative, people who hold traditional values and occupations have been unjustly denied respect by social and political institutions, while the undeserving have gained status through corrupt favoritism by the elite. Status has not only been lost; it has been taken. And if 2016 was a successful fight to take it back, 2020 was a moment where it all could be lost again.

MAGA as Social Movement

Trump’s base is best understood not simply as supporters of a candidate, but as participants in a social movement—the MAGA movement. At the events I observed, participants were forming a new collective identity as MAGA members. Status beliefs and sentiments were a key component of that identity and contributed to its politicization. As with many right-wing movements, the participants were not only motivated by material self-interest or ideological policy positions but also aimed to reclaim a vision of status grounded in emotions, practices, and symbols (Gusfield Reference Gusfield1964). The perceived loss of status at the hands of corrupt, powerful opponents fueled self-righteous anger among MAGA participants, an emotion that frequently underpins the shared grievances central to collective identity and protest activity (Goodwin and Jasper Reference Goodwin, Jasper, Stets and Turner2006; Van Stekelenburg and Klandermans Reference van Stekelenburg, Klandermans, Klandermans and Roggeband2017). Of course, such emotions are part of a movement ecosystem that includes the intentional cultivation of these perspectives by movement leaders and through the media (Peck Reference Peck2019; Van Doorn, Prins, and Welschen Reference van Doorn, Prins, Welschen, van Stekelenburg, Roggeband and Klandermans2013). Ultimately, the MAGA movement seeks to restore the honor its supporters feel they have unjustly lost. Crucially, they not only seek to advance their values; they also want government and other institutions to adopt symbolic signals that indicate their values and ways of life are esteemed (Mendelberg Reference Mendelberg2022).

A movement perspective expands our understanding of the MAGA phenomenon, revealing how political causes affect collective identity, solidarity, and participants’ lived experiences (Koenig Reference Koenig2022). As Taylor (Reference Taylor, van Stekelenburg, Roggeband and Klandermans2013, 43) argues, movements are discursive communities united not only by action but also by shared identities, symbols, and narratives that frame participants’ experiences as responses to perceived injustices. While the MAGA movement’s political aim is electoral, its core is about group identity—delineating boundaries between “us” and “them,” highlighting the group’s perceived injustices as intrinsic to its identity, and contesting symbolic group descriptions (Taylor and Whittier Reference Taylor, Whittier, Morris and Mueller1992). In this process of group identification, MAGA participants become politicized based on “the shared definition of a group” rooted in common experiences and emotions (Van Doorn, Prins, and Welschen Reference van Doorn, Prins, Welschen, van Stekelenburg, Roggeband and Klandermans2013, 61).

As we discussed above, the grievances of the MAGA movement were directed at a society experiencing social, economic, and cultural shifts that participants perceived were unfairly reducing their status. Research on status illustrates that people will give up monetary rewards for additional respect, and research on social movements indicates that people are more likely to politicize based on shared perceptions of unjust treatment rather than economic hardship (Klandermans Reference Klandermans, van Stekelenburg, Roggeband and Klandermans2013; Ridgeway Reference Ridgeway2019). Thus, status concerns provide fertile soil for the politicization of collective identity. In the MAGA movement, individuals experience how they are part of a larger group defined by the shared grievance of lost status, they understand that loss as unjustly imposed, and they collectively attribute those grievances to their powerful opponents—all determinants of when identities collectivize and politicize (Simon and Klandermans Reference Simon and Klandermans2001). And, as described below, the positive emotions felt by many participants further cemented their psychological ties to other MAGA participants and strengthened their identification with the main symbols of the movement.

A key feature of these interactions is how MAGA participants use status-based grievances as fuel for political mobilization. At the end of a campaign party, one young volunteer did just this, telling the crowd that “the biggest thing for this is we want to get people active. I mean, we’re not the mean people that everybody thinks we are, are we?”

“No!” comes the response from the crowd.

“I don’t hate anybody,” he continues. “Do you hate anybody? How about you?”

As he points to people, they reply with a sharp “No.”

“We are not bad people. Trump isn’t a bad guy …Footnote ⁴ I encourage people to do great things for Trump.”

Status grievances shape the MAGA narrative, where participants frame themselves as “not bad people” doing “great things,” actively rejecting the judgments they feel are imposed by elite political opponents.

While the movement had a clear electoral end—electing Trump and other allies—the MAGA movement did not require people to do electoral work to belong. Indeed, while the campaign held many events with the goal of organizing new volunteers for the day-to-day needs of running the campaign, many who routinely attended were uninterested in volunteering. Yet none of these people were rejected from the community. One could simply show up to dance and sing at a rally and need not even post a yard sign—or even vote. MAGA provided a porous, low-stakes community that derived some of its power from its sheer size, a size maximized by an extremely low membership threshold that did not even demand political action, merely dedication to the president and the status narrative. The focus was on creating social ties, a common identity, and a frame for political analysis. Whether this scaffolded overtly political action or not, for many participants, simply taking part was a meaningful and positive experience (Goodwin and Jasper Reference Goodwin, Jasper, Stets and Turner2006). A fuller understanding of Trump support benefits from a social movement framework that expands our analysis beyond individual vote choice to consider issues of collective identity, solidaristic action, and the lived experiences of the participants themselves as they navigate symbolic boundaries and assess where “people like me” belong (Lamont, Pendergrass, and Pachucki Reference Lamont, Pendergrass, Pachucki and Wright2015).

In the following sections we apply this framework to two themes that emerged from the fieldwork, namely the affective dynamics and symbolic practices of the MAGA movement, demonstrating the fundamental role of status in shaping a MAGA identity among its participants. A social movement frame demonstrates the powerful role of emotions at play in the MAGA movement. The movement’s affective story draws on Trump’s vilification of the “privileged liberal hypocrites” offered above and maps it onto the status narrative of the MAGA movement—anger over the loss of status, joy and dignity over its renewal, and rage over the possibility that it would be lost again. The movement events at which fieldwork was conducted embodied a style that contributed to the sense of status resurgence, the salve to the wound of status loss, the narrative that places Trump supporters within the esteemed social categories of great Americans. As we discuss below, attention to the relationship between status and emotion illustrates how participation in the MAGA movement involved speech acts, practices, and symbolic performances that are distinct from voting for a particular candidate.

Anger, Pride, and Joy: The Emotions of Status Reclamation at MAGA Events

In September of 2020 Joe Biden traveled to northeastern Pennsylvania to hold a televised rally at an outdoor arena, and the MAGA movement was determined to meet him in force. As I turned onto the two-lane road that led to the arena a good five hours before Biden was due to appear, hundreds of Trump supporters had already arrived, with cars parked bumper to bumper along the breakdown lane. I parked in the next space I could find, about a third of a mile from the center of the action, where a sound system had been set up next to several parked tractor trailers plastered with MAGA slogans. Walking upstream toward this center, I passed scores of people lining the roads waving flags and holding yard signs, some in folding chairs to help pass the time.

As I got closer to the center of the action, I was greeted by the sounds and sights of what might be characterized as an angry, self-righteous crowd. Flags that proclaimed “No More Bullshit” or showed Trump riding a tank with explosions filling the sky, sometimes on extra-long poles with multiple flags, waved alongside “All Lives Matter” and “Back the Blue” signs staked into the ground. One sign, hand painted onto a tipped-over folding table, blamed Biden for COVID-19 deaths, murders, and forest fires. I found a spot next to a woman sporting a “Stomp my flag and I’ll stomp your ass” shirt, as someone got on the microphone to proclaim that “this is the best time for the people of America to come together because we now know what it’s all about. It’s either democracy and capitalism”—the crowd roared its support—“or socialism!” Boos rained down. “We’re not going to tolerate the destruction of the American Constitution.” Another roar. “We’re not gonna have the life of the unborn taken.” The speaker paused for a response, but not many people reacted. “And we’re not gonna have our Second Amendment taken!” At this one there was a wave of cheering. Such a scene may seem familiar from media coverage of Trump’s rallies, where the anger of the crowd seems palpable.

For those who feel they have lost respect in the eyes of society, and the declining self-esteem that accompanies this perception, anger—especially when grounded in perceptions of unfair treatment—is a powerful spark of collective identity and politicization (Goodwin and Jasper Reference Goodwin, Jasper, Stets and Turner2006; Klandermans Reference Klandermans, van Stekelenburg, Roggeband and Klandermans2013; Van Zomeren Reference van Zomeren, van Stekelenburg, Roggeband and Klandermans2013). Anger is thus a key emotion in the political mobilization of status loss. But anger only captures one part of a complex affective story that was at play at this event and during the fieldwork, a story that included expressions of joy and pride and a celebration of belonging.

As the cheering died down, the familiar sounds of the Village People’s song “YMCA” began to play loudly over the speakers. The mood of the crowd shifted quickly as people danced in place, waving flags and signs to the music. As the lyrics started, it became clear that the song was a popular cover of the original, with pro-Trump lyrics and a chorus that spelled out MAGA rather than YMCA, and attendees spelled the letters out with arms and bodies in a sea of smiles and laughter. One participant likened the scene to an event a few weeks ago, where people had similarly lined a road to see Trump drive by: “I mean, it was great, it’s like a—” Here she looked around and gestured at the assembled people. “It’s America, you can feel it!” She laughed. “It’s a vibe.” With a broad smile she continued to play her tambourine along with the music.

Soon after, two small groups of people found each other in the crowd, hugging, as a new arrival looked around with wide eyes. “This is amazing!” she exclaimed.

Her friend replied with a laugh, “I’m so glad you made it! I told you, it’s crazy here!”

At a break in the music after an Aerosmith song, someone got on the microphone to remind everyone about the free sodas, snacks, and hamburgers being made: “Donations not required but are welcome!” As people ate, drank, danced, and sung along, conversations included someone’s obsession with Wawa hoagies, while others talked about how excited they were for a few more weeks of warm weather. At one point, we all squeezed together so that someone could take a photo with a wide-angle-lens camera, an effort that many found hilarious due to the number of people spread out along the road. And as cars drove by and honked support, there were endless waves of cheering and applause. People had been here for hours, and they were clearly having a good time in the celebratory, dance-party atmosphere.

This was, of course, an explicitly political event. But the politics was only part of a wider structure of social identification and community building essential to social movements, and social emotions were essential to its meaning. Alongside the anger about status reversal was a joyful bonhomie that served as a social glue for the people in this movement. Attached to both was a sense of empowerment and pride about belonging to the Trump community and what it stood for. To be sure, there were negative sentiments directed toward an opposition perceived to be a hypocritical elite committed to an evil system antithetical to America. But participants not only constructed a bad out-group; they went out of their way to build a positive in-group. They welcomed new people, made friends, and celebrated. They sang along to Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” with the same feel-good attitude they did with Neil Diamond’s “America.” More complex than simple anger at political opponents, MAGA participants felt honor and pride to live in America under Trump and to be connected to the movement.

These positive emotions were not an isolated occurrence. In the Trump rally in August, volunteers shared their excitement about being able to see Trump in person, and many evinced pride at being chosen to volunteer for the event. One older man, wearing a black suit amid the intense sun of the day, explained that “when you represent the president you have to look the part.” The small size of the venue translated into a feeling of privilege to be able to be inside while so many lined the roadways, and more than one person held out hope they would get a chance to personally meet the president given their role as a volunteer. Practically everyone had an item—a hat, photo, or shirt—they wanted him to sign. If association with, and proximity to, the president allowed participants to experience his celebrity and pride, these physical objects also became meaningful positive symbols of status.

We should not underestimate the political importance of the mass entertainment aspect of these events. The festive style effectively coupled social interaction and leisure with political symbols and action. Dancing, singing, and sign waving produced a sense of belonging and bonhomie necessary to social movements. And the abundance of food, drink, music, and conviviality produced an atmosphere that could pull people in from the margins. Attending a MAGA event meant making friends, sharing positive experiences, and building community. While these dynamics can occur in the world of virtual interactions and media consumption, in-person events held special meaning to participants. The proximate experiences of Trump rallies, campaign events, and parties gave people the opportunity to belong to a political community in a physical, embodied way. Given that these events took place during the COVID-19 lockdowns, their importance was heightened. Such events also point to the importance of microlevel interactions—the “meaning-making processes taking place in interpersonal interactions that strengthen or weaken the ties between group members,” and are fundamental to the ability of any movement to find success (Van Doorn, Prins, and Welschen Reference van Doorn, Prins, Welschen, van Stekelenburg, Roggeband and Klandermans2013, 65).

Collective emotions and celebrations are not only central to social movement activity and solidaristic identification; they are also crucial for issues of status. As Durkheim ([1912] Reference Durkheim, Cladis and Cosman2001) theorized in his notion of collective effervescence, the sharing of emotions in collective spaces solidifies shared values and strengthens in-group identification. When people come together this way, they “leave the crowd endowed with positive affect, strength and self-confidence, and openness to other individuals” (Garcia and Rimé Reference Garcia and Rimé2019, 618). For those experiencing a loss of status, and the loss of dignity and respect that this embodies, such events help to recover status, rebuild self-esteem, and develop collective identities (Cacioppo, Reis, and Zautra Reference Cacioppo, Reis and Zautra2011). Thus the MAGA movement is “emotionally resonant” for participants because it is a dynamic, interpersonal space that both draws on and reworks shared emotional states to help solve the dilemma of an elite-driven, marginalized social context (McDonnell, Bail, and Tavory Reference McDonnell, Bail and Tavory2017). These events provide meaningful solutions to status-related struggles, solidifying the MAGA status narrative through embodied, emotional collective experiences.

Since collective pride and celebratory social interaction are common in many social movements, their presence and importance at these events illustrate the dynamic processes of collective identity at work in MAGA and why it is worth considering it as more than simply an electoral vehicle. While many movements perform a status function—left-wing movements, for example, aim to elevate low status—right-wing movements often focus on rescuing lost status (Mendelberg Reference Mendelberg2022). Thus, in the MAGA movement in 2020, the anger of status loss was combined with the joy of status renewal. America was already on its way to being great again, and there was much to celebrate—and defend.

The Practices of Symbolic Status in the MAGA Movement

Several days after the election, I joined a bus full of MAGA participants to attend the Million MAGA March in Washington, DC. After an initial rally at Freedom Plaza, we marched to the Supreme Court to hear a long list of speakers as they hit on themes familiar to the crowd: the tyranny of COVID-19 lockdowns, the corruption of Biden and the Democratic Party, and the overwhelming concern of a stolen election. On the north side of the rally a different scene unfolded, as a vocal contingent of supporters pressed up against metal barricades to train their attention on a small group of Antifa and Black Lives Matter counterprotestors. These MAGA activists paid little attention to the speakers, instead yelling at the counterprotestors and trying to engage the wall of police whose backs faced us. One activist shouted at a passing officer, “All those assholes want you defunded! I would walk away and let us do our thing.” While the tone was belligerent on both sides, the overwhelming number of MAGA activists dominated the confrontation.

The aggressive posturing and chants took place in a sea of flags, shirts, hats, and signs with slogans from Trump’s campaign as well as many images of the president himself. As they made fun of the counterprotestors for wearing masks, called them traitors, tossed anti-LGBTQ slurs in their direction, and talked eagerly about how to get around the police to start a fight, one chant continually came back in waves: “Donald Trump! Donald Trump! Donald Trump!” Separated by fences and riot shields, the crowd seemed excited and possibly eager for a physical confrontation, though none took steps to try to engage.

Sitting in the back of the bus on our ride home, one of the participants proudly shared that “Me and Antifa were screaming at each other’s faces, and I was on CNN.” Someone asked what Antifa is, and another explained that George Soros, a “billionaire asshole” who is “the puppet master of the Democratic Party,” pays for Antifa to travel around to protests. Nodding knowingly, the first person explained that when Antifa and Black Lives Matter show up at a peaceful protest, “we got to keep an eye on these people,” especially when “the girls” (meaning the women on the bus) were also present. The concern about attacks from Antifa seemed especially salient to the activists. Antifa members were thought to wait until nightfall and then, “when the last stragglers are going home, that’s when they attack, when it’s just one or two people alone.” Luckily, “the Proud Boys were there to keep us safe.” For the first hour of the ride we shared videos of physical altercations between Antifa and MAGA protestors from the past year alongside ongoing reporting of the march. There was a tangible sense of accomplishment in the bus as we made our long trek home.

The symbols in the scenes above—flags, signs, and chants, often with Trump himself at the center—may, at first glance, seem the classic stuff of social movement repertoires grounded in the collective anger discussed earlier. But these symbols illustrate how the MAGA movement, like many movements, is not reducible to tactics, strategies, or public sphere contestations of political power. It is also a social space where movement-specific symbols, activities, and norms come together to actively and collectively construct what it means to be MAGA, and thus what it means to be status worthy, in real time. These practices also engage in the negotiation of group and personal identity, a negotiation that encompasses “the myriad of ways that activists work to resist negative social definitions and demand that others value and treat” their own group with more respect (Taylor and Whittier Reference Taylor, Whittier, Morris and Mueller1992, 118). From the celebration of belligerent rhetoric to the role of China, MAGA activists draw on status-based symbols to renegotiate “what kinds of people, and whose codes of behavior, are worthy in the eyes of society as a whole” (Mendelberg Reference Mendelberg2022, 52). The collective identity of the MAGA movement is thus not only found in political opinions or emotional states, but it is produced through various “performative practices” that simultaneously construct and enact that identity (Wedeen Reference Wedeen and Schatz2009, 87).

Perhaps the most important symbol of the MAGA movement was Trump himself. He was the political object that most clearly signaled the renewal of status among his supporters through his 2016 victory. Not merely a political representative, Trump exemplified the triumph of the virtuous people over the corrupt elite of the opposition. And while Trump was clearly a wealthy Manhattanite, he was understood to be “one of us” through his narratives and practices. One would often hear variations of this symbolic role: “I would die for him,” “He’s our only hope,” or he “just makes me feel better about myself” (or the country, or the world). A key aspect of this was anointing ills and naming enemies, providing a simple and compelling story of status loss and resurgence. But he also provided the symbolic markers of what practices should be considered status worthy through his own rhetoric and style. That his approach was subject to critique by the very elites that were seen as the cause of lost status for MAGA participants only added to his symbolic power. Trump often framed attacks against himself as attacks against the base, a strategic element of the discourse that defined MAGA as a social identity and amplified the anger and resentment felt by participants.

MAGA participants appreciated and replicated Trump’s pugnacious style, such as calling his opponents “losers,” “scum,” and “lowlifes,” or expressing his desire to punch a protestor in the face at one of his rallies (Quealy Reference Quealy2021). This was routinely celebrated by MAGA participants, who often noted that it was a key reason they supported him: “He tells it like it is,” “He stands up to people,” “He’s not afraid, and that’s what we need,” or, the refrain most often heard, “He doesn’t take any shit.” These were often offered as a clear way Trump differed from other politicians. And as we see above, this approach was replicated in how MAGA activists engaged with their counterprotester opponents. These are not spaces of rapprochement, persuasion, or debate.

Trump’s rhetorical style—combining reactionary “truth” telling with a belligerent approach to opponents—intersects with status in three ways. First, his style was understood as a response to how elite society unfairly cast Trump and his supporters as low status. MAGA participants understood such judgments as hypocritical, given that their opponents engaged in confrontational “witch hunts,” protests, and media attacks. Second, Trump’s discourse represented the resurgence of masculine and authoritarian norms attached to status. Rather than defending indiscriminate violence, the pugilism of Trump’s speech signaled a return to “tough-guy” values where justice is dispensed, and honor defended, with one’s fists. This quasi-vigilantism described a vision of independence and masculine strength, ultimately restoring the status lost to disrespect.

Further, it is not that MAGA participants enjoyed Trump’s style being acted out simply because they shared it; they also saw his success as proof that this aggressive discourse was both valuable and effective. Through Trump, tough-guy discourse was framed as a marker of competence and respect. By participating in events like the MAGA March, they embodied the restored status that Trump’s victories symbolized. Thus, Trump himself became a symbol of high status for those he claimed to champion, with his electoral victories reinforcing the value of this combative style and those associated with it. MAGA participants would sometimes engage in a fantasy version of this rhetoric, where they imagined themselves “shutting up” protestors or purchasing firearms to defend against imagined Antifa activists whom they knew were planning to “[burn] your church, and your house, and your area, and your business.” Sometimes this involved the celebration of actual violence, such as the harassing of counterprotestors, the heckling of Biden supporters, or celebrating the “battle trophy” of a Black Lives Matter sign stolen from activists by a militia group at the march. These links between hostility and status are thus both central and emergent to the status politics in the MAGA movement.

However, symbols also played a role in more celebratory spaces, such as the rally discussed earlier, where cultural symbols reflected the participants’ values. In a community deeply resentful of elite judgment, these were spaces of a particular kind of popular culture. The music blended classic rock and country, and songs like “YMCA” became viral fixtures at Trump rallies, often with videos of Trump dancing along. The food was straightforward American staples—hotdogs, hamburgers, chips, Coca-Cola, and beers like Miller Lite or Yuengling. Baseball hats, t-shirts, and polos were the common apparel alongside camouflaged clothing, biker jackets, and workwear brands like Dickies and Carhartt.

For many participants, these cultural symbols were markers of a national American culture. When people felt these symbols had been historically denigrated as low class, their role within the MAGA movement was to reassert them as status worthy (Hetherington and Weiler Reference Hetherington and Weiler2018). As part of the movement’s identity, even small consumer choices could become political statements. Cultural markers of other groups—such as expensive coffee, hybrid cars, or trendy clothes—were denigrated not only for their attachment to those groups but also for the perception that mainstream society viewed those cultural trends as more deserving of status.

The Symbolic Politics of Status Compared to Existing Frameworks

In the preceding sections, we elaborated ways in which MAGA is a movement, articulated how status concerns underpin it, and discussed the importance of movement events, social bonds, emotions, and symbolic practices in the movement’s construction of politicized collective identity. Our approach centered the concept of the symbolic politics of status, the struggle over the social esteem conferred by powerful institutions. The symbolic politics of status helps us to go beyond, and complicate, some of the standard theories that examine support for Trump: partisanship, racial prejudice, place-based deprivation, and the role of the economy. Our intention is not to dismiss these theories; rather, we highlight how participants’ desire for status in society plays a role in these themes. MAGA functions in part as a collective movement to articulate their distrust of a system they perceive to be denying them respect and to gain the power to influence government to symbolize the superiority of their values and lifestyles.