THE GREAT MAGA UNRAVELING

The Rage Is Spent, The Lies Are Stale, and Even Red America Is Ready to Move On

May 23, 2025

If you like this article, please share it—and if you’d like to help sustain this work, you have two powerful ways to do so: become a paid subscriber for continued access and impact, or make a one-time contribution via the “Buy Me a Coffee” button. Either way, your support keeps this work alive—and relentless.

Buy me a coffee

Authoritarianism doesn’t usually fall with drama. It falls with disinterest. With fatigue. With the crowd turning away.

The following article traces the slow, visible unraveling of the MAGA movement—from whispered doubts to the mounting toll of loyalty. This isn’t a victory lap. It’s a reckoning. A moral inventory of what’s been lost—and a fragile glimpse of what might still be rebuilt.

PART 1

THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE DELUSION

It’s not a tidal wave. Not yet. But the current is changing.

In the blood-red counties where Trump flags once flapped like sacred banners, there’s hesitation now. Doubt. Even shame. In the hushed tones of barbershops, church pews, and worn diner booths, some are starting to whisper what they could never shout: we were wrong.

This is what the end of a delusion looks like—not a dramatic collapse, but a slow, dawning awareness. A recognition that the rage they were sold didn’t build anything. That the man who promised to fight for them delivered only spectacle, grievance, and a hollow kind of power that can’t fix a school, pave a road, or save a life.

Farmers in Iowa are wondering why their soybeans sit unsold. Parents in Florida are watching their kids struggle in classrooms stripped of teachers. In Texas, where children are dying of measles, the consequences of conspiracy are no longer abstract. They're carved into coffins.

In Alabama, a veteran can’t get his prescription refilled because his VA clinic was defunded. In Nebraska, a mother who cheered for “parental rights” is now homeschooling against her will because all the teachers left.

Even the COVID vaccine is now rationed, offered only to the elderly, as if the rest of us are expendable. People notice. Even in places where Trump won by 30 points, they notice. Because it’s their neighbor who died. Their daughter who got sick. Their town that’s vanishing.

And the grift? A gold-plated jet gifted by Qatar. Tax cuts for billionaires, paid for by ripping the safety net from under working families. Even die-hard MAGA voters are beginning to ask the forbidden question: “Why is this hurting us more than it’s helping us?”

This is not everyone. Not yet. But it doesn’t need to be. Authoritarian movements don’t collapse when everyone turns. They collapse when enough people stop clapping.

There is hope in the silence. Hope in the blank stares at the next deranged Trump rally. Hope in the red-state moms asking if it was worth it—if any of it was.

The answer, of course, is no.

But here’s the good news: the spell is weakening. The lies are fraying. The circus is losing its thrill.

And somewhere in America—perhaps in a pew in Mississippi, a kitchen in Kansas, or a vape shop in rural Pennsylvania—someone is saying, for the first time in years, “maybe we need something different.”

That’s how it begins. Not with fireworks. But with a whisper that spreads.

Hold onto that. The truth still works. And it’s starting to be heard.

PART 2

THE DECLINE OF MAGA: METRICS OF A MOVEMENT IN COLLAPSE

It doesn’t die with a bang. It dies with a shrug.

Donald Trump’s second term was supposed to be a roaring comeback. A restoration of greatness. Instead, it’s collapsing—quietly, visibly, and inevitably—under the weight of failure, fraud, and fatigue. The rallies are thinner. The lies land softer. Even the most faithful are beginning to wonder: What exactly did we win?

The latests numbers tell the story:

57% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s overall job performance (Reuters/Ipsos).
59% disapprove of his economic leadership.
62% disapprove of his handling of inflation and cost of living.

That’s not erosion. That’s rejection.

Even his supposed stronghold—trade—has become a liability. A Marquette Law School poll shows 67% disapprove of his tariffs. Even 60% of Republicans in farming counties oppose them.

Even his signature issues are now political liabilities. 59% disapprove of his immigration policy. His transgender military ban? 60% of active-duty personnel oppose it. His chaotic reliance on executive orders? 73% of Americans say he’s abusing the power.

His “Gulf of America” stunt? 74% want him to stop renaming bodies of water and start fixing problems.

And now, even the Supreme Court—his Supreme Court—isn’t safe from his contempt.

When a 5–4 ruling blocked parts of Project 2025’s civil service purge, Trump called the justices “frauds” and ignored the decision. When the Court halted elements of his deportation program, he did it anyway—ordering ICE to continue raids under a fabricated “emergency authority.”

That wasn’t a legal dispute. It was a demonstration—of power, and of lawlessness.

And suddenly, even constitutional conservatives—Republican governors, Latino pastors, sheriffs who once defended him—began to pull away. Trump didn’t just defy the law. He shattered the illusion that he ever believed in it.

Meanwhile, public health is unraveling. 275,000 federal employees laid off. Entire agencies hollowed out: USAID. CDC. The FDA. All just in time for a measles outbreak—fueled by the anti-vaccine conspiracy culture Trump helped normalize.

His admiration for autocrats is also wearing thin. He cut off Ukraine, praised Vladimir Putin, and called Viktor Orbán a “model Christian leader.” But 67% of Republicans under 45 disapprove of his pro-fascist authoritarian stance.

Globally, America is losing friends and influence. Trade partners are walking away. European consumers are boycotting American products. Trump’s tantrums have turned allies into adversaries, and the U.S. into a diplomatic dead zone. Even tourism has dropped—with a reported reduction of 40% in foreign visitors citing hostility and instability.

Project 2025—MAGA’s fever-dream blueprint to dismantle government, purge civil servants, and concentrate power in the executive—was supposed to be its crowning vision. Instead, it’s its undoing. Conservative mayors, county clerks, and budget directors are watching their services crumble. They’re seeing the costs—not the conspiracies.

According to a recent PRRI poll, a majority of Americans—52%—now believe Donald Trump is a “dangerous dictator” whose power must be limited to protect American democracy. That view isn’t limited to Democrats: 58% of independents agree, and even a growing number of former Trump voters are beginning to see the threat for what it is.

But maybe the most fatal wound to MAGA isn’t legal, economic, or international.

It’s emotional.

People are tired. The spectacle has soured. The fear feels recycled. The rage has gone stale.

This is what decline looks like:

A movement built on spectacle now reduced to reruns.
A president addicted to attention, now struggling to hold it.
A base waking up with a hangover, staring at the wreckage.

MAGA isn’t dead. But it’s decaying. Mocked abroad. Diminished at home. Out of gas. Out of ideas. Out of time.

And the American people? They’re not marching.

They’re walking away.

The end won’t come with fire and fury. It will come with silence. With fewer cheers. With ballots quietly marked for someone else.

And when it’s over, there won’t be a revolution.

Just a realization: we were conned.

And in the absence of noise—maybe, finally—a breath of something that’s been missing for years.

Sanity.

PART 3

HOW AUTHORITARIANISM DIES: A PSYCHOLOGICAL AUTOPSY OF MAGA

Authoritarianism rarely collapses from moral outrage. It dies when the performance stops being fun.

MAGA was never built on policy. It was built on emotion—on the intoxicating highs of resentment, tribalism, and spectacle. The symbols weren’t statements of policy. They were shields against shame.

Trump made people feel like they mattered by convincing them they were under attack. He didn’t offer a platform—he offered an enemy. And for nearly a decade, that enemy could be anyone: journalists, immigrants, scientists, teachers, trans kids.

But emotions aren’t infinite. Rage exhausts itself. Paranoia eats its own. And eventually, even the most loyal crowd starts asking: What am I getting out of this?

And when the answer is a dead kid from measles, a collapsed school, and higher gas prices—even the faithful start to flinch.

Psychologists call this the “cognitive dissonance crash.” When emotional investment becomes too painful to maintain, people either double down—or walk away. And lately, more are walking.

This is not a new story. It’s as old as mass hysteria itself.

When Senator Joseph McCarthy’s accusations collapsed under their own weight, the crowd didn’t revolt—they drifted.
When the televangelists fell from grace, their followers didn’t riot—they quietly changed the channel.
When the Moral Majority lost its grip, the culture didn’t revolt—they just stopped listening.
When QAnon predictions failed to come true, the faithful didn’t rise up—they just shrugged and kept scrolling.

A delusion built on grievance eventually implodes when reality, loss, and fatigue seep through the cracks.

And that’s how authoritarianism dies. Not with a mass confession—but with mass indifference. When the rallies become awkward. When the memes stop circulating. When even Fox News can’t summon the energy to spin it.

Trumpism required belief. And belief requires payoff. But now? People see the con. They feel the emptiness. And many—quietly, cautiously—are stepping away.

They may not know what comes next. But they know this isn’t it anymore.

That’s the beginning of the end. Not a revolution. Just relief.

PART 4

THE COST OF BELIEF

The cracks are real. The damage is measurable. But don’t confuse decay for defeat.

Trumpism is bleeding—morally, politically, culturally. But it’s still dangerous. Still embedded in statehouses, school boards, courts, and media. Still fueled by grievance. Still growing in places you can’t see on a map.

And while some are finally starting to see it, too many remain locked in denial, even as the cost mounts around them.

So before we celebrate the unraveling, let’s account for the wreckage.

What has it cost so far? And how much more are we willing to lose?

It’s already cost us time—years lost to performative cruelty while real problems festered.
It’s cost us health—hundreds of thousands dead in a pandemic turned into a culture war.
And now, children are dying of diseases we once knew how to prevent.

It’s cost us public servants—experts purged, truth-tellers smeared, teachers and librarians harassed until they gave up.
It’s cost us civic trust—shredded with every lie repeated and every truth mocked.

It’s cost us friendships.
Families.
Churches.
Communities.
Not broken by disagreement—but by delusion. By conspiracy. By contempt.

It’s cost us our alliances, our credibility, and our role in the world as a defender of democracy.

And it’s red-state America paying the highest price.

Kansas farmers losing their export markets.
Tennessee parents watching their children’s teachers disappear.
Texas grandmothers denied Medicaid-funded hospice care.
Ohio families driving hours for a shuttered VA clinic.
Florida retirees turned away from vaccines they once helped fund.

And for what?

To troll their neighbors?
To “own the libs”?
To crown one man a king while everything around them crumbles?

MAGA was never strength.
It was surrender dressed as defiance.
It was control masquerading as freedom.
And it continues to take from the very people it promised to protect.

But here’s the truth: the bleeding hasn’t stopped.

The price keeps rising.
And the longer this movement survives, the more it will devour—resources, relationships, reality itself.

We still have a choice.

We can look away.
Pretend it’s normal.
Call it politics as usual.

Or we can face it.
Speak it.
Say aloud what so many now whisper in private:
This is wrong.

And then, we begin the real work—
Not of chasing some mythic version of America that never truly was,
But of building the one we’ve never fully had.
One rooted not in power or performance,
But in participation.

Not with slogans.
Not with saviors.
But with honesty.
With humility.
And with the grit to understand this:

Democracy isn’t a monument you admire.
It’s a system you maintain.
It’s action.
It’s effort.
It’s yours.
It’s mine.
It’s ours.

We don’t have to lose more.

But only if we’re willing to name what we’ve already lost.

And only if we remember—
who paid the price.
And who’s still paying it now.

CALL TO ACTION

If this struck something in you—share it. Send it to someone who’s wavering. Who’s tired. Who’s starting to ask questions in a whisper and just needs to know: they’re not alone.

And if you’ve already walked away?

Then reach back.
Offer your hand.
Help someone else find the exit.

And if you’ve seen this coming for years—if you’ve been shouting into the void while others clapped for the con—you’re not crazy, and you’re not alone.

You were right.
But being right isn’t enough.

Because while MAGA may be decaying, it’s still dangerous.
Still armed with grievance. Still embedded in courts, legislatures, and school boards. Still hunting scapegoats to stay alive.

So take a breath. Feel the shift. Recognize the cracks.

But don’t mistake the unraveling for the end.
This is your moment—not to gloat, but to guide. To protect what’s fragile. To rebuild what’s been broken. To welcome those waking up, not shame them for being late.

History remembers who lit the fire.
But it reveres those who kept it burning in the dark.

In a world where deception is well-funded, truth-telling survives only when people like you stand behind it. Your paid subscription keeps this work alive and relentless. If you prefer to support in smaller doses, click the Buy me a coffee button—every bit helps. And don’t forget to like, share, and spread the word.

Buy me a coffee

Defending democracy isn't just the job of politicians or activists—it's a fight for all of us. From confronting disinformation to dismantling extremist influence, we must resist and rebuild, together.

Read my free guide: