In a thinkpiece in Italian English digital newspaper La Voce di New York, columnist Grace Russo Bullaro writes that MAGA's cult-like grip on a typically swinging political pendulum is currently stuck, breaking two nearly centuries of precedent.
That precedent, which was evident most recently when "[former President Bill] Clinton’s centrist liberalism was succeeded by [Former President George W.] Bush’s post-9/11 conservatism, which in turn was countered by [former President Barack] Obama’s progressive surge," she writes, has completely changed with the emergence of President Donald Trump.
"In the age of MAGA, that pendulum may have broken definitively – or at least for the foreseeable future," Russo Bullaro says.
In "The Cycles of American History," historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. wrote that America's "political mood oscillates predictably: reformist liberalism rises, overreaches, and gives way to conservative retrenchment, which in turn exhausts itself and invites another liberal wave. It’s a comforting idea, one that implies balance and self-correction."
But Trump, Russo Bullaro says, doesn't just represent a conservative swing, but, rather, a "populist, nationalist movement that defied such traditional norms."
MAGA, she adds, is "more tribal, more personal, and far more resistant to the usual political tides."
Although President Joe Biden's win in 2020 seemed to restore the pattern, Russo Bullaro writes, Trump's win in 2024 swung it back and that pendulum seems to be stuck on the MAGA movement, one which she says "has begun to resemble a religion gone rogue."
"MAGA’s grip on the Republican Party has deepened immeasurably," she writes. "The idea that the pendulum will naturally swing back to liberalism feels less like historical inevitability and more like wishful thinking."
Contributing to that stickiness is, she says, the fact that "the Democratic response has been fractured, uncertain, and increasingly out of sync with key voter blocs."
But MAGA's feverish following presents the biggest problem, she says.
"This theological fervor makes MAGA uniquely resistant to compromise, introspection, or evolution," she writes, which explains how the pendulum got stuck there.
"It’s not just that the pendulum isn’t swinging — it’s that one side has built a cathedral for its believers and locked everybody else out. The assassination of Charlie Kirk, as an illustration, slid into this narrative seamlessly and not only reaffirmed it but amplified it immeasurably," she says.
Schlesinger's pendulum model assumed that "political fatigue" would drive change, she notes. However, "MAGA thrives on fatigue. It feeds off frustration with elites, media, and bureaucracy. Anger and outrage are its lifeblood. It doesn’t promise policy solutions so much as emotional catharsis and the opportunity to take revenge on those who have done them dirt."
And while Russo Bello says that Trump's eventual exit from politics won't change the movement he built, and while the "swing back isn't guaranteed," "political movements rise and fall. Leaders stumble. Coalitions shift."
The way to get that pendulum swinging again will take a few things, she says.
"If Schlesinger’s pendulum is to swing again, it will need more than just time. It will require a reimagining of liberal leadership — one that can connect emotionally, culturally, and economically with voters who feel abandoned," Russo Bello says.