MAGA’s gone toxic — and Trump’s agony has just begun

The Independent reports a majority of Americans now say they’re less likely to support a candidate who espouses MAGA sentiment or follows the lead of President Donald Trump -- which spells disaster for the Republican Party in November.

“With just over 100 days until the midterm elections, a new poll finds Americans feeling as badly about the U.S. economy and feeling less enthused than candidates with MAGA as part of their campaign,” said Independent reporter Andrew Feinberg, citing a recent CNBC All-America Economic Survey.

According to surveys, 57 percent of respondents said they’re unlikely to support self-identified MAGA candidates this year. Worse, the poll delivered a smack-down of Republicans' tactics of demonizing Democratic socialists to knock Dem candidates off balance: Only 32 percent or respondents said they are “unlikely” to support a democratic socialist.

“The findings could be bad news for Trump and the Republicans come November, when voters will decide control of the two houses of Congress. Republicans currently hold a slim majority in both, so anger toward the MAGA candidates, who have won many primaries, could turn the tide and allow the Democrats to control Congress for the rest of President Donald Trump’s term.”

That same survey identified a whopping 61 percent of respondents feel pessimistic about the current American economy and their future outlook for the same.

“That’s the highest number of people feeling pessimistic about the economy since December 2023 when post-pandemic inflation was only starting to fade,” reports Feinberg. “By contrast, the same survey found just a quarter of Americans — 25 percent — reported feeling optimistic about the economy and its future.”

A similar supermajority of voters, 60 percent, said they disapproved of Trump’s handling of the economy, and only 3 percent of respondents said they’d rank the economy as “excellent.”

This puts Republicans in a bind as they fight for their political lives in the November midterms with an enormously unpopular president. Additionally, Republicans have nailed themselves so firmly to the MAGA moniker that even those who would rather eschew the title in swing states are unable to break free of it for the general elections.

The Independent notes that Trump is trying to avoid any discussion of his administration’s economic record “in favor of attacking the credibility of the American electoral system,” just as he did in the days before and after his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden. Rather than discuss nagging economic issues Trump spent Thursday night spinning unproven tales of Chinese efforts to interfere in the election he lost nearly six years ago.