Why MAGA Defends Everything Trump Does

The Psychology of Unquestioning Loyalty

There is no executive order too authoritarian, no lie too blatant, and no action too extreme for the MAGA base to defend. To understand why, one must dig deeper than party politics. MAGA is not merely a right-wing movement, it is a full-spectrum identity ecosystem built on loyalty, grievance, and manufactured narratives of moral clarity.

Trump's most recent executive order, "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History," is a case study in how propaganda becomes policy. It seeks to overhaul museums, public monuments, and the Smithsonian Institution itself, casting any mention of systemic racism, gender identity, or structural inequality as a dangerous ideological distortion. It does not merely revise history, it replaces pluralism with a state-sanctioned narrative that criminalizes complexity and centralizes the cultural narrative under one ideology.

And MAGA loves it.

The Authoritarian Blueprint, Seize the Culture

Paulo Freire warned of the oppressor's need to control cultural institutions to shape how the oppressed see the world. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, he argued that once dominant forces dictate the terms of education and culture, the oppressed internalize their role, often fighting to preserve the very systems that subjugate them.

This is exactly what Trump’s executive order does, it forces federal institutions to frame American history not as a story of progress through struggle, but as a seamless celebration of exceptionalism. In doing so, it violates the core tenets of historical inquiry and replaces it with myth. This act is not simply about pride, it is about engineering consent.

As Golec de Zavala (2020) describes, collective narcissism emerges when a group sees itself as exceptional but under siege. MAGA doesn’t want an honest retelling of the past, it wants a curated myth that proves America has always been right, and that they, as its defenders, are righteous. This sense of victimized exceptionalism feeds directly into why they perceive criticism of the past as an existential threat to the present.

Cognitive Armor, Why MAGA Can’t Let Go

This loyalty is not accidental. It is scaffolded by a mix of psychological traits and media reinforcement. Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA), Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), and collective narcissism work in concert. RWA creates a desire for strong leaders and rigid social order. SDO creates comfort with inequality as long as the hierarchy benefits them. And collective narcissism transforms Trump from a politician into a totem of cultural survival.

In Understanding Peace and Conflict through Social Identity Theory, McKeown et al. (2016) explore how identity threats can entrench group loyalty. To the MAGA base, any criticism of Trump is not a political disagreement, it is a personal attack. Trump embodies their sense of justice, power, and cultural primacy. His humiliation is their humiliation. His success, their vindication. As a result, they engage in motivated reasoning, reversing the direction of logic so the conclusion always supports their loyalty, and any fact that contradicts it is viewed as propaganda.

This is why even when Trump is caught lying, indicted, or contradicting past statements, the base rushes to protect him. Their defense isn’t rational, it’s existential. And that existentialism is rooted in fear: fear of change, of equality, of perceived loss. That fear becomes the fuel that binds them emotionally to the narrative, no matter how contradictory or unsupported.

Why Defending Trump Feels Like Morality

When Trump passes an order demanding that museums stop displaying systemic racism as historical fact, the MAGA base doesn’t see it as censorship. They see it as moral clarity. This is how authoritarianism disguises itself. It doesn't arrive wearing jackboots, it comes cloaked in the language of virtue.

As described in Democratic Resilience (2021), when democracy weakens, political actors often appeal to moral panic to consolidate power. Trump’s framing of exhibits like “The Shape of Power” at the Smithsonian as anti-American is not based on historical critique, it’s a strategy to recast inclusion as subversion.

Moreover, the rhetoric of “protecting children” and “restoring sanity” taps into moral foundations like purity and loyalty—core values in conservative psychology as outlined in Moral Foundations Theory. By reframing pluralism as moral decay, MAGA supporters see erasure of complexity not as ignorance, but as virtue. In this light, authoritarian control is seen as a correction of a moral imbalance, not as oppression.

The Justification Engine

Every Trump scandal is met with deflection or justification:

• Indictments? "It’s a witch hunt."

• Executive overreach? "He’s restoring order."

• Censorship of history? "He’s protecting children from hate."

As shown in When Do Parties Lie? (Tornberg & Chueri, 2025), the more ideologically isolated a population becomes, the more likely it is to see truth as a threat. Within the MAGA echo chamber, Trump’s contradictions are not weaknesses, they are evidence of strength. He can do what others can’t. That makes him special. That makes them special.

Research from Democratization (2019) reinforces how political loyalty to populist figures thrives not in spite of inconsistency, but because of it. By constantly shifting reality, strongmen like Trump keep followers disoriented and dependent on the leader’s narrative. Uncertainty becomes a feature, not a bug. It’s a loyalty filter. Their minds, shaped by SDO and RWA, are trained to respond not to truth but to strength. To moral dominance, not moral consistency.

Authoritarianism as a Comfort Zone

There is also the emotional lure of authoritarianism. As discussed in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, fear and alienation lead people to embrace paternalistic figures who promise safety in exchange for obedience. Trump's executive orders offer a fantasy, a stable past, an unchanging identity, and clear moral binaries. These are irresistible to those overwhelmed by a world that feels complex and uncertain.

This is why they mock Palestinians who turned to Hamas in desperation, claiming it’s weakness or moral failure, while failing to recognize that their own emotional motivations for defending Trump arise from the same place: fear, abandonment, and the desperate need for a savior. The contradiction doesn’t register, because the authoritarian follower doesn’t evaluate from logic but from instinct, driven by existential threat perception.

Democratic Resilience echoes this insight. In times of perceived decline, whether from economic instability, demographic shifts, or social liberalization, support for authoritarian solutions spikes. The call for “law and order,” “restored tradition,” and “truth in history” are less about policy and more about psychological reorientation. It’s not governance—it’s therapy for the disoriented.

The New EO and the Destruction of Pluralism

Let’s be clear, the March 27, 2025 executive order is not just about statues or school exhibits. It is a direct assault on intellectual freedom. It empowers the Vice President and OMB to defund museums that display anything critical of the U.S. legacy. It mandates that only a narrow, sanitized version of history be displayed. It even bars the recognition of transgender women in the American Women’s History Museum.

This is not a return to tradition. It is the state controlling the narrative, reshaping memory to serve power.

MAGA justifies it by saying, “We’re just telling the truth.” But their truth is cherry-picked mythology. Historical complexity becomes treason. Social justice becomes ideology. Education becomes indoctrination, unless it serves them. This is reminiscent of Orwell’s warning in 1984: control the past, and you control the present.

Conclusion, The Loyalty is the Point

Trump doesn’t have policies. He has performances. Each new executive order, scandal, or rhetorical bombshell is a loyalty test. The base must contort itself to defend him, not because they are brainwashed, but because they are emotionally invested in the belief that their power, identity, and morality hinge on him.

This is why MAGA defends everything Trump does. Not because it’s right. Not because it’s effective. But because letting go would mean confronting what they’ve enabled, and for many, that’s a psychological reckoning they are unwilling to face.

Understanding this doesn’t excuse it. But it does make it possible to confront it, by targeting not just the misinformation, but the emotional infrastructure that keeps it alive.

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References:

• Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

• Golec de Zavala, A. (2020). Collective narcissism and intergroup attitudes.

• McKeown, S., Haji, R., & Ferguson, N. (2016). Understanding Peace and Conflict Through Social Identity Theory.

• Tornberg, A., & Chueri, T. (2025). When Do Parties Lie? Misinformation and Radical Right Populism Across 26 Countries.

• Democratic Resilience (2021). A Comparative Study on Authoritarian Drift in Western Democracies.

• Democratization (2019). Authoritarianism and the Crisis of Democratic Norms.

• Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.

• Jost, J. T., Banaji, M. R., & Nosek, B. A. (2004). A decade of system justification theory.