2015–2016: Establishment and Trump's initial victory In June 2015, the businessman
Donald Trump announced that he was running for president in the
2016 United States presidential election.
His campaign employed the term "
make America great again", a political slogan previously associated with
Ronald Reagan's
1980 presidential campaign and mentioned by president
Bill Clinton several times in his presidential campaigns and
presidency. Trump used the phrase in his announcement speech to criticize other presidential candidates as "controlled fully by the lobbyists". The phrase was also used on Trump's campaign website and by
Texas senator
Ted Cruz in praising Trump for announcing his presidential campaign. In an interview with
The Washington Post, Trump stated that he thought of the phrase after the
2012 presidential election and filed for a trademark five days later; the trademark came into effect a month after Trump announced his campaign. Merchandise containing the phrase "Make America Great Again" was sold at
Trump Tower. The phrase was also used on baseball caps worn by Trump as early as July, in a visit to
Laredo, Texas. It was additionally the name of two
political action committees supporting Trump's campaign.
2017–2021: Trump's first presidency As the
COVID-19 pandemic in the United States exacerbated in March 2020, conflicting beliefs on the severity of the disease and how the federal government should
respond divided the MAGA movement, though supporters of Trump remained steadfast in seeking to contain
COVID-19 to ensure Trump's victory in the
2020 presidential election. The threat of COVID-19 was made apparent to followers of the MAGA movement after warnings from Trump's health officials; nonetheless, several Trump supporters articulated that Trump's response could be extreme.
Anthony Fauci, the director of the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, received criticism from a minority of far-right Trump supporters for his apparent political beliefs. As
protests began across the United States in the aftermath of the
murder of George Floyd, followers of the MAGA movement vociferously opposed the political slogan "
defund the police". Several members approached demonstrations with counterprotests, a development that resulted in the
killings of Aaron Danielson and Michael Reinoehl, a Trump supporter and his alleged killer, respectively, and the
Kenosha unrest shooting, in which
Kyle Rittenhouse shot three men, killing two. As the results of the 2020 presidential election were broadcast, Trump publicly criticized
Fox News for being the first news network to declare that
Joe Biden had won the election
in Arizona. His comments resulted in some members of the MAGA movement shifting towards news networks such as
One America News Network and
Newsmax, which embraced
false claims of electoral fraud more vigorously than Fox News, and towards social networks such as
Parler. Newsmax received criticism itself from
QAnon supporters, who denounced the network's use of a photograph of a man wearing a hoodie to illustrate
white nationalism, and Parler faced false allegations that it was owned by the investor and philanthropist
George Soros, the subject of
conspiracy theories from Trump's supporters.
2021–2025: Between presidencies 2025–present: Trump's second presidency During Trump's second term, the ideology of the MAGA movement appeared to take a shift from
non-interventionism to
interventionism both by increased commentary on the politics of foreign nations and by military attacks on countries such as Venezuela and Iran, as well as
expansionist ambitions in the arctic. ==Activities==