Insecure, Immature, and Ill-informed: The three I’s of the MAGA movement

There are many reasons I’m not the biggest fan of Trump and MAGA, but one of the first is that he offended me as a political scientist. He very clearly didn’t know that much about American government, history or policy, not to mention foreign affairs. In a debate in 2016, Rubio laid bare Trump’s lack of depth on healthcare policy. At the time I thought, this is it. Others will see that Trump rarely knows what he is talking about. Here we are, 9 years later in the second Trump administration and Rubio is his Secretary of State. Shows what I know.

Of course, it’s not just Trump. Over those 9 years the incentives in the Republican party have been to be like Trump. So other politicians in the MAGA movement also tend to be ill-informed...insecure and immature as well. In fact, the first two I’s lead to the last one that I was so concerned about from the beginning. Several recent events have stood out to me and reminded me of these three I’s of the MAGA movement.

Let’s start with insecurity. Trump’s insecurity is almost a given at this point. Lashing out at celebrities on social media because they say mean things about him (Bruce Springstein the latest example), lashing out at media outlets, other politicians and world leaders (like Zelensky in the oval office)...the list could go on and on. Perhaps the best example of Trump’s insecurity (and subsequent need to inflate his ego) comes from before his foray into politics. In the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, he would call news reporters and editors, as well as radio talk shows, as an alter-ego; John Barron or John Miller. This alter-ego would talk-up Trump and how good of a businessman and guy he was. To put it in plain English, Trump pretended to be other people talking about himself so that other people would say/write nice things about Trump.

This sounds an awful lot like Elon Musk. Musk paid people to play video games for him to level up his characters so people would think he is great at the game. The games in question are Diablo IV and Path of Exile 2. The story came out for two reasons. One, to get to the level Musk was at would essentially mean he would have to play non-stop all day. This did not seem feasible. Even more damning, Musk did a live-stream of himself playing Path of Exile 2 and didn’t seem to know how to play the game, let alone at the quality his level would indicate. Musk was so insecure he paid people to level up his video game characters and took the credit for it so that people would think he is good at the game.

What about JD Vance? In his book Hillbilly Elegy, JD Vance recounts his journey from a broken home to Yale law school. The book hits on themes of broad class insecurity through Vance’s insecurity in a prestigious institution of higher education. Vance doesn’t know what silverware to use at a fancy dinner, doesn’t know the proper code words, etc. I didn’t come from a broken home and did not attend any place as wealthy or prestigious as Yale, but as someone who had zero experience with the world of higher education, the insecurity and impostor syndrome presented in the book was relatable.

Why I bring it up is that it became a symbol for the larger class (white-working class) insecurity of the MAGA movement. In the book, Vance reaches the conclusion that much of the poverty and lack of opportunity are related to personal choices by his family and friends. This is a classically conservative take. How it was more broadly understood by the MAGA movement, and eventually Vance himself, is that the white-working class had the system rigged against them and therefore needed to change the system to get back to the glory days (the 1950s I guess). Who is the system? Higher education, government, corporations, DEI, medical experts, the courts/law, and immigrants apparently. Get rid of those and the white-working class can reach their place on top of America’s hierarchy again.

Nostalgia is often bred from insecurity about people’s place in a changing world. This is understandable and natural. It does not logically follow that the solution is to blame others, reduce their standards of living so that you are on top again. Nostalgia also glosses over flaws in the time we idealize. Never mind the lack of rights for minorities and women in the 1950s, the top marginal tax rate was a whopping 84%! Not something that MAGA would seem to approve of. Maybe the 1950s weren’t so great.

Bridging insecurity and immaturity we can turn to Curtis Yarvin next. Yarvin has been described as the political philosopher of the MAGA movement. A child math prodigy who left his PhD work to make money (an understandable temptation) and then got into political theory. He became connected with Peter Thiel and has had influence on the alt-right MAGA movement, including folks like Vance. The New Yorker just published a long profile of Yarvin. There are several interesting parts that stood out, but one that brings together insecurity and immaturity is a story he recounts about a debate with Richard Hanania, a conservative commentator. In the story, Yarvin says “I destroyed him in almost every way. But he had one huge advantage, which was that I was fat and he was not.”

Again, who among us have never worried and felt insecure about their weight. But Yarvin seems to suggest that Hanania was superior to him because Yarvin was “fat” and Hanania was “not”. This is immature thinking, from someone who is supposedly the intellectual guru of many in the MAGA movement. The profile details the influence of Yarvin’s outsider status on his thinking, highlighting the importance of insecurity.

But Yarvin’s political thinking is also very immature. It essentially boils down to the benevolent monarch/dictator theory. If only we had a good leader with no limitations, then everything would be perfect. This is not a new theory, and it is something that every highly caffeinated college sophomore has thought about at 2AM. It is neither deep nor innovative nor particularly persuasive. If you really, really want more about this, these two podcasts by Jonah Goldberg are possibly worth a listen. The point here is that Yarvin’s political thought is driven by his own insecurities and immaturity in thought.

Of course, Trump is also immature. During his first administration Daniel Drezner published a book called Toddler in Chief. It consists mostly of Trump’s inability to control his emotions on social media. Trump would lash out in all caps at the slightest hint of criticism (insecurity again). Much like a toddler lacks self-control or the maturity to think about others and place things in perspective, Trump does as well. This is also evidenced by the recurring news story trope of whether Trump will begin to act presidential.

Our politics in general, and Republican politics under MAGA specifically, have become less mature. The goal is not honest debate to achieve policy outcomes that make life better for everyone. The goal is to “own the libs” or to get clicks and go viral. Two quick examples that are illustrative of the whole. First, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s actions at the Department of Defense are immature. He has a shallow notion of what the Defense department is for and thinks his job is to cosplay as a Ramboesque soldier. He does pushups and runs with troops and talks about the “warrior ethos”. Meanwhile, planes are falling off aircraft carriers, and his communications have breached security protocols multiple times. But renaming military bases and ships makes the “libs” mad and that’s what counts.

Senator Joni Ernst, herself a veteran, just recorded a video of her walking through a cemetery. This is in response to a townhall meeting where an audience member suggested that people would die because of cuts to Medicaid. Ernst responded, “Well, we’re all going to die”. Then, she doubled down on this with a sarcastic video shot in a cemetery. Hardly the pinnacle of democratic policy debate. All of it makes you think we have achieved the “culture death” Neil Postman warns of in his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death.

Finally, the last I, ill-informed. This is the biggest one for me. There are so many instances Trump and MAGA politicians acting and being ill-informed. A recent example is the news report that they are thinking of revising Trump’s daily intelligence briefing. This was also a story during the first Trump administration. He couldn’t be bothered to read anything longer than a few pages, so they had difficulty informing Trump of all the information he needed. Now, apparently they are considering a Fox News style broadcast for Trump’s daily briefing. His immaturity leads to the lack of discipline to accomplish what he needs, and this results in him being ill-informed.

This is more than just pearl clutching from a political scientist. Trump and Vance recently ambushed South African president Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office. I am no fan of Ramaphosa, but Trump confronted him with a conspiracy theory. He showed the South African president printed out photos and a video of alleged mass graves of white farmers. The photos were of graves in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the video was of white crosses placed in protest, not to mark graves. The result of the President of the United States being immature (so he doesn’t do the work) and ill-informed is that he regularly spreads conspiracy theories and expresses them to world leaders. This should not be a surprise since he made his political name by spreading the false theory that Obama was not born in the U.S.

It is obviously not just Trump. Many in his administration are ill-informed as well. Here’s just a quick list. Vance claiming the Russians always win wars, Vance claiming that the U.S. had no help from foreigners on their space program, Stephen Miller acting like no immigrants fought for the U.S. in WWII, RFK Jr with everything health related, Linda McMahon with everything education related, Kristi Noem and habeas corpus, Howard Lutnick and Scott Bessent with basic global economics and the list could go on and on. Perhaps cabinet secretaries, as well as the President and Vice President, should have to pass basic citizenship tests or civic exams to hold office.

This is to say nothing of the broader MAGA movement and politicians such as Marjorie Taylor Green or Markwayne Mullin. There are of course examples of ill-informed Democrats and people on the left-wing. But ignorance seems to be a badge of honor in the MAGA movement. I am also not suggesting that everyone needs to know everything. This is especially true for average citizens and Trump supporters. Normal people have lives to lead and should not be expected to stay up to date on all the latest political news and theories.

But this is precisely why we should hold those in public office to a higher standard. We rely on them to reliably inform us, not spread conspiracy theories or just plain false information. Most dangerous is when they make these statements that are ill-informed with such certainty that it betrays their ignorance. This is something that Yarvin does repeatedly. He is so certain that he is right even as he is unaware of the long history of the thought he claims is so innovative, not to mention the large body of literature that shows why his thought is so wrong. Again, the insecurity and immaturity combine in a lack of humility, where he does not consider that others, maybe just as smart as him, came before him and thought about these things as well. This is freshman year of college type stuff, not philosophical guru of the movement in power type stuff.

Apologies for the rambling, and possibly incoherent, nature of this post. But there is always so much to write about, and my head naturally tries to categorize and connect these diverse events. Insecurity, immaturity and being ill-informed are characteristics of Trump and the broader MAGA movement. The first two really lead to the last one, and the results are less than ideal policy outcomes. The targeting of higher education, the scientific research community can be analyzed through these three Is, as well as a great deal of the Trump administration’s foreign policy.

If only we were governed in a manner and had a politics that incentivized people who had the security and maturity that breeds humility to do the work necessary to stay informed and make thoughtful, disciplined decisions.