MAGA Won’t Die When Trump Leaves. Count on It.

Hello, all, and welcome to Friday, Oct. 9, 2026 — the start of Columbus Day weekend, so the mail won't run Monday and the banks will be closed. Plan accordingly.

My calendar says it's Leif Erikson Day, International Beer and Pizza Day, World Egg Day, World Post Day, Moldy Cheese Day, Curious Events Day, Fire Prevention Day, and Sneakers Day. So toast Leif Erikson with a beer and an egg-topped pizza, mail a thank-you note to your letter carrier, and lace up the sneakers before the fire marshal sees what the moldy cheese did to your fridge.

Today in History:

1000: Leif Erikson is believed to have landed in North America, possibly in what is now Newfoundland.
1635: Massachusetts Bay Colony banishes religious dissident Roger Williams, who goes on to found Rhode Island.
1701: The Collegiate School of Connecticut, later Yale University, receives its charter.
1825: The sloop Restauration lands in New York Harbor with 52 Norwegian Quakers, the first organized immigration from Norway.
1874: Representatives of 22 countries sign the Treaty of Bern, creating the General Postal Union, today's Universal Postal Union.
1888: The Washington Monument opens to the public.
1930: Laura Ingalls becomes the first woman to fly solo across the continent, hopping from New York to California in nine stops.
1936: The first generator at Hoover Dam begins sending electricity to Los Angeles. There are 17 cranking out power there today, plus two backups, but there's water level problems at Lake Mead. If the water levels fall another few feet, nine of those 17 will shut down.
1975: Soviet scientist Andrei Sakharov wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
1985: The hijackers of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro surrender in Port Said, Egypt, two days after seizing the ship.
1992: A meteorite smashes into a family's car in a Peekskill, N.Y., driveway. How'd you like to have been in on the phone call to the Insurance people?
2004: Afghanistan holds its first direct presidential election.
2006: North Korea announces it has conducted its first nuclear test.
2012: Taliban gunmen shoot 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai for advocating girls' education in Pakistan.

Birthdays Today include: Camille Saint-Saëns, composer; Charles R. Walgreen, drugstore chain founder; John Lennon, singer-songwriter (The Beatles); Brian Lamb, C-SPAN founder; Jackson Browne, singer ("Running on Empty," "Take It Easy"); Tony Shalhoub, actor (Men in Black, Monk); and Mike Singletary, Hall of Fame linebacker.

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I wrote at some length yesterday about the worldwide swing to the populist right. If you missed it, start there, because today’s argument builds on one paragraph in particular:

I would call what we’re seeing a worldwide gag reflex. A gag reflex is triggered by whatever you’re choking on, and gagging is nature’s way of solving the problem. It isn’t a philosophy. It’s an immune response. Trump and the end of USAID didn’t cause this one. Voters are reacting to what the worldwide Left has tried to force down their throats.

Today, I’m taking that a step further. Donald Trump didn’t create this response. He’s part of it, a symptom of a much larger reaction, not its cause. That’s why I keep saying MAGA won’t end with Trump, because it didn't start with him, either. Indeed, it’s just getting started.

I know what’s clogging social media. The Left has a comforting little mantra that they're spreading like fertilizer. "When Trump leaves, MAGA goes with him." Isn’t that convenient? All they have to do is wait for one man to leave the stage, and the inconvenient voters will come to their senses, apologize, and resume voting for the people who made them angry in the first place.

Sure. And the next time your smoke alarm goes off, just pull the battery. Problem solved. No need to investigate the smoke, let alone the fire.

That attitude confuses the man who gave a movement its most recognizable face with the reasons millions of people joined it. But to extend the analogy I painted yesterday, an immune response doesn’t stand down because one white blood cell retires.

The movement was already on the road before Trump got behind the wheel. I went into this in some detail yesterday. We call these worldwide movements “Trumpian” because Trump is the familiar face and the one the progressives love to hate.

The chronology, though, says otherwise. The Tea Party wave of 2010 gave Republicans 63 House seats, the biggest midterm swing since 1938, six years before Trump won the presidency. Germany’s AfD was founded in 2013. Britain voted for Brexit in 2016, and both happened before Trump won anything. In Latin America, Bukele took office in 2019, Chaves in 2022, and Milei in 2023, long before Trump’s return, as Sarah Anderson argued.

Understand me here: Trump didn’t manufacture this wave; he surfed it. And because he’s the best-known surfer in the lineup, people started confusing his name with the ocean. In fact, MAGA existed and was growing rapidly before Trump even renamed it. It's just that he was smart enough to identify it and stand in front of it.

If MAGA were a personality cult that needed him in the Oval Office for its survival, you’d expect it to have withered while he was out. In September 2022, almost two years after he left, 38% of Republicans still identified as MAGA, the Economist/YouGov poll reported. By May 2026, it was 62%. Some of that growth came as he returned to power, so I won’t claim the numbers prove independence. What they show is a base that was there before the return.

Is it the whole country? No. It’s about a quarter of adults. But a quarter of the country and a majority of one of its two parties isn’t a fringe that evaporates on a schedule regardless of any fantasy being offered by the progressives.

Oh, and as for the future, look at who’s lined up for ‘28. At CPAC in March, Vance took 53% in the straw poll and Rubio 35%. CNN, which is always ready to pee on the GOP’s parade, is careful to note the straw poll isn’t scientific, and Vance slipped from 61% last year. But he still leads every recent 2028 primary poll, and Rubio has said he’d back Vance if he runs. The fight inside the party is over who carries the torch, not whether anybody does. And these are a couple of very strong candidates.

Remember, too, that the rest of the world is running the same script. Jair Bolsonaro is serving a 27-year sentence. His son Flávio finished first in Brazil’s opening round, about 47% to Lula’s 45%, and they meet in a runoff Oct. 25. In France, Marine Le Pen’s embezzlement conviction was upheld on appeal in July, though the court cut her ban and she says she’s running. Even so, the National Rally had Jordan Bardella ready, and an April poll had him marginally ahead of her, 34% to 32%. And Argentina: Juan Perón was born Oct. 8, 1895, and died in 1974. Peronism shaped Argentine politics for decades after, until voters picked Javier Milei in 2023. And the rest of the world sees the huge turnaround there.

No movement gets a lifetime warranty. But none of these folded when its founder left the stage. MAGA won't, either.

And before you start, yes, the Democrats are currently leading the polls. I’m not going to insult you by pretending otherwise. Nate Silver’s average has Democrats up about nine on the generic ballot, but not quite as generous across the specific candidates, and one prediction market gives them a 64% chance of a sweep.

Thing is, I don’t really care. That seems a bold statement to make, until you realize that polls have a record. They’re all available on the net these days. The pollsters’ own trade group found 2020’s national polls overstated Biden’s margin by 3.9 points, and Pew says 2024’s errors ran in the same direction, only smaller. Discount accordingly. Are the polls wrong? isn’t even a question anymore, given the last few cycles.

Let's remember that the pollsters were all predicting a Kamala Harris win. You may recall how that worked out.

And yes, the numbers being reported currently, even with that four-point or so discount, don't line up to a GOP victory. But think, now: With this much on the line, does anyone with at least two working brain cells figure the leftists are going to get more honest? Spoiler alert: not me. Then, too, they didn't have the DSA splitting the ticket in the last few cycles. They certainly do now. With the races as close as they've been, that is a huge impact.

Even assuming a loss (which I seriously doubt), we need to understand that losing an election isn’t the same as losing a movement. Republicans lost the White House in 2012, and by 2014 they had their biggest House majority since 1928 and the Senate. Two years later came Trump. The grievances against the progressives won’t leave when Trump does. The crime, the migration, the prices, and the sense that elites stopped listening predate him, and they’ll outlast him. The movement survives only if it delivers. If Republicans lose in November, the answer isn’t to blame the polls. It’s to ask what voters wanted and what the party failed to deliver. That comes back to the Establishment GOP.

It comes down to this: The gag reflex I spoke of yesterday doesn’t care which party is holding the spoon. It reacts to what’s being forced down the public’s throat. So, the answer to all of this is to show up. Pay attention. Check the claims. And if you believe, as I do, that MAGA has a future, don’t assume somebody else will carry it for you. Act. Get your buns to the booths. Period. Full stop.

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Thought for the Day: My reference to the Hoover Dam sends the message clearly: The dam doesn't make the power; the pressure behind it does. Be the pressure that makes the power.

VIP members: What are your thoughts here? Speak up. Your voice matters.

Take care, gang. And you might wanna say a prayer for the folks in Alabama and Florida, and for the TV and radio people having to try to pronounce "Isaias." Hopefully, I'll see you tomorrow.

Editor's Note: The Democrat Party has been infected by socialism, and it's spreading FAST. Democrats are claiming there's nothing to worry about, but we know the truth.

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