MAGA can't expand its base -- and Christian music tells us why

[marmar]

MAGA can’t expand its base — and Christian music tells us why
The songs from Charlie Kirk's memorial exposed a serious problem

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published October 1, 2025 6:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) President Donald Trump‘s authoritarian aspirations face one major obstacle: He is not very popular. As counterintuitive as it may seem, political science shows that would-be dictators need strong public support, especially early in the regimes. Successful autocrats convince broad swaths of the public that the nation is in a crisis so great that democracy must be sacrificed to save them. Trump has tried to create this illusion by spinning dramatic lies about American cities being “war-ravaged,” a hoax he’s tried to bolster by sending National Guard troops to cities from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., to Portland. Most alarmingly, he’s been terrorizing immigrants with something akin to zeal, painting food cart operators and day care workers as an existential threat to middle America.

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Trump and his administration are cynical and grasping, so it’s no surprise they reacted to the death of MAGA activist Charlie Kirk not only as a tragedy, but also as an opportunity. He was supposed to be their very own Horst Wessel, the murdered brownshirt the Nazis used as a martyr to rally people to fascism. But now — only three weeks after Kirk was gunned down on a university campus in Utah — although there is widespread disapproval of his violent demise, the tragedy hasn’t made Americans feel any more enthusiasm for the MAGA cause.

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But to really understand why the MAGA movement failed to capitalize on Kirk’s death, it helps to look at the televised memorial service held at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., on Sept. 21.

Mainstream pundits were tactfully silent in their appraisals of this event, no doubt wanting to avoid the appearance of mocking anyone’s grief. But the truth is that, for anyone who isn’t already immersed in the aesthetics of the megachurch world, the whole event was unsettling. The activist’s widow, Erika Kirk, was greeted with pyrotechnics as she came on stage. Multiple speakers — including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — declared it was time for “spiritual warfare.” But the music at the memorial really exposed MAGA’s struggle to broaden the movement’s appeal past its core base.

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Look, we’re all very worried here about rising fascism. But it’s time to take a deep breath and remember this: If Christian music appealed to anyone outside the white evangelical world, we’d have seen evidence of it by now. CCM has been around for decades, and yet it remains what it always was — watered down versions of sounds that were popular on the radio years ago. Gate attempted to equate the popularity of CCM in white evangelical circles with the way Wagner was synonymous with German cultural pride. But they are categorically different. Despite his rancid politics, Wagner was a true genius who remains popular nearly 150 years after his death. Both CCM and worship music are subpar forms that white evangelicals settle for because they think you can catch demons from the real stuff. ........................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/10/01/maga-cant-expand-its-base-and-christian-music-tells-us-why/