I went to CPAC as an anthropologist to see how Trump supporters are feeling − for them, a ‘golden age’ has begun

At the beginning of his inaugural handle on Jan. 20, 2025, President Donald Trump declared, “The golden age of America begins proper now!”

A month later, Trump’s supporters gathered on the annual Conservative Political Motion Convention, or CPAC, in Oxon Hill, Maryland, from Feb. 19-22 to rejoice the appearance of this golden age.

Gold glitter jackets, emblazoned with phrases like “Trump the Golden Period,” are on the market within the CPAC exhibition corridor. There, attendees decked out in different MAGA-themed clothes and accessories community and mingle. They go to cubicles with politically charged indicators that say “Defund Deliberate Parenthood” and accumulate brochures on subjects like “The Gender Industrial Complicated.”

One other sales space with a yellow and black striped backdrop resembling a jail cell’s bars was known as a “Deportation Heart.” Attendees photographed themselves at this sales space, posing beside full-size cutouts of Trump and his border czar, Tom Homan.

Former Jan. 6 prisoners, together with Proud Boys’ former chief Enrique Tarrio, have additionally been a visual – and controversial – presence at CPAC.

The convention’s proceedings kicked off on Feb. 20 with an Arizona pastor, Joshua Navarrete, saying, to loud applause, “We live within the biggest time of our period – the golden age!”

Many subsequent audio system repeated this phrase, celebrating the nation’s “golden age.”

For a lot of outdoors observers, claims of a golden age might sound odd.

Simply months in the past in the course of the 2024 presidential marketing campaign, Trump mentioned that an American apocalypse was underway, pushed by a U.S. economic system in shambles and main cities overrun by an “invasion” of “unlawful alien” “terrorists,” “rapists” and “murderers.”

Now, Trump’s critics argue, the U.S. is led by a convicted felon who’s implementing insurance policies which are reckless, silly and dangerous.

Additional, these critics contend, Trump’s unlawful energy grabs are resulting in a constitutional disaster that might trigger democracy to crumble within the U.S.

How, they surprise, might anybody imagine the nation is in a golden age?

As an anthropologist of U.S. political tradition, I’ve been learning the Make America Nice Once more, or MAGA, motion for years. I wrote a associated 2021 e-book, “It Can Occur Right here.” And I proceed to do MAGA analysis at locations like this yr’s CPAC, the place the temper has been giddy.

Listed here are three the reason why the MAGA trustworthy imagine a golden age has begun. The checklist begins, and ends, with Trump.

1. The warrior hero

Trump supporters contend that after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol assaults, which they think about a “peaceable protest,” Trump turned a political pariah and sufferer.

Like many a mythic hero, Trump’s response was “by no means give up.” In 2023, he repeatedly advised his MAGA trustworthy, “I’m your warrior, I’m your justice.”

Trump’s heroism, his supporters imagine, was illustrated after a bullet grazed his ear throughout an assassination try in Pennsylvania in July 2024. Trump shortly rose to his ft, pumped his fist within the air and yelled, “Struggle, combat, combat.”

The phrase turned a MAGA rally cry and, in February 2025, it has been stamped on CPAC attendees’ shirts and jackets.

After Trump’s 2024 election victory, many Trump supporters dubbed it
“the best comeback in political historical past.” MAGA populist Steven Bannon invoked this phrase at a pre-CPAC occasion on Feb. 19.

When Bannon spoke on the CPAC essential stage on Feb. 20, he led the gang in a raucous “combat, combat, combat” chant. He in contrast Trump with Abraham Lincoln and George Washington and known as for him to run once more for president in 2028.

That is although Trump working for a 3rd time period would violate the Structure.

2. A wrecking ball

The MAGA trustworthy imagine that Trump is sort of a human “wrecking ball,” as evangelical chief Lance Wallnau mentioned in 2015. This metaphor speaks to how Trump supporters imagine the president is tearing down an entrenched, corrupt system.

The day Trump took workplace, MAGA stalwarts underscore, he started to “drain the swamp” with a slew of government orders.

One established the Division of Authorities Effectivity, or DOGE, which is dedicated to eliminating authorities waste. DOGE, led by billionaire Elon Musk, has dismantled USAID and fired 1000’s of presidency employees whom MAGA views as a part of an anti-Trump “deep state.”

Musk stole the present at CPAC on Feb. 20. Talking to a cheering crowd, Musk held up a big pink chain noticed and yelled, “That is the chain noticed for forms.”

Speaker after speaker at this yr’s CPAC have celebrated this and different wrecking-ball achievements on panels with titles like “Crimson Tape Reckoning,” “Crushing Woke Board Rooms” and “The Takedown of Left Tech.”

3. The Midas contact

A golden age requires a builder. Who higher, the MAGA trustworthy imagine, than a billionaire businessman with a self-proclaimed “Midas contact.” This refers to King Midas, a determine in Greek mythology who turns all the pieces he touches into pure gold.

“Trump Will Repair It” indicators crammed his 2024 marketing campaign rallies. And MAGA supporters observe that Trump started fixing the nation on Day 1 by “flooding the zone” with government orders geared toward implementing his four-pronged “America First” promise. Along with draining the swamp, this plan pledges to “make America secure once more,” “make America inexpensive and power dominant once more” and “deliver again American values.”

These themes run by means of the remarks of just about each CPAC speaker, who supply nonstop reward about how Trump is securing the nation’s borders, rising power independence, repatriating who they name unlawful aliens, restoring free speech and lowering authorities regulation and waste.

CPAC audio system mentioned that Trump has already racked up a slew of successes only a month into his presidency.

This contains Trump utilizing the risk of tariffs to deliver different nations to the negotiating desk.

In the meantime, Trump supporters are happy that he has been working to chop offers to finish the battle in Gaza and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, whereas reorienting U.S. international coverage to concentrate on China.

Home Speaker Mike Johnson expressed the prevailing MAGA sentiment when he said at CPAC that Trump “wrote the artwork of the deal. He is aware of what he’s doing.”

American exceptionalism restored

The golden-age celebration at CPAC centered on Trump and his mission to “make America nice once more.”

Speaker after speaker, together with international conservative leaders from around the globe, paid homage to Trump and this message.

Throughout her CPAC speech, Liz Truss, the previous prime minister of the U.Okay., said, “That is actually the golden age of America.” Truss, who doesn’t have a present political place, advised the CPAC viewers that she needed to copy the MAGA playbook as a way to “make Britain nice once more.”

The MAGA trustworthy imagine that Trump is restoring an period of American exceptionalism during which the U.S. is an financial powerhouse, widespread sense is the rule, and conventional values centered on God, household and freedom are celebrated.

And so they imagine in a future the place the U.S. is, as Trump mentioned in his inaugural handle, “the envy of each nation.”