MAGA究竟意味什么？——对你、对我、对他，一視为仨，好自为之！

What Does MAGA Truly Mean?

— To You, to Me, to Them: Viewed as One, Act with Care

Archer Hong Qian

May 28, 2025 · Barcelona

“Make America Great Again” (MAGA) originated as a political response to stagflation in the late 1970s. It was first introduced by Democratic President Jimmy Carter and was formally adopted as a campaign slogan by Republican candidate Ronald Reagan in 1980. Under Reagan, it rose to the level of a civilizational ideal rooted in the founding principles of the United States—namely, the spirit of the “City upon a Hill” and the constitutional cornerstone of “We the People.”

By the end of Reagan’s two terms as the 40th President, his Thatcher-Reagan economic policies had alleviated stagflation. Later, President Clinton, who favored global supply chain expansion, briefly invoked the MAGA slogan but soon abandoned it, even attaching some negative interpretations to it.

In the aftermath of 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis, Barack Obama won the presidency as the 44th President under the slogan “Change”. However, his continuation of Globalization 2.0—marked by political correctness, deindustrialization, and the erosion of the Rust Belt—failed to address the deeply exposed structural issues. This led to the collapse of the American middle class and the eruption of the Occupy Wall Street Movement.

Thus arose a different kind of political demand from that of Carter’s “anti-stagflation” era: a coalition of business elites, “rednecks,” middle-class families, intellectual property holders, and traditional conservatives began voicing their dissatisfaction with how America was “being taken advantage of” under Globalization 2.0.

From this movement emerged an organic call to cherish life and family values through “Let’s Make America Great Again” and “Make America Healthy Again”—both of which were registered as official trademarks, reflecting Trump’s characteristic seriousness. (Trump himself has stated he didn’t realize Reagan had used the MAGA slogan until 2015.)

In the context of Intersubjective Symbiosism and Globalization 3.0, MAGA and MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) not only do not reject, but fully accommodate and even resonate with:

MEGA (Make Europe Great Again),

MUGA (Make the UK Great Again),

MAGA-Argentina (Make Argentina Great Again),

MJGA (Make Japan Great Again),

MIGA (Make India Great Again),

MRGA (Make Russia Great Again), and

MCGA (Make China Great Again).

In fact, they serve as exemplars for how all nations, regions, communities, families, and individuals must confront and rebalance their own structural contradictions and imbalances through self-reliance, self-discipline, and ultimately the freedom to reorganize and renew themselves toward true greatness.

If the United States—founded on the “City upon a Hill” vision and the “We the People” constitutional principle—helped lead the world to prosperity through two postwar waves of Globalization 2.0, it also, through what I call the Rodrik-Qian Trilemma, led the world into a mutual harm mechanism:

• double standards in rules,
• performative political correctness,
• sovereign privileges colluding with international capital,
• the hollowing out of natural human rights and shared resources.

In this context, the U.S. suffers from:

• over-consumption,
• economic hollowing, and
• the Rust Belt’s decline;while China faces:
• the inertia of low human-rights comparative advantage,
• infrastructure-overdrive, and
• chronic overcapacity.

These are all manifestations of different forms of structural imbalance, and their persistence reflects both habitual inertia and institutional fatigue.

Therefore, MAGA naturally implies that the United States must take the lead in a deep structural Transform—decisively breaking free from the inertia and complacency of Globalization 2.0, and instead forging a Globalization 3.0 rooted in intersubjective symbiosis.

It is a call for humanity to evolve beyond the Axial Age’s pursuit of sameness through rationality and the wisdom of love, into a new Symbiotic Age of Amorsophia, where we move from “seeking commonality while preserving differences” to “preserving commonality while honoring difference.”

This is a civilizational reconstruction born of collective introspection, and a lifestyle rebalancing at the level of the human condition.

The Transformational model demonstrated by the Trump administration is not an ideology of dominance or interference, but a commitment to self-reinforcement through non-intervention—a principle of self-strengthening, self-discipline, and freedom rooted in responsibility.

This means that every country must first put its own house in order—that is, solve its own structural problems. This is the fundamental precondition. From this point on, each nation must choose:

either to join the game through self-strengthening and renewal,

or to exit the game through degradation and stagnation.

Globalization 3.0 is already underway.

Trump is not engaging in “anti-establishment sentiment marketing.” Rather, he is viscerally committed to the ideals articulated by Winthrop and Reagan—those of a “City upon a Hill.” What he seeks to restore is not a narrow nationalism of “America First,” but a fundamental repositioning of “We the People” as the origin of governance, and the reawakening of each individual’s self-organizing connective agency.

His guiding ethic is:

“Live and let live; don’t be evil and let evil be.”

In simple terms:

No one is an island.

Every living being—individual, group, community, nation—must become salt and light in the world.

Everyone must “get their own house in order” so that we may together:

Appreciate our own beauty, appreciate the beauty of others, achieve harmony through mutual appreciation, and flourish in symbiosis.

This is the structural Transformation advocated by the philosophy of Intersubjective Symbiosism.

Not patchwork.

Not cosmetic reform.

But a fundamental leap—from ways of thinking and value systems, to modes of living, systems of governance, and global order.