By Ignacio Ramonet on January 22, 2025
Every time we see MAGA on a red cap, let’s think of our MAGA, Mossadegh, Arbenz, Goulart and Allende, four heroes of freedom. Image: Sandra Sarmiento.
Abbreviated to MAGA, the slogan Make America Great Again! is the catchy political motto that identifies Donald Trump and his followers. Inspired by a very similar slogan of Ronald Reagan’s and repeated in the victorious campaigns of 2016 and 2024, MAGA has become popular as an aggressive brand, on eye-catching explosive red caps that all the fans of the Republican magnate flaunt.
MAGA is a rallying cry, that of a powerful political movement that is almost replacing the traditional Republican Party. With a specific ultra-conservative ideology and the project of resurrecting the “American dream” in the most reactionary sense.
MAGA is also the expression of American white nationalism. The nostalgia for the times when an America of European descent, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant majority defined the American identity.
MAGA is, in the same way, the rhetoric of lies as a destabilizing argument. The systematic use, via social networks, of mass communication to attack and bury the adversary under an avalanche of fake news, alternative facts and post-truths…
MAGA is, in short, a crazy idea of turning back the clock: a project of neo-imperialism, supremacism, Monroeist colonial restoration… In short: a danger to democracy and to the peoples of the world.
We have to recognize it: from a communicational point of view, MAGA — four letters that say so much — is the greatest publicity success since the invention of political advertising.
That is why I propose that, in a semiological guerrilla operation, we divert the formidable energy of MAGA for our own benefit. And that, in a boomerang effect, we send the adversary back with greater force his own message.
How? By distorting its meaning and opposing our own MAGA to Trump’s MAGA. And what is our MAGA? The one made up of the initials of four unforgettable heroes of democracy and freedom — Mossadegh, Arbenz, Goulart, Allende — victims of precisely that US neo-expansionism that Donald Trump calls MAGA on his caps. So that MAGA is not a project of imperialist restoration but an indelible sign of their crimes.
The M of our MAGA is that of Mohammed Mossadegh, the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, whom the Western press demonized and presented as “a raving madman” and a “danger to the world.” On August 19, 1953, when Iran was already blockaded by London and Washington because its oil had been nationalized, a coup d’état — Operation Ajax — organized by the CIA overthrew Mossadegh, a democrat and a patriot.
The first A of our MAGA is that of Jacobo Arbenz. In Guatemala, in 1954, the US company United Fruit Company owned more than 50% of the arable land, but only exploited 2.6%. Semi-enslaved, the peasants received a pittance. General Arbenz, president elected in democratic elections, enacted an agrarian reform. The United States and all the Western media demonized him, accusing him of being an “agent of international communism.” With the complicity of the CIA, Washington organized a coup d’état and, on June 27, 1954, overthrew President Arbenz, a democrat and a patriot.
The G in our MAGA is that of President Joao Goulart. In Brazil, Goulart had been democratically elected. No sooner had he taken office than he announced an agrarian reform and the nationalization of the oil refineries. Immediately, the CIA-bought press demonized Goulart, while Washington organized a military coup d’état. On March 31, 1961, President Goulart, a democrat, a patriot, was overthrown.
The second A in our MAGA is that of Salvador Allende. In Santiago de Chile, in 1970, Allende wins the presidential election. He immediately proceeds to a historic nationalization of copper and banking, launches an agrarian reform and implements countless social measures. Neither the right wing nor Washington accept it. The media, following a program designed by the CIA, demonize him. On September 11, 1973, with the complicity of traitorous officers, Washington organized a coup d’état and overthrew President Allende, a democrat, a patriot.
Every time we see the acronym MAGA on a red cap, let us think of our MAGA, of Mossadegh, Arbenz, Goulart and Allende, the four heroes of freedom. Between 1953 and 1973, the fate of these four great democratic leaders was very representative of many other democratic experiences in Latin America, Africa, Asia and even Europe, cut short with infinite cynicism, based on lying campaigns, by the uninhibited and ferocious US imperialism that Donald Trump wishes to re-establish, in the name of freedom…
Source: Cubadebate, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English