What is the limit of a Trumpist? Being a communist. They laugh, but it is not a joke. MAGA Communists (Communists of the movement Make America Great Again) are a histrionic contradiction. They defend Trump, who, paradoxically, wants to ban Marxists from entering his country. They admire Putin, but they attack imperialism. They support Palestine, not Ukraine or Taiwan. They pursue a communist future – one that subsidizes state services – but they champion tax cuts. They are a minority movement, relegated to the internet, but with their incendiary, anti-imperialist discourse adapted to the Gaza war, they are making themselves known.
The story of Jackson Hinkle —one of the most visible figures of the MAGA Communists—illustrates the origins of this movement. As a teenager, Hinkle wore a Bernie Sanders T-shirt and took a stand against nuclear power plants and firearms. He even appeared in a video for a famous environmental organization.
But then something went wrong. Last year Hinkle defined himself on Twitter as: “American patriot, God-fearing, pro-family, Marxist-Leninist, pro-Palestine, pro-Russia and China, anti-deep state, anti-imperialist, anti-woke, pro-growth, anti-monopoly, pro-gun, pro-fossil fuel.” His radicalization crystallized with the defeat of Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democratic primaries, when some of Sanders’ followers, rather than supporting the official Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, opted for populist and anti-institutional positions. This is how Marcos Reguera, a researcher on the American far right, tells it.
Alexander Reid Ross, author of Against the Fascist Creepexplains that Hinkle gradually became integrated into the anti-imperialist movement in the United States: “It is infested by the extreme right and disinformation campaigns, and advocates overthrowing military commitments. They are against everything the US does to support Ukraine or Taiwan.” Already in 2022, Hinkle was interviewed by the controversial commentator Tucker Carlson on Fox, where “he spoke of supporting Trump to end the war and for the woke left to cease to exist,” notes Jaime Caro, an Alt-Right researcher. However, it was with the Gaza war and the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk (which powers the algorithms of the extreme right) that Hinkle’s fame grew.
In reality, MAGA Communists say they don’t fully agree with Trump’s political vision. But addressing the working class through him, they explain, is the only way to channel working-class militancy away from capitalism and towards a communist future. The result is a strange and marginal alliance that includes people who hate feminism, environmentalism and the LGTBIQ+ movements. An underworld of anti-system agitators where portraits of Putin and Kim Jong-un are accompanied by memes and jokes that come from the anti-feminist backgrounds of the internet and that call to save “the honor of men.”
Ultimately, MAGA communism, Reid Ross notes, is “a far-right agenda placed in an anti-imperial environment.” But even its anti-imperialism is showing its true colors. Hinkle recently posted an X-rated photo with Aleksandr Dugin—Putin’s go-to thinker—praising his anti-imperialism. Two days later, Dugin appeared on Russian television and said his people are the most imperialist in the world.
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