Who is, and isn’t, MAGA is no longer Trump’s to decide

Mastriano makes Trump look like weak tea. Last week, Mastriano compared Democrats to Nazis for supporting abortion rights. He called Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) an “amateur” and said he was tempted to relocate to South Dakota during the pandemic because Republican Gov. Kristi L. Noem refused to implement any covid safeguards.

Mastriano’s “security” volunteers, which included a man in a tricorn hat, blocked reporters from entering his event, even though the campaign was streaming the speeches live on Facebook. Inside, Mastriano spoke at length about his poll numbers, his debate performances and his crowd sizes. He boasted that 300 people showed up to see him on Monday in Pittsburgh even though the Iron City’s hockey and baseball teams were playing that night. He said none of his opponents could pull that off. “Even if they skip a bath for a month, they cannot draw flies,” he said.

The 58-year-old retired Army colonel was elected to the state Senate in a 2019 special election. His embrace of the “big lie” after President Biden carried Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes catapulted him from obscurity. It’s how Mastriano met “MyPillow Guy” Mike Lindell and Trump legal adviser Jenna Ellis, who have been campaigning for him.

Mastriano himself noted that Trump gave his stamp of approval only after polls showed him leading by double digits ahead of Tuesday’s primary. But, he said, “We were already on our way to victory. This is affirmation.”

But Mastriano would never have taken root had Trump not fertilized the soil. The same is true for Pennsylvania Senate candidate Kathy Barnette, who has been surging in the homestretch despite Trump attacking her as unelectable. Trump may have taken a strong stance for Mastriano in the governor’s race because he now fears Mehmet Oz, his controversial pick in a three-way Senate primary, will lose.

Barnette and Mastriano, who appeared together Saturday, come across as gleefully Trumpier than Trump. And unlike mainstream Republicans in Washington who often feel terrified of crossing the former president, these super-MAGA Republicans aren’t scared of the former president.

“MAGA does not belong to President Trump,” Barnette said during a recent debate. “Our values never, never shifted to President Trump’s values. It was President Trump who shifted and aligned with our values.”

More importantly, they are taking grievance-fueled, far-right populism to a new and unseemly level. Mastriano promises he’ll “reset” the voting rolls and require everyone to re-register. In Pennsylvania, the governor selects the secretary of state. This means Mastriano could pick a chief elections officer who would be willing to certify that a losing candidate actually won. Mastriano used campaign funds to charter buses to Washington for Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, 2021. Images show him outside the Capitol during the riot. The committee investigating the insurrection subpoenaed him. He’s been vague about whether he complied.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who is running unopposed for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, is airing commercials designed to help Mastriano win the Republican primary on the hunch that such an outcome would help him win in November. “He led the fight to audit the 2020 election,” the narrator says in the 30-second spot from the Democrat. “If Mastriano wins, it’s a win for what Donald Trump stands for.”

That is a risky strategy. Democrats have consistently underestimated the appeal of authoritarians to a large subset of the Republican right. And it’s foolish to assume that Mastriano couldn’t win in this political environment.

For his part, Mastriano expresses gratitude for Shapiro’s ads and says he plans to send a thank-you note after the primary. “We’re going to smoke him,” Mastriano said, “like a bad cigar in November.”

At Trump’s rally outside Pittsburgh earlier this month, the crowd booed at the mention of Oz — even though the man they came to see is supporting him for Senate. Trump ripped David McCormick, another GOP Senate candidate, as a “liberal Wall Street Republican” who will represent the interests of globalists. “He may be a nice guy,” said Trump, “but he’s not MAGA.”

Biden has begun using the phrase “ultra-MAGA” as an epithet after a six-month Democratic research operation showed that swing voters connote the four-letter acronym with extremism. Trump loves being called “the MAGA king” and is already trying to co-opt “ultra-MAGA.” The primaries in Pennsylvania, however, show that Trump is not the only arbiter of who is, and is not, MAGA.