PRODUCER'S NOTE — read before using this document. These are the creator's raw springboard notes, preserved verbatim below. Three items in them are not publishable and must not reach the script in any form:
- The speculation about which MAGA influencers are closeted gay men. Unsourced speculation about the private sexuality of named individuals. Cut entirely. The defensible version of the point the creator is reaching for — that the movement's professional class enforces a sexual and cultural orthodoxy it does not itself live by — can only be made with on-record, documented cases, and only if the research surfaces them.
- Any psychiatric diagnosis of Trump ("obvious mental illness," "narcissistic personality disorder"). Use on-record expert debate, the Goldwater Rule controversy itself, and named former officials' quotes. Never assert a diagnosis.
- The "Charlie Kirk 2025 assassination" item flagged for verification elsewhere in the source material — unverified, excluded.
"The Enshittification of MAGA" is a documentary & exploration into how the MAGA "movement" started under Donald Trump, and how it became increasingly enshittified to its current state.
High-Level Notes & Ideas
This section is a springboard for researching the broad ideas & themes of the documentary.
IMPORTANT: While Trump is the "main character" of this documentary given his role as the ideological head of MAGA and the republican party, the purpose of this exposé is not to be yet another discussion about how Trump is a terrible person, president, etc. He is those things, but the whole purpose here is to showcase the fact that MAGA began as a movement rooted in real pains felt by average everyday Americans and turned into the very things it claimed to be against. How it was destroyed due to the corruption, greed, incompetence, and authoritarianism of not only Donald Trump himself, but:
- His advisors/handlers
- Heritage Foundation wants to erase secular American democracy and replace it with a fascistic Christian theocracy. Trump has no personal morals or ethics, let alone religiosity; he only wanted more power & wealth so he was more than happy to sell his movement for the support of the Christo-fascists.
- Tech/AI bros and billionaires who seek to elevate themselves into something even more powerful than oligarchs; a sort of techno-CEO-dictatorship; see Curtis Yarvin. JD Vance was Peter Thiel's pick and Trump only picked him as VP because he wanted to serve his own goals, so he was happy to sell his movement for the support of techno-fascists.
- Networks of parasitic grifters & influencers that want wealth and proximity to power; they're happy to sell their souls and peddle what they know are lies in exchange for the making some money off the backs of MAGA rubes.
Early Campaign: Real or Publicity Stunt?
- Did Donald Trump's campaign begin as a real aspiration for the office of the presidency or was it a marketing/publicity stunt like his earlier "runs"
- If it was a publicity stunt, what was the oh shit moment that signaled to his campaign that there was viability?
Who Coined the term "MAGA"?
- Was this organically coined by Trump himself or did he have campaign advisors & political operatives that performed some sort of focus-testing on the phrase?
What Pains Were Being Addressed?
TODO
Who was Donald Trump Before MAGA?
It's fairly common knowledge that Trump was always a sleazy operator with good personal marketing & branding. But we need to dive deep and really explore it.
- Early life
- Beginnings of business ventures
- Scams & Corruption over the decades
- Connection with Russian & Italian mobs in Florida/NYC - real estate?
Charismatic, Yes. But Was He Always This Stupid?
In the run-up to the 2016 election, he was quite charismatic -- even often funny. But he clearly struggled to speak to any actual real policy.
That's not particularly surprising. After all, he was never actually a political operative and was, indeed, an outsider candidate. If he had surrounded himself with competent advisors and actually listened to them, he likely could have been objectively successful after he won.
But in reality, he constantly clashed with advisors and went through constant churn of administration staff because it appears he wanted yes-men who would tell him what he wanted to hear and let him do what he wanted to do rather than keep competent operatives in his orbit.
Was/is this a symptom of sheer stupidity and he just...failed upward his entire life? Is it related to his obvious mental illness (narcissistic personality disorder)? Is it a result of his aging? A combination of all of these?
Find out what he was like in his younger years. Did he always surround himself with yes-men who would cater to his narcissism? Did he find his life's success as a result of being a shrewd businessman or did his immense inherited wealth combined with a genuine talent for personal branding play a bigger role?
- Hearken to the movie The Campaign - idiot populist candidate that just tells the people what they want to hear.
Populist Fervor: Strategic or Lucky Strike?
Somewhat related to the question of his intelligence; did he actually identify the opportunity to exploit an abandoned voting bloc's pain or did he just get lucky in finding it?
From "Real Everyday Rural Americans" to Grifters, Privileged Debutantes, & Influencers
2016 MAGA looks nothing like 2026 MAGA.
[Producer's note: the creator's list of influencers she suspects are closeted gay men has been removed here. It is unsourced speculation about private individuals and is not publishable. See the note at the top of this file.]
2016 MAGA - We are America
- Rugged/rural/working-class Americans
- People feeling abandoned by nearly a decade of post-Bush Democratic focus on previously (and currently) marginalized communities.
- Anti-Woke - "Centrists" and "Apolitical" Americans (THIS ALSO APPLIED IN THE 2024 ELECTION)
- The sentiment among the average "centrist" and "apolitical" person from 2014-2016 was that the "cultural left" had gotten out of control in the wake of the Obergefell v. Hodges decision that legalized gay marriage.
- For a majority of that bloc, they didn't have a big problem with gay marriage. The broad sentiment across independents (that would swing toward Trump) was an unpolished almost libertarian feeling of "live & let live" and "the government should just stay the fuck out of peoples' private lives".
- The center-left, however, allowed its own messaging apparatuses to be hijacked by far-left/leftist voices. They brought forth variations of identity politics that, on their face, seek to correct previous oppression by introducing vengeance-based cultural norms against the historical "in-groups".
- "Defund the Police"
- "All Cops are Bastards"
- "white people are insert bad thing here"
- "men are insert bad thing here";
- "gender should be abolished & gender non-conformity should fall under the transsexual umbrella"
- Even when not meant as actual digs at all <*insert group of people here*>, outside of academic discussions about race, gender, feminism and intersectionality these phrases & slogans only ever divide in practive; the average person will never understand what the actual meanings behind those phrases are; they're just not plugged into these things. So even if the original intent was well-meaning, the outcome is not positive. If you don't try bringing people along on the journey with you, they won't go of their own volition
- This continues to be a struggle today; the far-left continues to wield their terrible cultural marketing as a cudgel and it hurts liberalism broadly.
- Racism + Xenophobia?
- There was absolutely a bubbling of racist sentiment in certain segments of the populace, particularly as a result of having a black president for 8 years; however there's a question of how much of that racism existed organically vs. how much was amplified by foreign operatives seeking to destabilize and polarize the American people.
2024 Election MAGA - We are the "Big Tent"
- TODO
2026 MAGA - We are the Elite
- TODO
Term 1: Incompetence & Guardrails
Term 1 was mired by the seeming incompetence of Trump to govern effectively. His presidency is largely considered a success, but in reality he rode the economic boom that Barack Obama spent his 8 years as president building. Trump engaged in reckless deficit spending which, combined with COVID, contributed strongly to the high-inflationary environment starting in 2021.
In his first term, without knowing any better, you might forgive Trump his more...authoritarian impulses. You might have looked at him as just an unskilled politician who wants to actually get things done and doesn't understand why processes exist as a bulwark against unitary executive power. That should have ended with his 2020 election lies that culminated in the attempted overthrow of American democracy on January 6th, 2021.
Term 2: Corruption, Authoritarianism, and the Republic on Life Support
- TODO
2020 Election Lies & Jan 6th Insurrection - From Bad President to Authoritarian Threat
- TODO